Recent global monitoring shows that 114 education systems now have a national ban on mobile phones in schools, representing 58% of countries worldwide. The expansion has been rapid. Less than 1 in 4 countries (24%) had bans in June 2023, when it was first monitored in the 2023 GEM Report. By early 2025 this had risen to 40%, and by March 2026 that share is almost 20 percentage point higher.
The growth reflects mounting concerns about declining attention in classrooms, cyberbullying, and the broader influence of digital environments on children. But the global picture is more nuanced than a simple shift toward prohibition.
New bans continue to appear
Several countries have introduced new national bans since late 2025, continuing the upward trend. Recent additions include Bolivia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Georgia, Maldives and Malta.
France is one of the countries where the debate continues to evolve. It introduced one of the most widely cited early bans on mobile phones in schools, prohibiting their use in primary and lower secondary education. Now policymakers are examining whether further regulation is needed. A legislative proposal currently under consideration in the French parliament aims to establish more specific rules governing smartphone use in schools, reflecting growing concern about the broader digital environment facing young people.
In many cases, bans apply during the school day or inside classrooms, with some systems allowing phones only for educational purposes, specific groups of pupils (such as those with disabilities or illness), or requiring them to be switched off and stored away.
At the same time, not all governments are opting for outright bans. Some countries have recently adopted national regulations requiring schools to develop policies restricting phone use, without imposing a strict nationwide prohibition. Comoros, Colombia, Estonia, Lithuania, Iceland, Peru, Indonesia, Serbia, Poland and the Philippines are among those.
This approach reflects a shift toward delegating responsibility to schools and school leaders while still acknowledging the need to control phone use.
The United Kingdom also illustrates this model. In England, the government has issued strengthened guidance encouraging schools to prohibit mobile phones during the school day. The expectation is reinforced through school inspection frameworks, yet the policy leaves implementation decisions to individual schools. However, a proposed ban on social media for the under 16s has been rejected by the parliament some days ago.
Subnational bans are becoming common
Debates at subnational level are taking place elsewhere as governments try to balance national direction with school-level autonomy. In countries where education systems are decentralized, restrictions are often introduced first at regional or local levels. Argentina, for example, has adopted a ban on mobile phones in primary schools in the province of Buenos Aires. Similar patterns can be observed elsewhere. In Armenia, Indonesia, Thailand, and North Macedonia some subnational authorities have adopted restrictions on phone use in schools. In Germany, several Länder, including Bavaria, Saarland, and Thuringia, have banned smartphones in primary and special needs schools. Others, such as Brandenburg, Bremen, Hesse, and Schleswig-Holstein have tightened their regulations and are increasingly relying on bans. The aim is to largely eliminate cell phone use from schools in order to promote concentration and strengthen the social skills of children and young people.
In the United States, where no nationwide ban exists, 39 states now have statewide bans (15) or regulations requiring school districts to adopt policies restricting phone use in classrooms (24). Most of the other states have filed bills to regulate phone use as well. These cases show how policy change often starts locally before spreading nationally.
The wider digital context
The push for school phone bans is closely linked to growing concern about social media and online harms.
Evidence highlighted in recent global education monitoring, including the 2023 Gender Report, Tech on her terms, suggests that social media environments can expose young people, particularly girls, to risks such as harassment, unrealistic social pressures and harmful content. That report found that girls are twice as likely as boys to suffer from eating disorders exacerbated by social media usage. Facebook’s own research revealed that 32% of teenage girls felt worse about their bodies after using Instagram. The report further noted alarming trends related to TikTok’s algorithm, which targets teenagers with body image content every 39 seconds and promotes content related to eating disorders every eight minutes.
Emotional wellbeing is crucial for academic success. The impact of social media on the latter is particularly pronounced among girls. Increased interaction with social media at age 10 has been linked to worsening socioemotional difficulties as they grow older a trend not observed among boys.
As a result, some countries have implemented or are considering restrictions on social media use for children, including legislation in Australia, France, Portugal and Spain, as well as discussions in Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Indonesia.
Bans alone will not solve the digital challenge
As research by the Global Education Monitoring Report team highlighted in 2023 and 2025, while limiting phone use may help reduce classroom distraction, it does not remove the need for students to learn how to navigate digital environments.
Schools remain one of the few places where young people can develop digital literacy and critical thinking skills including how to assess online information, manage screen time and understand the risks of digital platforms. The policy challenge therefore goes beyond banning devices. It is about ensuring that education systems both protect learning time and prepare students for a digital world. The next two publications in the GEM Report Countdown to 2030 trilogy of reports due out in 2027 (quality and learning) and 2028/9 (relevance) will also devote attention to the use of technology in education.
A fast-moving global policy shift
With more than half of the world’s education systems now restricting phones nationally, the issue has clearly become a mainstream education policy priority. Yet the diversity of approaches, consisting in national bans, regulatory frameworks, and subnational initiatives suggests that countries are still searching for the right balance between limiting distraction and teaching responsible technology use.
The debate is no longer just about whether phones belong in schools. It is about using technology in an appropriate way, ensuring it is on the terms of educators and students, and no one else.
