By Contributor,Marybeth Gasman

Copyright forbes

College student using mobile phone.

New research is focused on how colleges can handle the use of smartphones, which are distractions and can impede student learning in classrooms. According to Billur Aksoy, Assistant Professor of Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and her colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Texas at Austin, students who used the behavioral app Pocket Points, which rewards them for staying off their phones during class, reported fewer distractions, greater academic satisfaction, and stronger attendance.

View of the Pocket Points app
Pocket Points

Pocket Points works by locking a student’s phone when class begins. For every set amount of time their phone stays locked, the student earns points. Students can redeem the points for discounts at local businesses, online retailers, or campus partners. The app uses gamified features such as streaks and badges to encourage students to keep building a habit of focus.

Aksoy stated, “Smartphone use is deeply ingrained into our daily lives, which makes it difficult to simply remove it from the classroom environment, especially for young adults balancing multiple responsibilities. Our study shows that giving students a behavioral incentive to reduce phone use can improve focus in class and lead to a more satisfying academic experience.”

The researchers’ findings are particularly interesting as college faculty often hesitate to impose blanket restrictions on students who are managing work, family, and academics simultaneously. By offering voluntary, incentive-based “commitment devices,” apps like Pocket Points appear to support self-regulation without diminishing autonomy.

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The research team randomly assigned roughly 1000 students to treatment and control groups. As Aksoy explained, “Because group assignment was purely random and non-related to their personality, motivation, or study habits, it provided an instrumental variable that allowed us to make causal inferences about the impact of the app use.”

Billur Aksoy, faculty at RPI

Students in the treatment group ended the semester with slightly higher GPAs. Aksoy emphasized caution; however, and noted, “On average, the students in the treatment group ended the semester with slightly higher grades (a small bump in their GPA). For students who reported using the app more regularly (more than once a week), the bump was even larger, around half a grade point on a 4.0 scale. However, because there’s always some natural variation in grades, we can’t rule out the possibility that these improvements happened by chance. So, we describe the findings as ‘suggestive evidence.’”

Interestingly, app users reported spending fewer hours studying outside of class. According to Aksoy, “What seems to be happening is that app users were learning more effectively during class itself. By staying off their phones, they paid better attention, likely absorbed more, and didn’t need to spend as many hours re-teaching themselves later.” She added that this could free up time for work, campus involvement, or rest, which is a meaningful benefit for college students juggling heavy schedules.

Aksoy also believes there are benefits outside of the classroom, noting that these tools can shape habits in workplaces, driving, and even in the area of personal productivity. She stated, “With the rise of smartphone use, we are all facing real challenges with focus and attention. Banning phones might offer a short-term fix in some settings, but it doesn’t give people the skills or the tools they need. Tools that leverage insights from behavioral economics, however, have the potential to help students build self-control and healthy habits that will likely stay with them beyond the school day, throughout life.”

The study makes it clear that the question is not whether colleges can control students’ phones, but whether they can equip students with tools to control their own habits. Incentive-based approaches have the potential to foster the kind of autonomy, responsibility, and self-regulation that reward focus rather than punishing distraction. If institutions choose to embrace these tools, they may both improve academic outcomes and prepare students to have healthier digital habits in their future professional and personal lives.

The full study, Reducing Phone Distraction in the Classroom: Evidence from a Field Experiment is available here.

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