Distracted driving is one of the major factors leading drivers to ignore potential road hazards. In response to the challenges of high computational complexity, limited generalization capacity, and suboptimal detection accuracy in existing deep learning-based detection algorithms, this paper introduces a novel approach called StarDL-YOLO (StarNet-detectlscd-yolo), which leverages an enhanced version of YOLOv8n. Initially, the StarNet integrated into the backbone of YOLOv8n significantly improves the feature extraction capability of the model with remarkable reduction in computational complexity. Subsequently, the Star Block is incorporated into the neck network, forming a C2f-Star module that offers lower computational cost. Additionally, shared convolution is introduced in the detection head to further reduce computational burden and parameter size. Finally, the Wise-Focaler-MPDIoU loss function is proposed to strengthen detection accuracy. The experimental results demonstrate that StarDL-YOLO significantly improves the efficiency of the distracted driving behavior detection, achieving an accuracy of 99.6% on the StateFarm dataset. Moreover, the parameter count of the model is minimized by 56.4%, and its computational load is decreased by 45.1%. Additionally, generalization experiments are performed on the 100-Driver dataset, revealing that the proposed scheme enhances generalization effectiveness compared to YOLOv8n. Therefore, this algorithm significantly reduces computational load while maintaining high reliability and generalization capability.