The trend of banning mobile phones in schools has been spreading over the last two years. In fact, groups of parents in Barcelona promote that instead of giving their children a mobile phone at the age of 12 (when they start ESO), as is usually done in many cases, they do not have access to it until they are 16.
The reasons for restricting the device are that it absorbs attention for hours and hours, which isolates the user from real life, from other activities, from verbal communication. The mobile phone is also blamed, among other things, for making it difficult to manage waiting or uncertainty and for nurturing anxiety (although there are teenagers who say they see it as an escape or a refuge).
The Californian organization Common Sense, which studies the impact of technology on children, has analyzed that teenagers spend an average of at least 4.5 hours on their mobile phones, although some, up to 16 hours a day! . And they receive 237 daily notifications on their device, 23% during school hours.
The concern of families and teachers is well founded. In schools, the telephone is one of the biggest sources of problems and exhausts teachers. For years, many centers have applied cell phone restriction policies, although there is great diversity and the trends of banning or allowing it fluctuate according to the years. Where it has been banned, there has been, in general, an increase in attention and performance in class, less cyberbullying, fewer videos are recorded and uploaded of teachers, of fights between students, of stupid challenges.
It is good that there are spaces or time free of mobile phones in the lives of minors (and adults). And they can be the class or the schoolyard. But there are experts who warn that banning mobile phones in school is not the solution. Perhaps it is better to integrate it into certain activities or times. Because, if the mobile phone (and screens, technology) is part of our lives, is it realistic to educate apart from it, to want an educational center like before it was invented?. And isn't the educational framework the ideal (although not the only one) to also teach how to use technology responsibly, usefully, with a critical sense?.
In addition, it is necessary to tune the performance in school and outside it. It may be that school hours without cell phones reduce addiction, or it may, on the contrary, cause all use to be concentrated at home, with its negative effects on family relationships and study hours and of sleep
