The bans are very lackadaisically enforced, and this is in a state where the ban is actually mandated by law (Missouri). My daughter says in high school kids regularly have phones out in class. And a ban even if enforced would not keep kids off these harmful platforms for the many other hours in the day.

Why anyone would expect phone bans to improve mental health is beyond me when the majority of phone use is not happening at school.

Improve grades, improve classroom behavior, maybe. What about those?

I actually read it as "They're no more unhappy without than with them" . Kinda occam's razor of if they're not unhappier without their phone, then there's no harm taking it from them.

> Analyses using a more stringent definition of school phone bans (ie, requiring phones to be stored away and not carried on the student’s person) also yielded findings consistent with the main results

Classroom behaviour is what it’s all about. Schools have turned into an absolute barnyard. A kid checked out of class and watching TikTok should be marked absent. Teachers blame parents but we are not the adults in that particular room.

> Improve grades, improve classroom behavior, maybe. What about those?

Isn't that partly the goal with the ban? Fewer distractions.