Schools across the United States are increasingly limiting students’ phone use during the school day. This talk examines one popular approach: lockable phone pouches. We use nationwide data from large-scale surveys, GPS-based measures of phone activity, standardized test scores, school administrative records, and sales records from the largest pouch provider.

Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that adopting phone pouches substantially reduces student phone use, as shown by both GPS data and teacher reports. In the first year after adoption, disciplinary incidents rise and students report lower well-being, suggesting that schools may experience short-term disruption as students adjust. In later years, however, reported well-being improves and the increase in disciplinary incidents fades.

We find little evidence that phone pouches improve academic achievement overall: average effects on test scores are consistently close to zero. Effects differ somewhat by school level. High schools show modest gains, especially in math, while middle schools show small declines. We also find little evidence that pouch policies affect attendance, students’ self-reported attention in class, or perceived online bullying.