挪威的中学禁止使用智能手机  一项研究表明其好处是巨大的

【中美创新时报2024 年 4 月 27 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）近几个月来，关于是否在学校禁止智能手机的长期争论愈演愈烈，社交媒体对青少年心理健康的危害以及手机在课堂上造成干扰的警告不断增多，加剧了这一争论。《波士顿环球报》记者Shannon Larson 对此作了下述报道。

本周，社交媒体热议挪威今年早些时候发表的一项研究，该研究检验了这一论点：如果学校禁止使用智能手机，学生的成绩和心理健康将受到怎样的影响？

研究发现，影响是积极的，包括减少欺凌行为和提高女孩的学习成绩。作家兼组织心理学家 Adam Grant 在 X（前身为 Twitter）上强调了这一发现，称“智能手机应该放在家里或储物柜里。”

该研究调查了挪威 400 多所实施手机禁令的中学，并依赖三个主要数据源：全国学生调查、中学智能手机政策的调查数据以及挪威行政数据集的汇编，包括健康和家庭登记册 。

根据联合国教科文组织去年发布的一份报告，近四分之一的国家已经出台了禁止在学校使用智能手机的法律或政策。

去年 5 月，研究员萨拉·亚伯拉罕森 (Sara Abrahamsson) 在挪威经济学院发表了她的博士论文（其中包括关于智能手机禁令如何影响中学生的研究）后，引起了政界人士的关注，现在，根据商学院的说法，政府已开始“大幅收紧手机使用规则”。

以下是主要发现。

专科护理中心理问题的咨询次数减少

在有禁令的学校中，中学生因心理健康问题而接受专科护理的人数有所下降。 数据显示，女孩接触禁令的时间越长，她们需要的探视次数就越少。

女孩接受全科医生咨询的次数也较少（下降约 29%）。 然而，研究并未发现禁令颁布后对学生因心理症状和疾病进行诊断或治疗的可能性有任何影响。

亚伯拉罕森写道：“心理症状和疾病咨询数量的下降表明，禁令实施后，女孩对心理健康问题相关护理的需求减少。”

她还表示，与同龄男孩相比，“平均而言，女孩在青春期的心理健康问题程度更高”，因此可能比男孩“更容易受到禁令的影响”。

女孩和男孩的欺凌发生率下降

由于学生之间存在网络欺凌行为（例如，青少年互相发送有害短信），教育工作者和专家一直在推动学校禁用智能手机。

研究发现，挪威中学禁止使用手机后，女孩和男孩的欺凌发生率有所下降。在有禁令的情况下度过三年中学的女孩表示，与没有实施政策时相比，受到其他学生欺凌的女孩减少了约 46%。智能手机使用禁令实施四年后，男孩的欺凌事件减少了约 43%。

亚伯拉罕森写道：“我的研究结果表明，禁止学校使用智能手机等低成本干预措施可能是减少欺凌和改善青少年心理健康的有效政策工具。”

女孩们的学业成绩取得了进步

研究显示，在禁止使用智能手机的情况下开始上中学的女孩的成绩和 GPA 有所提高，并且在外部评分的数学考试中得分更高。

亚伯拉罕森写道，“经历禁令后”，女孩更有可能（高出 4 到 7 个百分点）进入学术高中。 “与禁令实施前相比，这种效应相当于进入学术高中的可能性增加了 8-14%。”

这种影响只有在至少两年被智能手机禁令影响的女孩中才显着。然而，亚伯拉罕森发现这对中学生的心理健康或学业成绩没有影响，她认为这可能是“挪威女孩手机使用率大幅增加的结果”。

社会经济背景较低的女孩受益最多

根据这项研究，社会经济背景较低的女孩在中学期间从智能手机禁令中获得了最大的好处，从减少心理健康护理的次数到提高成绩。

亚伯拉罕森写道，这些差异表明，“非结构化技术尤其会分散来自低社会经济家庭的学生的注意力”，而对于来自“高社会经济家庭”的学生来说则要小得多。 “在女孩之间，这意味着心理健康和教育表现的差距随着社会经济范围的变化而缩小。”

更严格的智能手机禁令取得了最好的结果

研究发现，就读于智能手机禁令更严格的中学的女孩，学业成绩的进步最大，例如禁止学生“将手机带到学校或学生必须在上课前交出手机的学校”。

相比之下，更宽松的政策，包括只要求学生将手机保持静音的政策，效果较小，甚至可能对教育工作者不利。

亚伯拉罕森写道：“行为实验表明，只要将手机放在附近，但处于静音模式，甚至可以增加手机的使用率，特别是对于‘害怕错过’的人来说。”

题图：2024 年 2 月 23 日星期五，犹他州德尔塔市，一名九年级学生在进入德尔塔高中课堂时将手机放在手机支架上。RICK BOWMER/美联社

附原英文报道：

Middle schools in Norway banned smartphones. The benefits were dramatic, a study shows.

