Nordic country is latest to act amid evidence of impact on young people, including attention and self-esteem
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250430152256/https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/30/finland-restricts-use-of-mobile-phones-during-school-day
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Good. Ban them for under 16s outside of school too
That’s an issue for the parents.
Absolutely not
Why not?
It’s not possible to participate in society without a phone
It’s not a good thing to stunt the development of people we expect to depend on phones one day.
It’s good to ban them during class because they’re a distraction. But human beings need phones to live in this world.
Phones =/= bad, that’s lazy boomer logic
Why not just give them feature phones? Things that you can communicate with but which don’t have social media on them? If you need to access a website, just do it at home on a laptop or something. It’s important for kids to be able to experience being a kid before we thrust a digital life on them
Kids are online because interaction in person has become increasingly difficult. School should probably only take up half or less of the current amount of time it does, of course kids are going to be doomscrolling while waiting out the clock to go home like we do at work.
We can give them dumb phones, if we also close off most roads so no cars are allowed on them, and stop assigning homework, and stop treating school like a day care prison, and allow loitering.
All the things that enabled kids to be kids instead of miniature adults before we started blaming phones for these problems.
That would be great, for children to foster a sense of freedom, independence, community, and belonging in their society before becoming adults. Because most adults can’t even do that these days.
But I don’t think we are ready for having the real conversations of fixing schools.
Sure, fix schools, too. But phones are their own specific problem and we should ban smartphones for kids under 16. They are bad for kids