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| Imane Belaroussi, from left, Grace Blahourou and Zoélinh Masson on their phones after school in Paris.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times |
PARIS — The eighth-grade girls already know what to expect from France’s new smartphone ban in all primary and middle schools because their school voluntarily instituted one last year.
“Annoying,” was the assessment
of Zoélinh Masson, 12, as her friend Grace Blahourou, 13, agreed.
Still, they said that with no
smartphones, students talked to one another more.
France’s education ministry
hopes that its smartphone ban, which took effect at the beginning of September
and applies to students from first through ninth grades, will get
schoolchildren to pay more attention in class and interact more. The new law will apply to the entire school grounds,
including the schoolyard. The only exception is when smartphones’ use is
assigned by a teacher.
Some experts are skeptical
that the ban can be enforced, and some teachers question the merits of
insulating children from the internet-dominated world they will face outside
school. But the French government believes that without minimizing distractions,
children will never learn the basics.
“If we want to prepare children in the 21st
century, we must give them the tools of modernity: mastery of math, of general
culture, the ability to flourish in social relationships, a capacity to discuss
with others, to understand and respect others and then very strong digital
skills,” said Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.
“It’s a message we send to
society: Do not always be on your phones.”
The problems with smartphone
use are well known. Students’ insecurity can rise as they constantly worry
about keeping up with “likes” and “shares” on social media. Teachers worry
about cyberbullying and abusive practical jokes like photographing classmates
from under the bathroom door and then posting the images online.
Few parents have objected to
the ban. The law, a campaign promise of President Emmanuel Macron, flew through
the legislature this summer with strong support from parents and many teachers.
Under the new law, students
can bring their phones to school but must keep them out of sight in their
school bags or lockers. If they are caught using them, the phones can be
confiscated for a day.
David Scellier, who teaches
French language and literature at a school in a Paris suburb, said that he
doubted the law would be an effective “answer to the addiction problem,” and
that responsibility was being put in the wrong place.
“Who buys the phones for the children?” he
said. “Who doesn’t give them a framework and set limits on using them? Parents.
But everyone blames the school, which is very typical in France: School should
be responsible for all the children’s problems.”
For sociologists and
scientists in France who study attention spans and the digital culture,
removing smartphones from school makes sense even if it does not fully address
the difficulty of managing the siren call of social networks.
“It’s a culture of
presentism,” Monique Dagnaud, a researcher at the government-run National
Center for Scientific Research, said of social media. “It creates a rapport
with the world that is very immediate, very visual, fun.”
“The culture of the internet
is of immediate pleasure,” she added — the inverse of school, which is about
delayed gratification.
Smartphone use sets off the
production of dopamine — “the same system that is implicated in
addictions and drugs,” said Jean-Philippe Lachaux, a neuroscientist at the
National Institute for Health and Medical Research.
“The problem with the
telephone is that it reduces all sensation to what you see and the body
disappears,” he said. “The world is very much reduced.”
That makes the smartphone ban
all the more important, he said, so that children “open up to the rest of the
world” for at least a few hours a day.
