UN culture and education body UNESCO said that at the end of 2024, 40 percent of global education systems had some sort of ban on smartphone use in schools, up from 30 percent a year earlier.
Rio’s municipal education secretary, Renan Ferreirinha, told AFP that officials had noticed children returning to classrooms after the Covid pandemic “more agitated, more impatient, more addicted to cell phones and much more anxious.”
A 2024 survey of parents by digital research company Opinion Box and mobile industry platform Mobile Time showed most Brazilian children got their first cellphone at an average of 10 years old.
While children under the age of three were spending almost an hour and a half a day on smartphones, this rose to almost four hours for those between 13 and 16.
A study carried out by the Rio de Janeiro municipality in September showed improvements in concentration, class participation and student performance since the school ban was implemented.
Ferreirinha, who is also a federal lawmaker, acted as rapporteur for the law which took the ban nationwide.
If moderating cellphone use “is difficult for an adult, imagine what it’s like for a child. It doesn’t make any sense for a teacher to be trying to teach a class while the child is watching a video on social media or playing a game on their phone,” he said.
On a recent school visit, one child told him they were back to playing like kids did “in the old days.”
‘Much happier’
