Playgrounds come alive again, grades improve following Brazil's phone ban

RIO DE JANEIRO — In Rio de Janeiro, schoolchildren are playing again "like in the old days", and their focus in class has improved after a school cellphone ban pioneered in the city that has now gone nationwide.

Students across the country of more than 200 million people are starting the school year with phones banned from classes and break time after a new law signed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last month.

Brazil, which has more smartphones than people, joins a growing number of nations using such bans to pry devices from the hands of children hooked on social media.

"It was difficult because we get addicted, and ... it ends up causing a certain withdrawal ... but after the habit passes, we interact more," said Kamilly Marques, 14.

A student at the Reverend Martin Luther King public school in Rio de Janeiro, Marques told AFP she did not even bother bringing her phone to school anymore, a year after the city first implemented the ban.

She said that while she first thought the ban was "annoying "and "boring", she is happier with her improved grades and social life.

UNESCO said that at the end of last year, 40 percent of global education systems had some sort of ban on smartphone use in schools, up from 30 percent a year earlier.

Rio's municipal education secretary, Renan Ferreirinha, told AFP that officials had noticed children returning to classrooms after the pandemic "more agitated, more impatient, more addicted to cellphones and much more anxious".

A 2024 survey of parents by Opinion Box and Mobile Time showed most Brazilian children got their first cellphone at an average age of 10.

While children under the age of 3 were spending almost an hour and a half a day on smartphones, this rose to almost four hours for those between 13 and 16.

A study carried out by the Rio de Janeiro municipality in September showed improvements in concentration, class participation, and student performance since the ban was implemented.

Ferreirinha, who is also a federal lawmaker, acted as rapporteur for the law that took the ban nationwide.

If moderating cellphone use "is difficult for an adult, imagine what it's like for a child", he said. "It doesn't make any sense for a teacher to be trying to teach a class while the child is watching a video on social media or playing a game on their phone."

On a recent school visit, one child told him they were back to playing like kids did "in the old days".

Fernanda Heitor, deputy director of the Reverend Martin Luther King school, said classes had become unsustainable before the ban.

"They didn't interact, there wasn't much play, they didn't talk. Now they play … It's transformed the school. It's become much happier, much more lively," she said.

Agencies Via Xinhua