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Finland rethinks rapid digitalisation in schools
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Some teens are buying books again to save time in front of laptops
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Finland plans law to ban use of personal phones in schools
By Elviira Luoma and Anne Kauranen
RIIHIMAKI, Finland, Sept. 10 – Pupils in the Finnish town of Riihimaki returned to school this fall with backpacks full of books after a decade of state-backed promotion of laptops and other digital devices in classrooms.
Finland’s public education system has gained worldwide fame for its good results in recent decades and its willingness to try out new teaching techniques. Until recently, many schools provided laptops free of charge to all pupils aged 11 and above.
But Finnish parents and teachers, as elsewhere, are increasingly concerned about the impact of screens on children.
Riihimaki, a town of about 30,000 people 70km north of Helsinki that had stopped using most books in secondary schools since 2018, is trying something different for the start of this academic year: going back to pencil and paper.
“Young people are using their phones and digital devices so much these days that we didn’t want school to be one of those places where children just stare at screens,” said Maija Kaunonen, an English teacher at Pohjolanrinne Secondary School.
The constant distractions that come with using digital devices make many children restless and too fidgety to concentrate.
“Most students just did the exercises as quickly as they could and then moved on to playing games and chatting on social media,” he told Reuters during a break in class.
“And it didn’t take them any time at all to switch tabs in the browser. So when the teacher came to them, they were able to say, ‘Yes, I was doing this exercise.'”
Across Finland, children’s learning outcomes have been slowly eroding in recent years, prompting the government to plan new legislation to ban the use of personal devices, such as phones, during school hours to reduce the time children spend in front of screens.
IMPROVED CONCENTRATION
One of Kaunonen’s students, 14-year-old Elle Sokka, said she didn’t always concentrate on school subjects when learning digitally.
“Sometimes I would drift off to different websites,” he said.
Eighth-graders Miko Mantila and Inka Warro, both 14, said their concentration has improved since the books were returned.
“Reading, for example, is much easier and I can read books much faster,” Mantila said, although he added that writing was easier on a digital device.
“And if you have to do homework late at night, it’s easier to go to sleep when you haven’t been looking at a device,” Warro said.
Minna Peltopuro, a clinical neuropsychologist working with the city on the change, said total screen time should be kept to a minimum – Finnish teenagers currently stare at screens for up to six hours a day on average – as excessive digital use carries physical and mental risks, such as eye problems and increased anxiety.
“Another is multitasking,” Peltopuro said. “The brain is very vulnerable to multitasking, and especially at a young age, you can’t handle it well.”
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