Early evidence on school smartphone bans and mental health


The word “early” is appropriate here and is to be stressed, nonetheless I am not surprised by these results, given the relative impotence of treatment effects in so many settings:

To provide causal evidence of the effects of these bans, I rely on synthetic difference-in-difference models and the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) from 2016 to 2024. Currently, there are data for only one state with two post-ban periods and two states with one post-ban period, which makes the results preliminary evidence only. The outcome variables are screentime and measures of psychological wellbeing. Overall, these early results provide no clear evidence that the school ban policy reduced screentime or improved psychological wellbeing.

That is from a recent NBER working paper by Henry Saffer.




Source link

  • Related Posts

    Robot Vacuum Ban 2026: What the FCC’s New Robot Rules Mean for Your Vacuum

    Robots are having a moment with the federal government — and it’s not all positive. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced a ban on foreign-made advanced mobile robots, a…

    Canada is losing promising startups to foreign buyers: CCI

    “If acquisition by a foreign buyer is the best way up for a Canadian founder, then few of the benefits to those public dollars are staying in Canada, and Canadians…

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    You Missed

    Ebola deaths surpass 2,000 in Democratic Republic of Congo

    Ebola deaths surpass 2,000 in Democratic Republic of Congo

    The pods are heading north: Netflix’s ‘Love Is Blind’ is coming to Canada

    The pods are heading north: Netflix’s ‘Love Is Blind’ is coming to Canada

    Robot Vacuum Ban 2026: What the FCC’s New Robot Rules Mean for Your Vacuum

    Robot Vacuum Ban 2026: What the FCC’s New Robot Rules Mean for Your Vacuum

    An unreleased Anthropic model made progress on one of math’s biggest unsolved problems

    An unreleased Anthropic model made progress on one of math’s biggest unsolved problems

    University of Michigan Will Ease Up on Grades for Student Mental Health

    University of Michigan Will Ease Up on Grades for Student Mental Health

    Carney wants to ‘catalyze’ investment by deploying capital from Parliament Hill

    Carney wants to ‘catalyze’ investment by deploying capital from Parliament Hill