Can Students Manage Their Phones at School Without Locking Them Up?

For many school leaders, the honest answer feels like: probably not.

Phones are powerful. Many of the apps students use are intentionally designed to capture and hold their attention. And when access isn’t physically restricted, it can feel inevitable that distraction will win.

That pull is significant. Research published in JAMA Pediatrics found that adolescents spent an average of 90 minutes on their smartphones during a 6.5-hour school day, while Common Sense Media research found a median of 237 notifications per day among young people. 

That’s why locking phones away was originally the go-to choice. But that approach rests on a flawed assumption that managing phone use is primarily a matter of willpower. Behavioral science tells us otherwise.

Why Willpower Isn’t a Strategy

The Commons is built on principles from behavioral economics, the field pioneered by Richard Thaler, who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 for showing what decades of research now confirm:

People don’t change behavior because they’re told to. They change behavior when systems make the right choice, the easy choice.

This is the same theory Apple uses to design technology that feels intuitive and habit-forming. It’s also the framework behind successful public health initiatives—where long-term behavior change matters more than short-term compliance.

When schools rely on bans, pouches, or confiscation alone, they’re asking students and teachers to fight against attention-hijacking systems with sheer restraint.

That’s not a discipline issue. It’s a design issue.

We came to this conclusion after years of working directly with students and educators in thousands of schools worldwide as they navigated phone-free learning. We saw firsthand the value of creating meaningful boundaries around technology, and the opportunity to go further by helping students build the skills to manage it themselves.

School leaders want to reduce distraction without increasing teacher burnout, damaging relationships, or breaking parent trust.

The answer isn’t more enforcement. It’s better choice architecture.

Designing for Focus (Not Enforcement)

Instead of relying on constant decision-making and self-control, The Commons reduces cognitive load for students and educators through intentional design.

Here’s how those behavioral principles show up in practice:

Reduce cognitive load
Automatic activation of our app removes daily setup or device collection. Students arrive on campus and expectations are already in place, removing the need for pouches, scanning, collection, negotiations, or first-period policing.

Make the right choice the easy choice
Distracting apps are quieted during school hours. Staying focused doesn’t require superhuman restraint, it’s simply easier.

Default design
Compliance is designed to be the default, reducing the need for students to make repeated decisions about distracting apps throughout the school day.

Timely feedback loops
Student nudges reinforce expectations, while administrators have visibility into compliance status so they can identify students who may need additional support.

Habit formation
Because this happens every day, students aren’t just following a rule. They’re practicing self-regulation repeatedly, in a structured environment.

Social norming
The Commons is a Tier 1 solution, so every student with a phone uses it. That consistency matters. When expectations are universal, they become cultural, not punitive.

Skill transfer
Integrated curriculum evolves into digital citizenship, helping students build skills that extend beyond school and into real life. In college, careers, relationships, and adulthood, no one will be standing at the door collecting their phone. Ultimately, students need to develop the self-regulation to manage powerful technology themselves.

What Early Results Are Showing

The Commons early results from our school partners are encouraging—and importantly, they mirror outcomes schools often seek through phone bans, but The Commons schools aren’t locking devices away.

Across our Founding Schools, we’re seeing:

• Fewer behavioral incidents
• More games and basketballs being requested during free blocks
• More library books being checked out
• Deans spending more time planning positive initiatives—and less time navigating infractions
• Faster momentum through curriculum

In post-implementation surveys:

• 100% of responding schools said The Commons has made it easier for students to stay off distracting social apps during the school day
• 100% said it clarified their cellphone policy for students, families, and teachers
• 70% of teachers said they support tools like The Commons that teach healthier tech habits instead of locking phones away

Several educators noted they can tell which students have The Commons installed—and that difference becomes especially clear when implementation isn’t consistent. The takeaway was simple:

Consistency across the student body is key for success.

Students Notice the Difference Too

Students themselves describe the shift not as punishment—but as structure.

“Whenever I step into a school campus… I get a notification saying, like, welcome to school, now it's time to put your phone away and concentrate on school… it gives us some motivation… because it's school time, and we're on campus.”

Another shared:

“Last year, it was a complete disaster in our class. People AirDropping random pictures to each other. But since we have a Commons app now… it changed dramatically. Everybody is listening to the teacher.”

A Different Definition of “Phone-Free”

The goal was never to pretend phones don’t exist. The goal is to remove distraction while students are still learning how to live with powerful technology.

Students need boundaries. But they also need opportunities to develop agency, self-regulation, and healthier habits they can carry beyond the school day.

When schools stop designing only for prohibition and start designing for behavior change, something important shifts: success is no longer just whether a student stayed off their phone today. It’s whether they’re becoming better equipped to manage technology tomorrow.

That’s what makes phone management sustainable.