Poster #62 - State Phone Ban Policies and Adolescent Mental Health: Early Evidence From a Staggered Difference-in-Differences Analysis

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Between 2016 and 2023, the prevalence of diagnosed adolescent anxiety increased by 61% and depression by 45% in the United States (Sappenfield et al., 2024). This trend coincides with the increased prevalence of smartphones and social media. While the causal relationship between adolescent mental health and technology use remains debated, these simultaneous trends have driven a wave of state legislative action restricting student phone use in schools.

This study asks two questions: Did state-level phone ban policies improve adolescent mental health relative to states without such policies? And do policy strength and policy instrument moderate their effect on adolescent mental health?

We draw on nine waves of the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), a nationally and state-representative household survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Because no state had a statewide ban prior to May 2023, the seven waves from 2016-2022 serve as a pre-policy baseline for all states. We link each respondent to a policy dataset, coded from state legislative records, that captures the timing, strength, and policy instrument of every statewide ban enacted through 2024. Policies vary substantially in strength, from full legislative prohibitions to administrative guidance encouraging districts to act, and in instrument, from laws passed by legislatures to executive orders.

Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we compare changes in adolescent mental health in early-adopting states against the large majority of states that had not yet acted. Seven years of pre-policy data allow us to directly test whether these groups were trending similarly before any ban existed. Primary outcomes of interest are diagnosed anxiety and depression. Preliminary results from early-adopting states will be presented. This study contributes early causal evidence on whether statewide phone bans improved adolescent mental health, and explores whether stronger mandates produce larger effects, a question with direct implications for the states still deciding whether and how to act.

Authors

• Abbie Elizabeth Klein, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author

• Megan Andreas Moreno, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Co-Author