‘Going back in time’: the schools across Europe banning mobile phones

Six years ago, as officials at the Netherlands’ Calvijn College began considering whether to ban phones from their schools, the idea left some students aghast.

“We were asked whether we thought we were living in the 1800s,” said Jan Bakker, the chair of the college, whose students range in age from 12 to 18 years.

While the majority backed the idea, about 20% of the parents, teachers and students surveyed were staunchly opposed. Some were parents who worried about not being able to get hold of their children during the day, while a handful of teachers argued it would be better to embrace new technologies rather than shun them.

Still, school officials pushed forward. “Walking through the corridors and the school yard, you would see all the children were on their smartphones. Conversations were missing, the table tennis tables were empty,” said Bakker. “Basically we were losing the social culture.”

Four years after Calvijn College became one of the first schools in the Netherlands to go smartphone-free, it’s no longer an outlier. As students head back into classrooms across mainland Europe, a growing number of them will be forced to leave their mobile phones behind; In France, 200 secondary schools are testing a ban while French-speaking primary schools in Wallonia and Brussels, in Belgium, have moved forward with their own prohibitions. In Hungary, a new decree requires schools to collect students’ phones and smart devices at the start of the day.

Italy and Greece have adopted milder approaches, allowing students to carry their phones with them through the day but barring their use in classrooms.

For those at Calvijn College, the sweeping tide of change is thrilling. From the moment they began requiring students to either leave their phones at home or lock them up for the day, school officials watched as the culture of the school transformed.

“Basically what we had lost, we got back,” said Bakker. “The students playing with each other and talking to each other. And a lot less interruptions in the lessons.”

Other schools across the country began getting in touch, curious about the impact of the ban. In January 2024, the Dutch government entered the debate, urging schools to ban mobile phones, tablets and smartwatches from most secondary school classrooms across the country, The recommendation was recently extended to primary schools.

Late last year, as secondary schools across the Netherlands geared up to follow the recommendations, researchers at Radboud University seized on the chance to take a before and after snapshot of the change.

They polled hundreds of students and parents, as well as dozens of teachers, at two schools with imminent plans to do away with mobile phones on school premises, visiting the schools again three months after the ban was enacted.

About 20% of students reported that they were less distracted once smartphones were off limits, said Loes Pouwels, one of the researchers, while teachers described students as being more attentive and focused on their work in class. “So I think in terms of cognitive functioning, overall it was a positive thing.”

Many students also reported more real-life social interactions and that the quality of these interactions had improved. They also found a reduction in cyberbullying as students were offline more of the time.

Three months after the ban, however, not all students had embraced the idea. About 40% said that going phone-free had allowed them to better enjoy their breaks while 37% said they missed their phones. “I am forced to socialise when I’m not in the mood, which is often,” one respondent told researchers.

At Calvijn College, officials have little doubt that the ban has been positive. When it was first rolled out, there had been talk of eventually allowing older students to incorporate phones back into their school day.

The idea was dropped after the changes they observed, said Bakker. “That discussion is gone. Nobody is talking about that.”

Instead it has been replaced with a quiet pride that, when it comes to smartphones in classrooms, the school has been well ahead of the curve. “We went through a time when people were saying that we weren’t a modern school, that we were going back in time,” said Bakker.

Nowadays it’s the opposite, he added. “It feels like a nice confirmation that the trouble we went through was not for nothing.”