Are screens making it harder for students to learn? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service

0:00 I like to suggest to use paper books, particularly in school,

0:04 because it's very important for students to have a chance

0:08 to do a kind of critical thinking without digital devices.

0:12 If my school decided to get rid of laptops

0:14 and go back to books and pens and paper only, I think I would feel very limited.

0:21 We've all heard stories of five or six year

0:23 olds trying to zoom or tap pages on books,

0:26 or shouting at a radio and asking it to play their favourite song.

0:29 And part of this is because of the amount of time they spend on screens,

0:33 both at home and at schools.

0:34 Because in schools, laptops, iPads,

0:37 smart screens have now become part of the curriculum,

0:40 and in some countries they are worried about

0:43 the effects that this is having on education.

0:46 And in Sweden, they have decided to move away

0:49 from screens altogether and back to textbooks, pens and paper.

0:52 So will this plan get students reading more?

0:55 Or could it have an adverse effect and leave them

0:57 less well prepared for the tech heavy world after school?

1:00 I'm Hannah and that's what we're going to be talking about

1:03 today on What in the World from the BBC World Service.

1:11 To break this down for us, I'm speaking to Maddy Savage,

1:13 who's a BBC journalist based in Stockholm.

1:15 Hey, Maddie.

1:16 How's it going?

1:17 Hiya.

1:17 I'm good, thank you.

1:18 So Sweden has this reputation as one of Europe's most tech savvy societies,

1:23 and a lot of that has been because of tech in schools.

1:26 And now they're changing tact.

1:28 Can you talk me through the reasons behind that?

1:30 Yeah.

1:30 So basically Sweden's a place that went all in on technology.

1:34 So from the 2010s it was really normal- If you were at school,

1:37 you'd have access to your own laptop or tablet through your school.

1:41 But now Sweden wants to roll back on that, to make textbooks,

1:45 books and pens the priority in classrooms.

1:48 And basically it's because of falling literacy levels.

1:51 So students, their reading skills aren't as good as they used to be.

1:55 And Sweden's falling down international surveys,

1:58 it's very hard to know whether there is a cause and effect,

2:01 but the government definitely wants to try this out

2:04 and move away from using laptops and back towards using books,

2:08 but still using laptops some of the time.

2:11 It does sound like it could be quite a big change for students.

2:13 And I know you've been speaking to some, what have they told you?

2:16 So, I've been speaking to students in high schools

2:20 and they said they've started to notice the shift,

2:23 perhaps not as much as the younger years,

2:25 where I think they're now trying to start

2:27 them out without access to these screens as much.

2:30 But what they said is, oh, our bags are a bit heavier.

2:33 We're taking home more books now and we're using more pens and paper.

2:36 But the students I spoke to had kind of different

2:39 opinions on whether this is a good thing or not.

2:42 Here's Alexios and Sophie, who I chatted to.

2:45 We are kind of the first generation to use technology this much,

2:49 so our generation use it a lot.

2:51 I use it a lot in my old schools,

2:53 and I don't want the same thing for my siblings,

2:56 mostly because the internet has kind of taken over the younger

3:02 generations and I've noticed them kind of lose focus easier.

3:06 So I don't think an iPad or computer would really help.

3:10 I think that computers should be introduced to first years in school,

3:15 so when you're about six years old,

3:17 because I believe that there is a need to develop a habit with computers so

3:21 that the children can understand that they could be

3:24 a tool for education and not only for fun.

3:28 We've also been hearing from students around the world about how

3:31 they would feel if something similar was introduced in their school.

3:34 Hello, my name is Yoo Jin and I'm currently living in South Korea.

3:38 I personally believe in the power and potential of paper learning,

3:42 because I think it's much more based on actual experience using

3:46 our hands or our eyes or every part of our body.

3:50 I like to suggest to use paper books, particularly in school,

3:55 because it's very important for students to have a chance

3:58 to do a kind of critical thinking without digital devices.

