Elementary school students who own cellphones have lower reading comprehension scores than classmates who do not own phones, regardless of whether they bring the devices to school, according to a UCLA study announced Monday.
The study, published in the journal Behavioral Sciences, examined third- and sixth-grade students from Antelope Valley public schools and Coptic Church schools in Los Angeles County.
Researchers assessed students’ reading comprehension by having them read short passages and answer questions about the material. They also surveyed the children about cellphone ownership and use, comparing students who owned phones with those who did not.
The researchers found a “statistically significant relationship” between cellphone ownership and lower reading comprehension scores.
“We found that there’s no age at which you can give a child a phone that’s better or worse for reading comprehension, so it’s just having a phone at all,” lead author Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA psychology professor, said in a statement. “That’s true in third grade, and it’s true in sixth grade.”
Researchers also found no significant difference in reading comprehension between students who brought their phones to school and those who left them at home, suggesting elementary school cellphone bans may have little effect on academic performance.
The findings were more encouraging for students with cellphones who lived in homes where English was not the primary language.
“If you have a phone and if you’re from a family where English is not spoken at home, it’s better for reading comprehension to start texting earlier rather than later,” Greenfield said. “In fact, when students from Arabic- or Spanish-speaking homes began to text in second or third grade, by sixth grade they had reading comprehension scores similar to their peers who still did not have phones.”
The study was prompted by questions about whether cellphones interfere with the concentration needed for academic testing and whether school cellphone bans improve student performance. Researchers said relatively little experimental research has examined the relationship between cellphone use and reading among elementary school students.