School Cell Phone Policies Are a Collective Problem — with Angela Duckworth.

Hi everyone, Kunjan here.

This week, I sat down with Angela Duckworth , a leading researcher on motivation, self-control, and learning, and the author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Angela is one of the brightest minds I know, and if you’re familiar with her work, you know she doesn’t shy away from big questions. She builds the research to answer them.

Today’s conversation centers around a question many schools across the country are asking: How do we create policies that help kids focus on learning, without pretending phones aren’t a huge part of their lives?

A few months ago, we wrote about the very real challenge of cell phone use in schools, particularly as it competes with attention and instructional time at a moment when reading and writing outcomes have declined.

We’re picking up right where we left off, as Angela shares early insights from Phones in Focus, a national survey capturing the perspectives of tens of thousands of teachers. We talk about what educators are seeing in classrooms, why some phone policies work better than others, and why collective action matters just as much as policy design.

If you’re a public school educator, we’d love for you to take the 5-minute survey at phonesinfocus.org. And if you’re not, please consider sharing it with the educators in your life—friends, family, or colleagues. The goal is to hear from educators in every school across the country.

Watch our full conversation here:

You can also read the transcript below, which has been abridged for brevity and clarity.

Kunjan Narechania: Angela, thank you so much for joining us. We’re really excited to have you. To start, could you introduce yourself? And since we’re talking about cell phones, maybe tell us when you got your first one.

Angela Duckworth: I love that framing. I’m Angela Duckworth. I’m 55 years old, which means when I was growing up—and even when I was teaching early in my career—there were no cell phones. It simply wasn’t something I had to think about.

I became a teacher because I loved working with kids. In college, I studied neurobiology and spent a lot of time tutoring, volunteering in schools, and being a Big Sister with Big Brother Big Sister Foundation, Inc. . Instead of going to medical school, which my dad had hoped for, I went into education.

Today, I’m a psychologist, researcher, and professor. And my most recent—and perhaps most ambitious—project has been studying school cell phone policies.

Why Study Cell Phones in Schools?

Angela Duckworth: The origin of Phones in Focus goes back to August 2024. I realized I couldn’t make sense of what the research was actually saying about teens, mental health, and phones. What was the bottom line? What causes what? How worried should we be?

At the same time, I was talking with economists I deeply respect— Matthew Gentzkow and Hunt Allcott at Stanford—who had studied cell phones extensively. We realized that one critical area hadn’t really been studied at all: school cell phone policies. Not social media at home, not parenting choices—but what schools actually do during the school day.

That’s when we decided to work together.

This is also personal for me. My daughters are now 24 and 22. I gave them phones in fifth and sixth grade—which, in retrospect, was too early. They essentially told me, “Mom, this is the work you need to do.” And they were right. I cleared my plate because this felt like some of the most important work I could be doing.

Kunjan: You’ve been on a huge push to get educators to take the Phones in Focus survey, and you released preliminary findings in October. What are you learning so far?

Angela Duckworth: We now have over 40,000 responses from K-12 public school teachers in all 50 states, across elementary, middle, and high school.

For the first time, we have a clear national picture of what school cell phone policies actually look like. Until now, no one could really answer that question.

What we see is that there are essentially three types of policies about when students can use phones:

1. Scheduled restrictions: phones allowed during lunch, recess, or between classes
2. Bell-to-bell bans: no phone use from the first bell to the last
3. No policy at all

Every state has a mix of these, even states with bell-to-bell laws on the books.

But there’s another dimension to this that matters just as much: where students are allowed to keep their phones.

Where Phones Are Kept Matters

Angela Duckworth: As a psychologist who studies self-control, I know that physical distance creates psychological distance from temptation. If you’re trying not to eat dessert, you don’t leave it on the table—you put it away.

Schools handle this in different ways. Some don’t allow phones at all, which is very rare and becoming rarer. Some require centralized collection at the start of the day. Others require phones to be kept in hallway lockers, or use Yondr pouches.

All of these approaches create friction and distance, and they perform well in our data. Teachers report higher satisfaction and more students staying on task.

Less effective approaches include teachers collecting phones at the start of each class (which teachers don’t like). And the no-show policy, which is essentially, “You can keep your phone anywhere; I just don’t want to see it.” About half of schools are managing cell phone use this way, and it performs poorly, largely because phones stay close to students, usually in pockets or backpacks.

The takeaway is that teachers want stricter policies, and where phones are kept matters just as much as when they’re allowed to be used.

How to Implement Policy in Classrooms

Kunjan: The stricter the policy, the more collective the action has to be. When enforcement falls entirely on individual teachers, it becomes really hard to maintain consistency.

Angela Duckworth: Exactly. One thing teachers pushed us to include was a question about implementation. And what we found is telling: stricter policies are enforced more consistently.

When enforcement is collective—supported by administrators and schoolwide norms—it works better. When enforcement falls entirely on individual teachers, consistency breaks down.

This isn’t just about phones. It’s true for screens, ultra-processed food, and other temptations. These aren’t individual willpower problems; they’re collective ones.

Teachers told us clearly: they don’t want to be the bad cop. They don’t want students walking into another classroom where the rules are totally different.

Addressing Parent Safety Concerns

Kunjan: One downside that I sometimes hear is from parents who are worried about student safety or their student’s ability to connect with them. How would you advise policymakers to think about that?

Angela Duckworth: That concern comes up a lot, and schools can address it by clearly explaining how emergencies and everyday communication would be handled.

Parents can call the main office. Schools have protocols. And importantly, safety experts consistently tell us that dozens of students calling 911 during an emergency is not helpful.

There are now enough examples across the country showing that we don’t need to rely on individual student phones to address those very real parent concerns.

What Comes Next

Kunjan: What do we expect next? What other questions are you curious about as it relates to cell phones and cell phone use in schools?

Angela Duckworth: Our goal is to reach every school in the country, not just a survey, but a census.

With strong state partnerships, including work through the @National Governors Association, we’ll be linking survey data to outcomes like attendance, achievement, and school climate. We also plan to provide school- and district-level reports, so educators can see how policies are working in their own context.

Finally, we’ll be identifying positive outliers in every state—schools that are getting this right—so leaders can learn from one another.

Kunjan: It’s been a real honor to partner with you on this work, Angela. Thank you for including us in the conversation.

Angela Duckworth:Thank you!