4:03 And it's also very important for them to secure their own spaces to be creative.

4:10 Hi, my name is Lihle Ngcobo, I am from South Africa.

4:13 Honestly, if my school decided to get rid of laptops

4:17 and go back to books and pens and paper only, I think I would feel very limited.

4:23 I'm too used to technology now,

4:26 and traditional learning methods are still important,

4:29 yes, but technology makes learning more effective

4:31 and makes it more flexible and interactive.

4:34 I think having both technology and books is also the best to banning.

4:40 And Maddy, we also asked a teacher what they think about this.

4:42 I am a math tutor in an academy in Doyen Academy Enugu.

4:46 You know, without screens,

4:48 students tend to concentrate much longer, hand written notes,

4:54 reading physical books and face to face

4:58 discussion boost retention and critical thinking.

5:02 Improved health is also another benefit to consider.

5:07 Less of screen fatigue.

5:09 It also helps with eye strain, sleep issues.

5:14 They come from six plus hours of screen time.

5:18 So Maddy, what are the benefits of this approach

5:20 of going back to textbooks, pens and paper?

5:22 And is there any evidence that it might actually

5:25 help these falling literacy rates and help education more generally?

5:29 Yeah.

5:29 So this is quite a complex topic.

5:31 So I spoke to a brain researcher who's

5:33 done a big overview of some of the research,

5:35 and she pointed out a few key things.

5:37 So the first thing is just the pure

5:40 distraction of having a screen in the classroom.

5:42 So if you're writing an essay and someone

5:44 else is supposed to be writing an essay,

5:46 but they're actually messing around on YouTube,

5:48 that's going to be in your field of vision and potentially distract you.

5:52 I know that feeling.

5:54 Secondly, reading on screens can make

5:57 it harder to process and remember information

6:00 compared to looking at information in a book or writing something down on paper.

6:06 There are also some quite worrying studies

6:09 looking particularly about the excessive use of screen

6:12 time on very young children that can

6:15 even affect brain development amongst preschool children.

6:18 So things like their language skills, how they react in certain situations.

6:22 So it's this kind of evidence that has got

6:26 Swedish politicians worried about the potential use of screens.

6:30 But I think it's really important to remember there's

6:33 also a lot of scientific research talking about the benefits.

6:36 Digital tools can be really good if

6:38 you've got special educational needs like dyslexia.

6:41 How these tools can help teachers understand

6:44 better how students are performing and focusing.

6:47 They can be really engaging.

6:49 So there's evidence on both sides.

6:50 And I think now, really a lot of the debate is about,

6:53 well, how do we get the right balance?

6:54 So what might that balance actually look like in practice?

6:57 They've really been going hard with this kind

6:59 of messaging and saying we want to reduce screen time,

7:02 and we're going to do that by spending a lot

7:04 of money giving schools grants so that they can introduce more books,

7:08 they can have more school libraries and school librarians.

7:11 And by changing some of the laws so

7:13 it's no longer compulsory to use tablets in preschools.

7:16 In fact, that's now actively discouraged.

7:19 They're being asked not to do that anymore.

7:21 There's also a ban on using mobile phones in schools coming in later this year,

7:26 even for educational purposes.

7:27 But I think it's also important to point out the onus is

7:30 really on schools and teachers to figure out how to do this.

7:33 The curriculum hasn't actually changed.

7:35 We're expecting changes to the curriculum in 2028.

7:38 So there's a lot of discussion really

7:40 at the moment about how to get that balance right and what is the right solution

7:45 to help prepare students for a digital future,

7:48 but also perhaps get them looking at screens a bit less in class.

7:51 This taps into just one of the biggest conversations of our time.

7:54 I mean, the whole discussion about banning mobile phones and social

7:57 media in schools is happening in countries around the world.

8:00 And what you said about literacy levels falling in Sweden

8:04 was really interesting because literacy levels are falling elsewhere too.

