"For" or "against" mobile phones - an open question in Bulgarian schools

A few days before the start of the new 2024-2025 school year, the idea of a complete ban on mobile phones in school is emerging in public space. The main reasons for such a decision are the low success rate in school, the absent-mindedness of students and, above all, the harmful consequences of mobile devices on children's psyche and increasing aggression. By the way, according to the current law on school education, the use of mobile phones in class is not allowed, but this requirement is largely not observed by pupils. Therefore, the only thing that could tear teenagers away from their "favorite devices", at least while they are in school, is to ban them.

Some schools in Bulgaria that have already taken a similar decision at the local level report positive results - aggression between children has decreased and they have started to communicate with each other instead of staring at their devices. Teachers in these schools have noticed that students even started playing forgotten games from the recent past. Good examples in this direction also come from some European countries, such as France and Italy, where there are also positive results from the ban on mobile phones in schools.

France, for example, already in 2018 banned smartphones by law for students up to the age of 14, and from the current school year will introduce a complete "digital break" in about 200 schools for students up to the age of 15. And if the experiment proves successful, it could be rolled out across the country from January 2025.

The Netherlands is also bringing the ban, which until now applied to secondary schools, to national level because there, too, the conclusions of education experts are that mobile phones distract students and reduce their ability to concentrate.

Spain is another country that is implementing strict rules on the use of tablets and smartphones in school. More and more parents there are uniting around the introduction of a declaration, with which parents commit themselves not to buy a phone for their child until they reach the age of 16.

However, there are not a few opponents of this idea who believe that banning phones in schools will make things worse. According to Antoaneta Vasileva from the Safe Internet Center and from the Parents Association, children will find a way to overcome the ban, so it is better to collect the devices at the beginning of the lesson. According to Vasileva, this is a way for children to learn to measure themselves and how far their limits go, besides, phones sometimes have to be used in the learning process. In this direction, there are also positive examples from educational practice. There are teachers who use smartphones when they want to reach older students and get them to read certain texts.

The question is what is the measure and where should the limits be set, because psychologists and medical professionals are adamant that the devices lead to addictions. Their effects are the same as narcotic substances. Experts routinely warn that video games cause a dopamine surge comparable to that of amphetamines and other substances. Namely, the stimulation of dopamine leads to addiction.

In games, which are the main motivation for the little ones to own a phone, the drive to score points and progress through game levels keeps the player's dopamine neurons firing. Released under the influence of a promise of reward, dopamine makes children more susceptible to the temptations of the screen. This is also the reason why they stand as if chained to it, and any parental intervention leads to nervous outbursts and even aggression on the part of the children, who seem to lose a real idea of reality. Only then do parents begin to wonder whether this process is an incredible entertainment for their children, or a deliberate commercial manipulation of the creators of computer games. It depends on the point of view, doesn't it? But it is a fact that more and more parents in Bulgaria and around the world face this problem, usually when it is too late and their children fall into an unstoppable nervous crisis, similar to that of drug addicts.

Already addicted to devices and games, "screen children" do not control their emotions, isolate themselves and communicate with their parents and peers with increasing difficulty. And in Bulgaria, this problem is becoming more and more tangible, because among society there are still notions that children become smarter by playing with smartphones from a young age. And if parents are under the influence of modern technology, their children also perceive this habit as completely normal. Therefore, the resistance to the removal of devices from schools in Bulgaria is unlikely to subside until an actual expert analysis of the benefits and harms of digital technologies is done.

Read also:

Handbook for parents: How to send the Generation Alpha first graders off to school

Photos: Pixabay, Pexels, National Center for Safe Internet, Tanya Milusheva

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"For" or "against" mobile phones - an open question in Bulgarian schools

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