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School phone policies and their association with mental wellbeing, phone use, and social media use (SMART Schools): a cross-sectional observational study

Goodyear, Victoria A., Randhawa, Amie, Adab, Péymane, Al-Janabi, Hareth, Fenton, Sally, Jones, Kirsty, Michail, Maria, Morrison, Breanna +6 more·2025·The Lancet Regional Health - Europe
DOI 10.1016/j.lanepe.2025.101211PMC PMC11984610
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Crossref · 10.1016/j.lanepe.2025.101211

Cites

15 of 15 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Goodyear et al. (2025) suggests that while bans reduce in-school phone use by about 40 minutes per day, students typically increased use during evenings and weekends.

    “The recent study by Goodyear et al. (2025) suggests that while bans reduce in-school phone use by about 40 minutes per day, students typically increased use during evenings and weekends.”

    From Youth Mental Health and School Smartphone Bans: Early Evidence (2026) · cites this paper as Goodyear et al. (2025)

    The Discussion reports less in-school phone use at restrictive schools, supporting that part of the claim. The passages do not establish a reduction of about 40 minutes, and the Results say differences in weekend use were not significant in adjusted models. The paper does not show that students typically increased their evening or weekend use because of the restrictions. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Goodyear et al. (2025) found no evidence that restrictive school policies were associated with overall smartphone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents.

    “They found no evidence that restrictive school policies were associated with overall smartphone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents.”

    From Youth Mental Health and School Smartphone Bans: Early Evidence (2026) · cites this paper as Goodyear et al. (2025)

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 14

  1. [5]Finning K. Ukoumunne O.C. Ford T. The association between child and adolescent depression and poor attendance at school: a systematic review and meta-analysis J Affect Disord 245 2019 928 938 30699878
  2. [7]Zimmermann-Sloutskis D. Wanner M. Zimmermann E. Martin B.W. Physical activity levels and determinants of change in young adults: a longitudinal panel study Int J Behav Nutr Phys Activ 7 2 2010 1 13 PMC2821311 20157439
  3. [8]Orben A. Teenagers, screens and social media: a narrative review of reviews and key studies Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 55 4 2020 407 414 31925481
  4. [10]Shen C. Smith R.B. Heller J. Depression and anxiety in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to the use of digital technologies: longitudinal cohort study J Med Internet Res 26 2024 e45114 PMC10882466 38324379
  5. [15]Przybylski A.K. Weinstein N. A large-scale test of the goldilocks hypothesis Psychol Sci 28 2 2017 204 215 28085574
  6. [20]Roser K. Schoeni A. Foerster M. Röösli M. Problematic mobile phone use of Swiss adolescents: is it linked with mental health or behaviour? Int J Public Health 61 3 2016 307 315 26450576
  7. [21]Carter B. Ahmed N. Cassidy O. There's more to life than staring at a small screen: a mixed methods cohort study of problematic smartphone use and the relationship to anxiety, depression and sleep in students aged 13–16 years old in the UK BMJ Ment Health 27 2024 e301115 PMC11293406 39085034
  8. [22]Carter B. Payne M. Rees P. Sohn S.Y. Brown J. Kalk N.J. A multi-school study in England, to assess problematic smartphone usage and anxiety and depression Acta Paediatr 113 10 2024 2240 2248 39084660
  9. [27]Wood G. Goodyear V. Adab P. Smartphones, social Media and Adolescent mental well-being: the impact of school policies Restricting dayTime use-protocol for a natural experimental observational study using mixed methods at secondary schools in England (SMART Schools Study) BMJ Open 13 7 2023 e075832 PMC10335462 37407051
  10. [28]Schmutz C. Bürgler A. Ashta N. Personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure of adolescents in the Greater London area in the SCAMP cohort and the association with restrictions on permitted use of mobile communication technologies at school and at home Environ Res 212 Pt B 2022 113252 35421393
  11. [29]Rubin D.B. Estimating causal effects from large data sets using propensity scores Ann Intern Med 127 8 1997 757 763 9382394
  12. [30]Randhawa A. Wood G. Michail M. Pallan M. Patterson P. Goodyear V. Safeguarding in adolescent mental health research: navigating dilemmas and developing procedures BMJ Open 14 2 2024 e076700 PMC10910574 38423772
  13. [31]Waite M. Atkinson C. A review of mental health and wellbeing measures for universal secondary school screening Emot Behav Difficulties 26 2 2021 206 222
  14. [34]Hale D.R. Patalay P. Fitzgerald-Yau N. School-level variation in health outcomes in adolescence: analysis of three longitudinal studies in England Prev Sci 15 2014 600 610 23793374

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Authors
Goodyear, V. A., Randhawa, A., Adab, P., Al-Janabi, H., Fenton, S., Jones, K., Michail, M., Morrison, B., Patterson, P., Quinlan, J., Sitch, A., Twardochleb, R., Wade, M., & Pallan, M.
ORCID
Venue
The Lancet Regional Health - Europe
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2025-04
Volume
51
Pages
101211
ISSN
2666-7762
DOI
10.1016/j.lanepe.2025.101211
PMC
PMC11984610
Cited by
72
References
15
Language
en
Licence
Funders
  • Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre
  • National Institute for Health and Care Research

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