Smartphones in Schools: Educational Psychologist Dr Emily Barrett’s Speech to a Parliamentary Roundtable – Wednesday 11 March 2026

I am Dr Emily Barrett, I am an educational psychologist and am here with health professionals for safer screens. I have always worked exclusively in public sector education for over fifteen years, first as a special needs primary school teacher (specialising in behaviour management), and now as a psychologist specialising in ADHD, school avoidance and the impact of screens on child development.

I have two main points regarding smart phones in schools: they negatively impact cognitive ability and prevent the development of emotional resilience.

On cognitive ability – when a child moves to secondary school, classroom learning demands a whole new set of higher order cognitive faculties, not just thinking about ideas and remembering facts. In lessons, young people have to harness their attention, use their working memory, set their own learning goals, and motivate themselves independently – all practice for joining the workforce. Higher order thinking is cognitively draining. For young people with special education needs (SEN), it is even more draining as most forms of SEN bring with it some form of delayed development of these higher cognitive skills.

Resisting the urge to check a smartphone during a lesson is not a passive neurological pursuit. This active cognitive effort of resistance becomes a further strain on learning, an invisible background leak in cognitive energy that undermines the processing of complex ideas and prevents critical thought. This is how the mere presence of a smartphone in a pocket or bag becomes an active hindrance to academic potential.

For neurodivergent children in particular, having this expectation of them is not just unrealistic, I believe we are setting them up to fail. In most cases they are neurologically less equipped to resist the temptation to check their phone. This becomes more apparent in moments when learning becomes particularly uncomfortable, especially considering the fact that many have been given handheld devices for comfort since early childhood. Smartphones therefore become a barrier to them persevering with more challenging aspects of learning. I see this in schools every day.

On emotional resilience – For most young people, secondary school is a profoundly psychologically challenging environment. This is a good thing. Learning, making friends, one’s growing self awareness in a changing body can all feel excruciating at times. Students with SEN, mental health needs or contextual vulnerabilities feel these pressures even more. Secondary school is also the only time throughout most people’s life where they have the perfect opportunity to learn how to cope through the anxiety these experiences bring. It is a uniquely precious time.

When we allow young people to have smartphones outside of lessons, during unstructured social time such as lunch and break, we block these opportunities. Due to the presence of instant gratification and escapism in their pockets, young people are no longer sitting with social discomfort long enough to learn how to navigate it, they are systematically avoiding social anxiety by distracting themselves on their smartphone. Again, I see this in schools every day. They remain stuck in a cycle of avoidance, and it is breeding a culture of social ineptitude in our young people.

Children with SEN are especially vulnerable to this. No wonder school avoidance is soaring and we have growing numbers of NEET young adults (those not in education, employment or training). I am convinced that for a proportion of such young people, their “mental health difficulties” stem from entrenched avoidance patterns; compulsive avoidance that is being strengthened every time they are allowed to reach for their phones instead of working to tolerate anxiety. Allowing this escape route is robbing them of the opportunity to develop the emotional resilience needed to cope with the normal every day stressors at school and the workplace.

If we want young people to think deeply, learn bravely, and grow into emotionally resilient adults, we need to legislate for them to have six hours of peace every school day from their smartphones. These devices drain their cognitive stores, block crucial opportunities for development, undermine their capacity to cope, and allow them to escape the pain and joy that real life brings.

What about what children want?

A huge part of my job is spent asking young people what they want and need at school. They all say “a teacher who understands me, who listens to me, who takes what I want seriously, who is there if I need them.” When children have an accessible smartphone in their pocket throughout the school day, that becomes their “source of comfort”, an instant hit of distracting stimulation to escape from reality, and it is far easier and frictionless to distract themselves from their suffering with content on a smart phone, than seek out a relational experience with a human in real life. But every time they find a supportive adult in school who listens and understands them, that brave behaviour is reinforced and their sense of belonging at school strengthens, and their sense of self-efficacy to help themselves is strengthened, and they learn that humans are safe and can help them.

What about assistive technology?

Any assistive tech a child might need during school hours can and should be delivered through a school sanctioned device. Assistive tech has highly specific uses and its use should be closely monitored by a specialist teacher or educational psychologist. Giving children free rein of assistive tech on their own device is actively not encouraged until a developmentally appropriate time when they have learnt how and when it suits them. IT should scaffold learning and not replace key skills that they do have the potential to learn, so ideally in a lot of cases the goals is to reduce the child’s reliance on assistive tech over time, as they develop the skills the tech was originally supporting.

• Impact of smartphones on child and adolescent brain development.
• SPs at school prevent development of emotional resilience, deprive kids of critical social interactions.
• Struggling children/ SEND are most vulnerable.