Preventing Game Addiction in Children, China Bans Cell Phone Use in Schools

GAMEFINITY.ID, Jakarta – Chinese authorities have banned the use of cell phones in schools. The local Ministry of Education (MoE) said the ban applies to primary and secondary schools, and is designed to crack down on “internet and gaming addictions” to help students focus their attention on studies.

As reported by the South China Morining Post, Wednesday (3/2/2021) a student needs parental consent, along with written permission from the school, before the student is allowed to bring his/her device to school. However, all calls must be collected during school hours, the ministry said on its website.

The directive is aimed at “protecting students’ eyesight, keeping them focused on learning and preventing them from becoming addicted to the internet and games”. The additional objective of this policy is to “improve the physical and psychological development of students”.

In 2021, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center, as many as 175 million internet users were children under the age of 18. As many as 74 percent reported having their own mobile device. The report found that mobile users in this group mostly use their devices for online learning, listening to music, and playing games.

The ministry announced that teachers will be prohibited from giving homework via mobile phones or asking students to complete homework using mobile phones. This practice had previously been popular among schools in recent years.

Schools were ordered to provide more pay phones and find other ways to talk to parents without relying on cell phones. The debate over smartphone use in Chinese schools has raged in recent years, in response to widespread concerns about young people’s addiction to their devices.

Liu Yanping, principal of the Beijing National Day School’s First Branch School, said the policy would be unwise to take a “one size fits all” approach. Liu argues that while banning elementary school children from bringing cell phones to school could help improve discipline, older students should also be encouraged to exercise with their parents so they can spend time apart from their devices.

“You can’t just cut them off from the internet in the digital age,” Liu said. He said to address the problem of visual impairment and game addiction problems, the authorities should reduce the academic burden of students so that they have more free time to exercise. “Smartphones are not the main thing to blame,” he added.

Wu Hong, a researcher at Dett, an educational analyst agency based in Chongqing, agrees with Liu’s statement. According to him ordering young people to stop using mobile devices is unrealistic to solve the problem.

“Instead of banning it, schools should spend more time developing children’s ability to self-regulate, by teaching them to distinguish between the real world and the virtual world; between good and bad,” said Wu.

Even so, the ministry’s move is supported by the results of the thecover.cn survey published on Weibo (China’s version of Twitter). As many as 54 percent of the approximately 1,900 respondents said they believe that school children do not need to bring cell phones to school. More than a quarter want more flexible policies, with 20 percent saying cell phones should be allowed in schools.

The use of cell phones in schools has sparked debate not only in China. In 2021, France passed a law prohibiting the use of cell phones in school areas by children under the age of 15. Meanwhile in Greece, the use of mobile phones in kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools has also been banned.