Rest of Europe should follow Denmark’s lead in banning phones in schools, says expert | Denmark

The head of the country’s luxury committee said that entire Europe should follow Denmark’s progress by banning mobile phones from schools to prevent them from “colonizing them by digital platforms.”

Rasmos Mayer, who led the government committee to investigate the increasing dissatisfaction between children and youth, said that removing mobile phones from schools gave young people “temporarily” from life via the Internet, teaching them how to be part of the analog societies and training their attention.

The committee’s report, which was published last month, sparked a warning regarding the digitization of the lives of children and youth. Of the 35 recommendations It was a change in legislation to ban phones from schools and post-school clubs-which the government said would impose throughout all Volkscol (Comprehensive primary and secondary schools). The committee also said that children under the age of 13 should not have a smartphone or a tablet.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mayer said that all European countries should prohibit mobile phones in schools and have called for the European Union to organize them, adding: “And if we discover within five years that he was better with phones, we can re -introduce them. But I do not think this will be the case.”

Schools must be free from the phone “to give young people to stop life online, to teach them how to be in symmetrical societies and train their ability to pay attention … It is also a way to guard schools and respect them as important institutions in our society that these digital platforms should not be built.”

He said that children who were not allowed to have phones in schools were better on a better attention, and they were better playing with each other and were quieter during lessons.

Spending time together from their phones in school, in hope, will help “train children” how to be around their peers outside the school.

“These developments have occurred so quickly that, as a society, we have been late. This is our attempt to progress and retreat against this digitization recorded for children’s lives.”

“You can see it as a reaction, or a way to guard the childhood against techniques that have been proven harmful to a lot of self -esteem and the attention of children.”

The committee found that 94 % of young people in Denmark have a profile for social media before they were 13 years old-despite being the minimum age for many social media platforms-and that children between the ages of nine to 14 spent on average three hours a day on Tiktok and YouTube.

Despite the clear relationship between many problems that affect young children and youth-including attention and self-esteem-many children in Denmark and through Europe are still allowed to transfer them to school.

“We will not allow children to bring PlayStation to the semester, but this is what is already happening on a daily basis when we allow them to bring their phones,” Mayer said.

He said that the safety of children was often overlooked. “It is really horrific that … we accept that many children spend 8-10 hours a day on their phones. We are focusing strongly on their security in the material world, but we surrendered online as fathers and society.”

Skolen På Grundtvigsvej in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, has been free of mobile devices since 2018. When you enter school, all phones are collected, and when the school day ends, you give your phone again. “

As a result, she said, children did not take their interest in phones and spoke to each other. But with a lot of digital educational materials, they still have problems with school computers.

In their club after school, in a large house nearby, children are allowed to keep them on their phones but they are frustrated by using them. The children’s sign tells that they are entering an area free of mobile devices, and urged them to “give yourself a good break from your mobile phone.” With warning, he warns: “Mobile phones do not disappear, but friendship networks can.”

Schools and Petagog Petersen, which stands at the kitchen table and surrounded by fresh cakes, stands children with mobile devices. He said: “For many years, we had no rules about screens of any types, and many children were sitting alone with their own phone.” “Many were only in their world.”

The phones were encouraged by the interaction. “If you take the screen away, it is clear that you have to do something else so that you don’t get bored and play together.”