Goodbye smartphone, hello better focus
More focus, fewer distractions, and actual face-to-face conversation: Dutch schools are reporting early success after banning smartphones from classrooms.
A year after national guidelines encouraged the move, nearly all schools have complied, with two-thirds asking pupils to leave phones at home or in lockers. A government-commissioned study found that students are not only concentrating better (75% of secondary schools said so), but also more socially engaged.
”Now they're forced to talk,” said researcher Alexander Krepel, noting a rise in social safety and a drop in sneaky photo-sharing. Even school fights, he added, are signs that kids are finally interacting again. Initial pushback from parents and students has faded.
”Everyone is pretty happy,” said Freya Sixma of the national secondary school council. With 96% of Dutch children online daily, the move is part of a wider push by the government to rein in screen time and reassert the classroom as a phone-free zone.
Admittedly, I was sceptical at first – I'm chronically online myself, and banning smartphones felt a bit reactionary, like another adult panic over tech that kids often use more fluently than the adults enforcing the rules. But these results make me feel hopeful.
If the ban is helping students focus, feel safer, and actually talk to each other, that's no small thing. I grew up in the Netherlands playing outside, not glued to a screen. That world feels far away now. If this policy is giving kids even a sliver of that kind of childhood back, including the playground arguments, I'm all for it.