By Shannon Larson Globe Staff,Updated April 27, 2024 

A ninth grader places her cellphone in to a phone holder as she enters class at Delta High School, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Delta, Utah.RICK BOWMER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The long-running debate over whether to ban smartphones in schools has intensified in recent months, fueled by increased warnings about the harms of social media on youth mental health and the distractions phones cause in class.

This week, social media was abuzz about a study published earlier this year out of Norway that tested the argument: How would student outcomes and mental health be affected if schools banned smartphones?

The research found the impacts were positive, including decreased bullying and improved academic performance among girls. Author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant highlighted the findings on X, formerly Twitter, saying “smartphones belong at home or in lockers.”

The study examined more than 400 middle schools in Norway that had implemented phone bans and relied on three primary data sources: a nationwide pupil survey, survey data on middle schools’ smartphone policies, and a compilation of Norwegian administrative datasets, including health and family registers.

Almost one in four countries have introduced laws or policies banning smartphones in schools, according to a report published last year by UNESCO.

After researcher Sara Abrahamsson presented her doctoral thesis — which included her study on how smartphone bans affect middle-school students — at the Norwegian School of Economics last May, it caught the eye of politicians, and now, according to the business school, the government has begun “significantly tightening the rules on mobile phone usage.”

Here’s a look at the key findings.

Fewer consultations for psychological issues at specialist care

In schools with bans, the number of specialist care visits for mental health issues fell among middle-school girls. And the data suggested the longer the girls were exposed to the ban, the fewer visits they needed.

Girls also had fewer consultations (a decline of about 29 percent) with their general practitioner. The research, however, did not find any effect on the likelihood of students being diagnosed or treated for psychological symptoms and diseases after bans were enacted.

“The decline in the number of consultations for psychological symptoms and diseases shows that after a ban is implemented, girls are in less need of care related to mental health issues,” Abrahamsson wrote.

She also said that compared to boys of the same age “girls have, on average, increased levels of mental health issues during the adolescent years,” and therefore may be “more intensely affected by the ban” than boys.

Incidence of bullying fell for girls and boys

Educators and experts have pushed for school smartphone bans because of cyberbullying among students (adolescents sending harmful texts to one another, for example).

The study found that after Norway middle schools banned phones, the incidence of bullying decreased for girls and boys. Girls who went through three years of middle school with a ban reported being bullied by other students about 46 percent less compared to when no policy was in place. Four years after a ban on smartphone use was implemented, boys experienced a decline in bullying incidents by about 43 percent.

“My results suggest that a low-cost intervention such as banning smartphones from schools might be an effective policy tool to reduce bullying and improve adolescents’ mental health,” Abrahamsson wrote.

Girls made gains in their academic performance

Girls who started middle school with smartphone bans in place saw improvements in their grades and GPAs, and scored higher on externally graded mathematics exams, according to the study.

Girls were also more likely (4 to 7 percentage points higher) to attend an academic high school track “after experiencing a ban,” Abrahamsson wrote. “This effect amounts to an 8–14 percent point increase in the probability of attending an academic high school track relative to the pre-ban years.”

The effects were only significant among girls who were exposed to a smartphone ban for at least two years. Abrahamsson, however, found no effect on the mental health or academic performance of middle-school boys, which she suggested could “result from the substantially higher phone usage among girls” in Norway.

Girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds saw the most benefits

According to the study, girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds saw the greatest benefits from a smartphone ban during middle school, from reduced visits for mental health care to improvement in grades.

These differences suggest that “unstructured technology is especially distracting for students from low socioeconomic families” and far less so for students from “high socioeconomic families,” Abrahamsson wrote. “Between girls, this means that the gap in mental health and educational performance declined along the socioeconomic spectrum.”

Stricter smartphone bans yielded the best results

The study found that gains in academic performance were the greatest among girls who attended middle schools that had stricter smartphone bans, such as ones that prohibited students from “bringing their phones to school or schools where students must hand their phones in before classes start.”

In contrast, more lenient policies, including those that only mandated students keep their phones on silent, had less of an effect — and could even work against educators.

“Behavioral experiments have shown that just having your phone nearby, but in a silent mode, could even increase phone usage, especially for people with increased ‘Fear-Of-Missing-Out,’” Abrahamsson wrote.