Screens and classrooms: panic is not the way

Since France questioned the presence of mobile phones in classrooms in 2018, we've looked to it as a pioneering example of digital education. Last year, they piloted a "daily digital break" during school hours in more than 200 schools, and next year it will be extended to all students under 16. Mobile phones will not be allowed in any French classroom, nor in the UK.a studyfrom the University of Birmingham concludes that banning screen time alone does not improve children's well-being or increase academic performance, reducing daily screen time by only 30 minutes.

In contrast, we rarely discuss the French digital education strategy planned for the period 2023-2027, which incorporates interesting elements such as the promotion of free software. The Ministry of Education is promoting a digital infrastructure that puts data sovereignty, inclusion, and ethics at its core. It's not just about installing alternative systems like Linux or Nextcloud, but rather promoting a digital ecosystem that reinforces privacy, but also autonomy and collaboration. This alliance between public education and technological alternatives shows that it is possible to think big: create standards, create culture, create conditions. And it can be done with an ethical and local perspective. The shift in perspective involves stopping pointing at digital devices (whether mobile phones or whiteboards) and instead understanding that the companies that provide technology and software are also agents of socialization. They are not just the channel, but they shape the landscape, shape behaviors, and decide which values they amplify.

We obsessively focus on individual misuse, when in reality it's a problem of the market and technological design. We lack a courageous digital policy that challenges platforms, forcing them to offer healthier digital environments, to abandon the addictive logic of the attention economy, and to incorporate ethical and inclusive criteria into their tools. The goal is not only to protect children, but to train them as free, responsible digital citizens with the capacity to transform society.

And there's no need to start from scratch: here we have examples such as Linkat or Nodes (timidly adopted but promoted by the Generalitat), which could be combined with comprehensive solutions (more similar to the usual functionalities of Google, which predominates in more than 90% of Catalan centers, especially in the wake of forced digitalization). In 2021, a Digital Democracy pilot was launched in Barcelona (the result of a collaboration between Xnet and the City Council), but we're still stuck in the thick of things.

Committing to free software would not only transform education, but could open the door to a more equitable model of digital life. It's an example of what can happen when education stops reproducing molds and becomes a genuine space for growth, experimentation, and future-building. In this scenario, we can demand a committed private sector. Typically, misgivings about this alliance seek to distance classrooms from corporations that see them as a commercial opportunity. But let's imagine we can create a kind of laboratory for responsible and ethical digital leadership, where we can raise standards and generate regenerative incentives instead of extractive ones.

Last Monday, we learned about the responsible digitalization plan. Without surprises, but with disappointment at the missed opportunity. The Birmingham study itself, which questions the restrictive measures, is included in the expert group's report. Ignore that. They have also commissioned two evaluation reports (rigorously prepared by Ivalua) that capture the Catalan reality at the centers and review the scientific output of the impacts. However, the plan makes only cursory mention of objectives and samples collected, but does not include results or what recommendations are incorporated or why they are discarded.

We need courageous public policies that value scientific evidence over headlines and moral panic. It's not about pointing fingers and blaming individuals when market inertia overwhelms us. Nor can we give in to childhood as a justification for control: a key example is the debate over biometric age verification for accessing certain platforms. A use case that opens the door to justifying unprecedented levels of surveillance at any age. I am convinced that we deserve a more co-responsible and infinitely ambitious digitalization.