Smartphone tax on attention

Hey 👋

Hope your week is going well and you’ve been mulling over screen inferiority implications for your context. This week, we’re looking at the impact of smartphones more generally in school…

Big idea 🍉

Smartphones are an incredible invention. They put a world of information at our fingertips, facilitate communication faster than ever before, and act as a safety net in a variety of stations. It is unsurprising that they’ve become a constant companion for our species, often from an early age.

However, their impact is not all rosy. Mounting evidence suggests that the use of smartphones in schools is associated with:

• Reduced reaction times, task performance, task enjoyment, retention of learning, and academic outcomes.

• Increased disruptive behaviour, academic dishonesty, depression, stress, anxiety, (cyber-)bullying, and poor quality sleep.

These effects seem to be most pronounced for students who use smartphones lots outside school, for tasks which are particularly demanding, and for lower-achieving students (which makes the whole thing an equity issue).

And all this arises not only when phones are being used in school, but also when they are switched off and in student pockets 🤯

One major cause of these effects rests in how phones influence attention. We all have limited attentional capacity, and over time, digital devices—though exposure to information abundance, task switching, and quick interactions driven by immediate rewards—increasingly eat a portion of this precious cognitive resource. In short, they incur a tax on our attention.

The implications of this for schools are reasonably clear. We must resist naive narratives of techno-optimism and instead handle smartphones with caution.

For (most) younger children, it's probably best to limit access entirely. For older children, where schools feel there is a case for building independence or offering family communication, ‘off and away during the day’ can be a helpful mantra. This can be supported with a whole-school policy of ‘see it, hear it, lose it’, together with approaches such as taking phones in at the start of the day, providing security pouches, or having dedicated times and places where students can use their phones for emergencies.

The issue is so significant that it may well soon be out of our hands. The Netherlands are planning to ban smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches later this year (except for digital skills classes and students with special needs), and Finland, France, and the UK considering similar moves.

Challenge → What is the smartphone policy at your school? In your class? Could it be further optimised for student learning and wellbeing?

Little links 🥕

• On topic → Check out this recent study on the mere presence of smartphones on attention, this paper exploring the trade-offs between smartphones, student rights, and safety for schools, and the book ‘Reconnect’ by Lemov et al.

• On trend → Here’s a new narrative review on building self-regulated learning through high quality relationships, a meta-analysis on the effects of physical activity on cognition and attainment, and a paper by some big hitters on the mixed effects of parental aspirations.

• Bonus → Here’s a new podcast of me chatting with Ollie Lovell about expert teaching. And for those who are interested: June was my last month at Ambition—here’s why and what’s next for your very own Snacks author.

Have a super weekend when you get there.

Peps 👊

PS. I’d massively appreciate your take on the below question: