Adolescent smartphone use has increased sharply over the past decade, coinciding with documented increases in anxiety, depression, and psychological distress among youths.1,2 The US Surgeon General has issued advisories highlighting the potential harms of social media and digital device exposure to child and adolescent development.3 Much of this evidence concerns overall screen time or social media exposure, however; direct evidence on school-based cellphone restrictions remains limited. Cellphone access during school hours may further undermine academic performance through classroom distraction and task switching.4,5 Despite these concerns, school-level prohibitions on nonacademic cellphone use declined from 91% of US public schools in 2009-2010 to 76% in 2021-2022.6 We aimed to systematically characterize whether and how US states have developed statewide regulations of cellphone use in K-12 public schools.
Overall, 42 jurisdictions had statewide laws or policies regulating student cellphone use in K-12 public schools, whereas 9 jurisdictions did not (Figure). Among jurisdictions with policies, 32 (76%) enacted a statewide ban during instructional time, 2 (5%) limited use with local flexibility, 3 (7%) encouraged district-adopted policies, and 5 (12%) required district-adopted policies without specification (Table). Of the 32 statewide bans, 15 (47%) extended to the full school day (bell-to-bell), while 17 (53%) permitted access during noninstructional periods (eg, lunch, between classes). Statewide policies generally applied uniformly across all grades; no state established categorically different prohibitions by grade level.
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