This new school year has been marked by a debate that isn't new, but has gained momentum: the ban on cell phones and other digital devices in the classroom. The Department of Education has taken a decisive step in this direction, arguing that it is necessary to protect children and young people from the obvious risks associated with screen use. However, the measure has polarized the debate: on the one hand, those who defend a total ban as the only guarantee of well-being; on the other, those who believe that schools should fully integrate digital technologies.
The reality is that digital education cannot be reduced to this all-or-nothing logic. When we talk about training children and adolescents in the use of technology, we are not dealing with a question of extremes, but rather a much more complex challenge. In this sense, the dilemma is false: digital education is not binary, but rather requires precision, pedagogical judgment, and sensitivity to context. In other words, surgical digital education is necessary.
It's true that a ban may offer a sense of control, but it's a mirage: removing cell phones from the classroom only shifts the problem outside of school, where support is weaker and adult role models are often lacking. They will continue to encounter screens, social media, and apps designed to capture their attention, but they will do so without pedagogical mediation. At the same time, uncritical acceptance of technology is not the solution either: integrating devices without educational purposes only adds noise, dispersion, and inequality. Digital education is not about digitizing analog routines or multiplying screens, but about incorporating them when they truly add value to learning.
Talking about digital surgical education means distinguishing between educational uses and indiscriminate uses. Working on a robotics or media literacy project with teacher-guided devices that allow free access to a smartphone staff with open social networks. It also means recognizing that not all school settings are the same: a city school with students from a diverse family background doesn't have the same needs as a school in a vulnerable environment. Therefore, regulations must be flexible and adaptable, built on dialogue between administration, teachers, and families.
Furthermore, surgical digital education requires training and shared responsibility. Teachers need resources to integrate technology meaningfully, and families, often overwhelmed, must receive guidance. Without this collaborative effort, restrictions are merely band-aids that don't address the root of the problem. And if the issue is equity, there are even more reasons to avoid simplistic solutions: bans can widen the digital divide, because children from wealthier families will continue to access devices, while others will be excluded. Digital equity doesn't mean the absence of technology, but rather ensuring that everyone has opportunities to develop digital and media skills.
In this sense, projects like mSchools, promoted in Catalonia, have demonstrated that it is possible to integrate technology into the classroom with pedagogical criteria and with a real impact on inclusion, creativity, and skills development. These internationally recognized experiences demonstrate that the key is not to prohibit it, but to offer frameworks and resources that ensure educational and equitable use of technology, especially in environments where family access is more limited. Public policies, therefore, must be based on evidence and not just immediate perceptions. Existing studies do not justify an absolute ban, but rather contextualized and intelligent regulation. The educational community has already demonstrated successful experiences, and we cannot allow them to be sidelined by simplistic messages.
Digital education is not a black-or-white dilemma, but rather a commitment to educating children for the real world, which is and will always be digital. This requires rigorous regulation, training for teachers and families, equity, and a coherent technology education policy that does not vary according to modes or pressures. Prohibition may seem like a quick fix, but it is a false solution. Ultimately, the challenge is to educate children and young people to live with digital technologies autonomously and responsibly, and in an ethical, critical, and healthy manner.
