Examining Ohio High Schools' Smartphone Policies' Academic Efficacy

The academic efficacy of smartphone policies in high schools has been a hotly debated topic. Previous studies have quantitatively examined this topic in Britain, Spain, Norway, and Sweden, but they have somewhat conflicting results. Additionally, such a study has never been conducted in the United States, which has an altogether different schooling system than Europe. In the present study, I investigate (1) whether schoolwide smartphone policies increase students’ academic performance and (2) whether school technology programs, like 1:1 iPad or laptop or Bring Your Own Technology/Device programs, mitigate this impact, if it exists. I use public academic records from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and collect survey information from 192 public high schools in Ohio. Using a difference-in-difference analysis, I conclude that my hypothesis was partially correct: smartphone policies effectively increase students’ academic performance, but the results were inconclusive regarding technology programs. I advise that high schools across the nation continue to implement and maintain smartphone policies because they effectively remediate the detriments of smartphone use in schools.