A national law banning smartphones in Brazilian schools is showing measurable results just months after taking effect. Research led by Stanford University links the restrictions to improved standardized test scores and higher classroom attention — while also surfacing real challenges that policymakers and schools will need to address.
At a glance
- Brazil smartphone ban: A law enacted in January 2025 C.E. prohibits smartphone use during class, recess, and other school activities in all public and private schools nationwide.
- Classroom attention: Surveys of more than 3,000 students, teachers, and administrators found that 83% of students reported paying more attention in class since the law took effect.
- Standardized test scores: A separate analysis of Rio de Janeiro schools found that schools without prior restrictions saw greater score improvements after the ban than schools that had already adopted early rules.
What the research found
The surveys were conducted between February and July 2025 C.E. by Equidade.info, an initiative of the Stanford Lemann Center, in partnership with Brazil’s Parliamentary Coalition for Education. University students supervised by faculty carried out in-person interviews at public and private schools across all 26 Brazilian states and the Federal District — in rural and urban areas, across grade levels, and with respondents sampled by gender, grade level, and race.
That scope matters. Brazil’s public school system serves roughly 40 million students, and the law applies to institutions of every type and size. The nationally representative design gives the findings unusual weight for a policy this new.
Among the results: 88% of elementary students reported paying more attention in class, while the figure dropped to 70% among high schoolers. Compliance followed a similar gradient — only 2% of elementary students said they kept using their phones despite the ban, compared with 55% of high schoolers. “At the high school level, it’s much harder to change behavior,” said Guilherme Lichand, an assistant professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, co-director of the Lemann Center, and a faculty affiliate of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.
Test scores in Rio de Janeiro
A companion working paper co-authored by Lichand and Stanford economics Professor Matthew Gentzkow focused on Rio de Janeiro, where a phased ban began in August 2023 C.E. — well before the national law. Researchers compared schools that had already adopted strict rules with those that had not. About a year and a half after the rollout, schools without prior restrictions showed greater gains in standardized test scores once the stricter rules applied to them.
The design is important. By comparing schools at different stages of the same policy rollout, researchers could isolate the effect of the ban itself rather than other factors. That kind of quasi-experimental approach gives the test score findings more credibility than a simple before-and-after comparison would.
Real challenges alongside real progress
The study does not tell a tidy story. On average, 44% of students reported feeling more bored during breaks and recess without their phones, and 49% of teachers observed increased anxiety among students who no longer had access to them. Schools varied widely in how they enforced the rules: most allowed students to keep phones in their bags, while only about a quarter of administrators used collection boxes at entrances. About one in three students said they did not fully understand the new rules.
On bullying, the picture is uneven. While 77% of administrators and 65% of teachers reported fewer cases of online bullying, only 41% of students said the same — a gap that suggests incidents may go unrecognized or unreported by school staff.
Lichand was direct about what the data can and cannot show. “Just because phone use is going down and learning outcomes are improving doesn’t mean we’ve solved all the problems,” he said. “We still need to be alert and redouble our efforts to understand the potential vulnerabilities and risks that kids are exposed to in their online lives.”
The schools doing it best
The research points to one practical finding that cuts through the variation: the schools with the strongest compliance were those that gave students a dedicated place to store their phones — even if the phones stayed in the classroom and were never taken away. Physical separation, not just a rule on paper, appears to drive the behavioral shift.
Lichand also pointed to the value of engaging students in the transition rather than simply restricting them. Schools that introduced offline activities tailored to different grade levels — and developed them with student input — seemed to counteract more of the negative effects. “More than just limiting phones, the law opens the door for schools to rethink how they connect with students,” he said. “There’s a lot of emphasis on individual solutions, telling people to exercise their self-control. But this is a community problem, and the strategies we can organize offline can really help.”
The research is ongoing. Equidade.info plans further survey waves, and Lichand’s team continues analyzing test score data from Rio de Janeiro and other districts. What Brazil is building — a national policy, studied in real time, with nationally representative data — could offer a model for the dozens of countries debating similar restrictions. The OECD reported in 2023 C.E. that one in three of its member countries had already adopted some form of school smartphone restriction, and the number has grown since.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Stanford Graduate School of Education
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Ghana establishes a major new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Brazil
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