Starting in September, Hungary will be the latest in a growing number of countries trying to address the general, global decline of school students’ academic performance by banning smartphone use during school hours. The new Hungarian law on prohibited items in schools was approved by the parliament back in June, but the details of the bill were published by the government only last Thursday, August 8th.
According to the new rules, Hungarian students will be allowed to bring their smartphones and other smart devices to their schools, but will be obliged to hand them over to an appointed employee at the start of each school day and later gather them before leaving the premises. By law, the devices are to be kept locked away in a designated space during school hours.
The regulation will apply to all educational institutions and to students of all grades, while also covering the optional after-school programs that take place in the same buildings. Tablet and notebook computers may be used in classrooms just like before, but strictly for educational purposes—and with the teacher’s permission.
According to the government, the primary aim of the legislation is to raise children’s overall performance, acting on the findings of numerous international studies—as well as limiting the harmful effects of spending too much time on social media at a young age. Alleged harms include reduced (offline) social interactions between students and the increasing prevalence of cyber-bullying.
Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian PM’s political director, posted on X:
Jonathan Haidt, tagged by Orbán, recently published The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, a book that argues that the rise of smartphones and overprotective parenting have led to a “rewiring” of childhood and a rise in mental illness.
Back in June—when the Hungarian Parliament adopted the law—MEP István Hollik from the ruling Fidesz party said:
As a father, I see that one of the most challenging issues in raising children is regulating the use of gadgets at home. We have strict rules at home to protect our children, so I deeply agree that school mobile phone use should also be restricted, as children spend most of their time there.
With fewer distractions for children, academic performance will improve, and there will be less online bullying.
Children will benefit greatly from building real, human relationships rather than virtual ones, Hollik added.
Hungary is not the first country to implement a smartphone ban in schools. In fact, a quarter of all countries globally deploy the same or similar bans. Although the majority of them are located in Asia, several EU countries have also banned smartphones in schools, while many more states are now discussing the policy.
In Europe to date, smartphones have been banned in French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, most Belgian, and many Spanish schools. Germany allows each school to decide for itself, but there have been growing calls for a nationwide ban since 2022. The UK also implemented similar rules not long ago, although so far it’s only ‘guidance’ to schools and not binding legislation.
The number of countries banning smartphones in schools is only expected to grow in the coming years, as governments slowly answer the UN’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) call to do so, released together with its 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report.
The report found that even the physical proximity of a smart device can distract students, with a single notification enough for them to need about 20 minutes to refocus on the task at hand properly. Removing phones from the classroom, in contrast, was found to improve students’ performances in every country where it had been studied.
Furthermore, UNESCO’s report also raises red flags about the data privacy, safety, and well-being of kids constantly exposed to smartphones. The same is true even about popular e-learning tools which the organization strongly advises against, as 89% of 163 educational technology products recommended for schools during the pandemic could be used to survey students, infringing on children’s privacy and data protection rights.