8:07 Also in the US, for example.

8:09 Do you think we're going to see more of this, of other

8:12 countries going back to using books, pens and paper?

8:15 So I think a lot of countries are looking at what Sweden is doing now.

8:18 Sweden was at a bit of an extreme, and now it's swinging back.

8:22 And some of the researchers and politicians I spoke to said,

8:25 you know, when they're going around and doing their job,

8:28 speaking at conferences and things,

8:29 it's all that people want to talk to them about.

8:31 They're very curious.

8:33 And we have seen some of Sweden's neighboring countries,

8:36 like Denmark and Norway also investing in bringing books back to the classroom.

8:41 But then we're also seeing some countries going in a different direction.

8:44 So Estonia, just over the water, the Baltic Sea from here in Sweden,

8:49 they're investing really heavily in AI tools, in digital textbooks for students.

8:54 Same thing going on in South Korea.

8:56 So I think we're going to see a lot

8:58 of people just really debating what is the right answer.

9:01 And we're not really going to know until or even if we have children going

9:06 very heavily back on the analogue tools

9:08 and then potentially measuring them in ten years time.

9:11 So we're going to have to wait and see really.

9:13 We actually just did an episode quite recently on how AI

9:16 is making it harder for grads to get entry level jobs,

9:19 and how students are going to have to adapt

9:21 to this and learn how to use new tech to their advantage.

9:25 So, you know, are people saying that going back

9:29 to analogue tools in schools might not be the best

9:31 approach in the world that we live in, that it

9:34 could dent digital literacy when actually this generation,

9:36 Gen Z, is the generation that needs it

9:39 most to be able to get into the workplace.

9:41 Yeah, this has been a big debate here in Sweden.

9:43 I mean, Sweden is a place with a lot of billion dollar startups,

9:48 companies like Spotify and Klarna, they come from here.

9:51 A really sort of digital first workforce.

9:54 And so there is a worry that if kids aren't learning

9:57 as much on these tools as they were in the past,

10:00 what's that going to mean for the next generation of entrepreneurs?

10:04 Twenty seven, I think it was computer science and education professors,

10:09 came out and wrote a big article about

10:10 this in one of the Swedish newspapers last year.

10:13 I would say in the last couple of months,

10:15 we've heard more from the government on this.

10:17 They've said, well we also want to have an AI strategy in schools.

10:21 We do also need to make it important that teenagers learn

10:24 about the opportunities and challenges of using AI and other digital platforms.

10:29 So I think they're trying to get the balance right at the moment,

10:31 but it's a bit of a muddle,

10:33 I would say between this very much screen free back to book

10:37 strategy and then how do we stay as a very tech forward nation.

10:43 So the current generation is possibly the guinea pigs for how

10:47 the next generation might turn out if this measure is introduced more widely.

10:52 Maddy, it's been really interesting chatting to you.

10:53 Thank you.

10:54 Thanks.

10:54 Great to be on the show.

10:55 Before we go, I want to flag an episode that we did

10:58 a while back on the evidence behind banning social media and phones.

11:02 And you can watch that right here on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

11:06 And you can see me reveal just how many hours a day I spend on my phone.

11:11 And I also want to shout out some of the comments that we got on that episode.

11:14 So Emilly said that in Brazil, telephones are prohibited in schools by law.

11:19 That's something that we are seeing in more and more countries.

11:22 And Leon said that it's a really interesting discussion.

11:25 It's such a tough balance between protecting kids

11:28 and letting them learn how to use tech responsibly.

11:30 And that rings true of what I was talking about with Maddy today.

11:33 It's that balance and how to get it right.

11:35 So thank you for those comments.

11:37 Please keep them coming.

11:38 You can leave us a comment right here on the BBC

11:40 World Service YouTube channel on Instagram @bbcwhatintheworld or on WhatsApp.

11:45 I'm Hannah, this is What in the World

11:48 from the BBC World Service and we'll see you next time.