Smartphone ban policies in secondary education: partial or full bans?

Since January 2024, a national guideline prohibiting smartphone use in the classroom has been in effect in the Netherlands. However, the implementation varies greatly from school to school: from partial bans (only in the classroom) to a full bans (also during breaks and on the entire school grounds).

In a new ROA Policy Brief, we examine what these different forms of smartphone bans mean for students' well-being and their social relationships at school. We analyse data from the EPoSS project (Early Predictors of School Success) from 24 secondary schools (15 full bans, 9 partial bans).

• Our findings show that stricter smartphone bans do not automatically lead to more favourable outcomes for students.
• Full smartphone bans are not associated with improvements in well-being, problematic social media use, or (cyber)bullying compared to partial smartphone bans.
• Full bans may even have undesirable effects on the social relationships of students within the school context. 

This calls for caution in assuming that “more restrictions” are necessarily better.

👉 Curious about the implications for schools and policy? Read the Policy Brief:
Vanluydt, E., van den Eijnden, R., Vonk, L., Putrik, P., van Amelsvoort, T., Delespaul, P., Levels, M., & Huijts, T. (2026). To fully ban or to partially ban? Wat weten we over de verschillende vormen van smartphonebeleid in het voortgezet onderwijs? Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market. ROA Policy Brief No. 001

👉 The underlying study has been published in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-025-02313-6