Mobile phones stunt your academic growth, claim

via Flickr © Francis Storr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

via Flickr © Francis Storr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Timing is all for academic publicity-seeking and the London School of Economics (LSE) has got its timing just right. Just as middle England is hunkered down for a bout of teenage exam trauma garnished with government-endorsed hand-wringing over educational standards, it’s released a report which offers indisputable evidence that banning mobile phones from schools will  improve exam results, especially for low-income, low-achieving children. Download it here 

The LSE study took a samples of four schools in four English cities and found that test scores increased by over six per cent when phones were banned.

Or to put it another couple of ways, according to the researchers the results indicated that a phone ban had a beneficial impact equivalent to an extra hour a week of school or an extra week a year…  which actually doesn’t sound like much.

With over 90 per cent of British school children packing a phone (though not necessarily taking it and using it at school, where they are often banned already), the interesting question to ask is what would they rather have if given the choice - an extra hour a week or week a year, or no phone at school?

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