Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health
[PUBLISHED ABSTRACT READ IN FULL at the journal's ahead-of-print page. FULL TEXT PAYWALLED AND NOT READ] Abrahamsson, S. (2026). 'Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health.' Journal of Human Resources, published online ahead of print 11 March 2026, article 0224-13403R2. doi:10.3368/jhr.0224-13403R2. STATUS EXACTLY, BECAUSE THE COMMON DESCRIPTION IS OUT OF DATE: PEER-REVIEWED, ahead of print, not yet in a numbered issue. The earlier version was a Norwegian School of Economics discussion paper, NHH DP SAM 01/2024, February 2024, and the frequently repeated characterisation of this work as an unreviewed Norwegian working paper no longer holds. Author affiliation on the published record is the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Sole author. Design: event-study design on Norwegian administrative and survey data, middle schools. A school count that circulates in press coverage was NOT verified at source and IS NOT PRINTED HERE. RESULT, VERBATIM AND WITH THE HEDGING INTACT, BECAUSE THE HEDGING IS THE FINDING: 'banning smartphones in middle schools has no average effect on education or mental health but masks important gender differences. Bans reduce psychological health care use among girls, lower bullying for both genders, and improve girls' GPAs and academic track placement, especially among those from disadvantaged backgrounds. These results suggest smartphone bans can be a low-cost policy to improve outcomes, particularly for girls.' THE FRAMING RULE: this is a NULL AVERAGE EFFECT with a girls-only subgroup effect, and the outcome counted on the mental-health side is TAKE-UP OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTHCARE, which is a service-use measure and not a symptom measure. NEVER report this as 'phone bans improved girls' mental health' without the null average and without naming what was actually counted.
[PUBLISHED ABSTRACT READ IN FULL at the journal's ahead-of-print page. FULL TEXT PAYWALLED AND NOT READ] Abrahamsson, S. (2026). 'Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health.' Journal of Human Resources, published online ahead of print 11 March 2026, article 0224-13403R2. doi:10.3368/jhr.0224-13403R2. STATUS EXACTLY, BECAUSE THE COMMON DESCRIPTION IS OUT OF DATE: PEER-REVIEWED, ahead of print, not yet in a numbered issue. The earlier version was a Norwegian School of Economics discussion paper, NHH DP SAM 01/2024, February 2024, and the frequently repeated characterisation of this work as an unreviewed Norwegian working paper no longer holds. Author affiliation on the published record is the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Sole author. Design: event-study design on Norwegian administrative and survey data, middle schools. A school count that circulates in press coverage was NOT verified at source and IS NOT PRINTED HERE. RESULT, VERBATIM AND WITH THE HEDGING INTACT, BECAUSE THE HEDGING IS THE FINDING: 'banning smartphones in middle schools has no average effect on education or mental health but masks important gender differences. Bans reduce psychological health care use among girls, lower bullying for both genders, and improve girls' GPAs and academic track placement, especially among those from disadvantaged backgrounds. These results suggest smartphone bans can be a low-cost policy to improve outcomes, particularly for girls.' THE FRAMING RULE: this is a NULL AVERAGE EFFECT with a girls-only subgroup effect, and the outcome counted on the mental-health side is TAKE-UP OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTHCARE, which is a service-use measure and not a symptom measure. NEVER report this as 'phone bans improved girls' mental health' without the null average and without naming what was actually counted.
Written from the pUBLISHED ABSTRACT READ IN FULL at the journal's ahead-of-print page. FULL TEXT PAYWALLED AND NOT READ.
What our sources record
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Journal of Human Resources. doi:10.3368/jhr.0224-13403R2