WASHINGTON (TND) — Many students in Norway are seeing better grades and improved health thanks to a cell phone ban in schools.

The Norwegian government has directed all schools to prohibit students from using smartphones and tablets to prioritize well-being and address the effects of the digital age on children's development, including declining reading abilities.

"When they come, they lock in their mobiles and when they leave, they can bring it," explained Norway's prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, during a recent interview.

They say that, you know, we start to play in the breaks. The girls say, you know, we take a shower after the gym, we are not afraid anymore to be photographed, and there’s a completely different social interaction.

A study of middle school students by Sara Abrahamsson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, found that the ban helped reduce girls' need to see a psychological specialist for mental health issues by almost 60%, and it helped improve their GPAs.

Also, girls experienced a 46% drop in bullying, and boys saw a 43% decrease.

Dr. Leigh Richardson, the CEO, of the Brain Performance Center in Dallas, is not surprised by the positive results.

"That affects your self-confidence, that affects your self-esteem," Richardson said of social media. "On a cognitive level too. So I think taking those phones out, and we're training with the phone, we're training our brain to react and hold attention for a much shorter period of time. Take those phones out of the picture. And then we're realizing Okay, I need to focus."

I see kids, they can text all day long, but to sit down and have a conversation is really hard, and I think those are life skills. And I think everything that we can do as a society to bring back personal life skills, we got to do it.

Jennifer Kelman, a mom and mental health expert with JustAnswer.com, already limits her twins' cell phone and social media use.

"What are we doing to them long term in terms of their ability to have face-to-face, eye contact, human interaction? Our children are going to go to job interviews or college interviews, and they're going to be so used to looking down but that interviewer wants to connect with them," she warned of overuse of cell phones. "Let's not be afraid to reduce device and social media use or the long-term benefit of our kids."

The old new adage if you won't say to someone's face, then you shouldn't say it through a device, a text message, or a snap, or any of the above. But unfortunately, people feel too free to just express themselves and say what they want without feeling the empathic response that one might have that this could harm another person.

She would like to see widespread school bans here in the U.S.

"We don't just hand our children drugs, yet we hand them a cell phone, free rein, and it does the same things to the brain as drugs do but we don't think of limiting it. Even when we see the harmful effects," she continued. "I would say that we should do a better job managing our FOMO fear of missing out and put some limits and controls on things so that our kids aren't suffering."

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 77% of U.S. schools prohibit cell phones for non-academic use. Still, advocates are calling for cell phone bans during the entire school day, just like in Norway.

ncG1vNJzZmivmpawtcKNnKamZ56axLR7zZqroqeeYsSwvsudZqenoqyuur%2BMrJqhp5%2BheqSxy6VkqaCfo7JursCnZJunn6jBtHnSraydnZ6peqi%2BwJ2crGWYmq6twMdmpKiclaF6tr%2BMrJqhp5%2BhwG68wKucp6yjYrCptcudqZ6mXZmyt7HLqKemnZ6perOxwJ2gp59dlq%2BquMitoJ6rXaKyr8DApWShnZGhwal5x66kmqZdmLyvwMCcq2aon6G2pMU%3D