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.

The history of the omnipresence of screens in the classroom has a more or less direct origin in the Council of Europe recommendation number 1836 made public in 2008. According to the authors of the document, although the tools ofe-learning (the expression has already been passed down) had had a considerable impact on education and training, their potential in Europe had not yet been fully exploited.e-learning encompassed electronic media for teaching and learning, both in person and remotelyIt placed new demands on educational institutions, teachers, and students. Institutions needed technical infrastructure and software. Teachers had to receive specific mandatory training, while students had to have access to devices and materials and be trained in their use from a young age. It was believed at the time that educational resources accessible to everyone would be generated, thus combating social division. Parliaments were called upon to support the "open source" movement and to combat the supposed digital divide. In short, Member States were invited to improve technologies that could be applied to education through major investments. One of the first countries to enthusiastically embrace the recommendation was Sweden. However, it was also the first to abandon it in 2023 after observing its worrying (and verifiable) results. The Swedish government, and more specifically Minister Lotta Edholm, halted all this after learning of multiple reports comparing groups that worked with screens and others that worked with books. Academic performance was significantly lower in the case of the former, especially in memory capacity, concentration, attention, and reading comprehension.

Total siege of cell phones in the classroom. This Friday, the Regional Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, announced that next school year, cell phones and smart watches will have to be completely eliminated—and therefore banned—at all stages of compulsory education. No student will be allowed to use a cell phone at school or in high school.