All-day school phone bans gain support in Pew survey
Pew finds 48% of US adults support bell-to-bell school smartphone bans as 42 states move to restrict phones during the school day.
By Dominic Okoye · Staff Writer
· 2 min read
Support for all-day school phone bans has moved ahead of opposition among US adults for the first time, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Pew said 48% of adults now favor keeping smartphones away from middle and high school students for the full school day, while 43% oppose that approach.
The survey, which covered 9,750 US adults, also found broader backing for narrower classroom restrictions. Pew said 77% support banning smartphones during middle and high school classes, up from 68% in 2024. The larger policy fight is now less about whether phones should be out during instruction and more about whether students should have access between classes.
Do Americans support all-day school phone bans?
Yes, by a narrow margin in Pew's latest survey. The 48% support level for bell-to-bell restrictions marks a change from 2024, when Pew found opposition to the all-day approach was higher than support.
A bell-to-bell ban means students are restricted from using smartphones throughout the school day, rather than only during class periods. The practical difference is lunch, passing periods and other breaks, when many schools have historically allowed students to check devices even if classroom use was limited.
The shift in public opinion comes as state lawmakers have been moving in the same direction. The National Conference of State Legislatures says 42 states have passed measures dealing with cellphone use in schools. Many of those measures require local districts to put restrictions in place during the school day.
Age remains one of the clearest divides in Pew's findings. Adults under 30 are the least supportive of all-day restrictions, with 28% backing bell-to-bell bans. Pew's reported results indicate older adults are more willing to support policies that keep students away from smartphones for the full day.
Partisan differences exist, but they are smaller than in many other US policy debates. Pew found Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support both classroom bans and all-day bans. Democrats still support classroom restrictions by a comfortable margin, according to Pew.
The US trend has a parallel in the UK, where ministers spent much of the year discussing tougher rules for phones in schools. The policy debate there ran into a practical reality: many schools already had restrictions, and government reforms largely strengthened policies that were already in place.
For schools, the operational question is now implementation. Classroom-only bans are easier to define, while all-day restrictions require rules for storage, enforcement and exceptions. Pew's numbers show public opinion is moving toward stricter limits, but the survey does not measure how schools are carrying out those policies or how students are responding.
This story draws on original reporting from The Register.
