The whole of Europe should follow Denmark’s lead by banning mobile phones from schools to stop them from being “colonised by digital platforms”, the chair of the country’s wellbeing commission has said.
Removing mobile phones from schools gave young people a “pause” from online life, teaching them how to be part of analogue communities and train their attention spans, said Rasmus Meyer, who led the government commission to investigate growing dissatisfaction among children and young people.
The commission’s report, published last month, raised the alarm over the digitalisation of the lives of children and young people. Among its 35 recommendations was a change in legislation to ban phones from schools and after-school clubs – which the government has said it will impose across all folkeskole (comprehensive primary and lower secondary schools). The commission also said children under 13 should not have their own smartphone or tablet.
In an interview with the Guardian, Meyer said all European countries should ban mobile phones in schools and called for EU regulation on it, adding: “And if we find out in five years that it was better with the phones, we can reintroduce them. But I don’t think that will be the case.”
Schools should be phone-free “to give young people a pause from online life, to teach them how to be in analogue communities and to train their attention ability … It’s also a way of guarding schools and respecting them as important institutions in our society that shouldn’t be colonised by these digital platforms.”
Children who were not allowed to have phones in schools had better attention spans, he said, and were better at playing with one another and were quieter during lessons.
Spending time together away from their phones at school, it is hoped, will help “train” children in how to be around their peers outside school.
“These developments have happened so fast that we, as a society, have been behind. This is our attempt to get ahead of the development and push back against this commercialised digitalisation of children’s lives,” Meyer said.
“You can see it as a pushback, or a way of guarding the childhood against technologies that have been proven to damage a lot of kids’ self-esteem and attention.”
The commission found that 94% of young people in Denmark had a social media profile before they turned 13 – despite that being the minimum age for many social media platforms – and that nine- to 14-year-olds spent an average of three hours a day on TikTok and YouTube.
Despite a clear connection between many of the problems affecting young children and young people – including with attention and self-esteem – many children in Denmark and across Europe are still permitted to take them into school.
Meyer said: “We wouldn’t allow kids to bring their PlayStation into the classroom, but that is what really happens on a daily basis when we allow them to bring in their phone.”
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Children’s safety online was often overlooked, he said. “It’s really shocking that we … accept that a lot of kids are spending 8-10 hours a day on their phones. We are very focused on their security in the physical world, but we have kind of given up online as parents and as a society.”
Skolen på Grundtvigsvej in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, has been mobile-free since 2018. The school’s headteacher, Helle Bjerg, said: “It’s very simple: you’re not allowed to have your phone on you during school hours. When you enter the school all phones are gathered and when the school day ends you are give your phone again.”
As a result, she said, children did not have their attention lured away by phones and they talked to one another more. But with much learning material digitalised, they still have issues with school computers.
At their after-school club, in a big house nearby, children are allowed to keep their phones on them but are discouraged from using them. A sign on the door tells children they are entering a mobile-free zone, urging them to “give yourself a good break from your mobile phone”. In slightly starker terms, it warns: “Mobiles aren’t going away, but friendship networks can.”
Standing at the kitchen counter surrounded by freshly baked buns, the school and club pedagogue Hjalte Petersen said mobile-free children played together more. “Many years ago, we had no rules about screens of any kinds, and many kids were just sitting on their own with their own telephone,” he said. “Many were just in their own world.”
Taking phones away encouraged interaction. “If you take the screen away, obviously you have to do something else to not get bored and play together.”
