Korea may join growing list of countries restricting student phone use
Korea may soon join a growing list of countries moving to ban mobile phones in classrooms, as the policy idea is gaining increasing support from teachers, parents and politicians here.
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| Students walk while looking at their mobile phones near a middle school in Seoul in this 2022 file photo. A bill has been proposed to restrict the use of mobile phones in schools. (Source: Newsis) |
According to lawmakers and education administrators on Sunday, Rep. Cho Jung-hun and 10 other lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party are pushing for a countrywide ban on the use of phones and other smart devices in schools to protect the mental health of students.
“Many countries, including the United States and France, are trying to restrict phone use through legislation as social media addiction becomes a serious problem. This is also true in Korea, where 25 percent of children aged between 3 and 9 and 40.1 percent of those aged between 10 and 19 were found to be overly dependent on smartphones,” they said, explaining the reason for proposing the bill. “To protect their mental health, we are proposing to restrict the use of smart devices in schools unless permitted for educational or emergency purposes.”
Rights activists supported allowing students to use phones during school hours, viewing restrictions as an excessive infringement of students’ rights by the government.
However, last month, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea dismissed a petition accusing school administrators of violating students’ rights by restricting phone use during school hours. This marked a shift in the organization's stance, as it had consistently ruled in favor of petitioners in 300 such cases over the past decade.
The decision is in line with education authorities in many European nations and American states, which have been trying to crack down on rampant student cellphone use, which studies show can negatively impact the mental and cognitive well-being of young people.
Addiction and distraction are not the only issues causing concern. In many cases, students were also found to have used the functions of their phones to bully or sexually exploit their peers. Just last month, police said four students at a middle school in Namyangju were being investigated for allegedly creating or possessing deepfake images of female students.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, 70 percent of schools in the capital allow students to use phones in classrooms. Without any national law specifically restricting the use, the issue is currently governed largely by the rules of individual schools.
However, political pressure for enacting such a law has been growing in recent years, with phone use becoming a growing concern for many parents. In a joint statement issued last month, organizations advocating the rights of teachers and parents of students called for legislation, saying many students “are lost in the waves of social media and smartphones.”
According to a poll released last week by Macromill Embrain, a pollster, 69 percent of the parents of underage students said they would support the idea of restricting student phone use in schools, compared with just 12.6 percent expressing opposition.
(Source: Korea Times)
