By FERNANDO LIONEL QUIROGA*

The problem of smartphone use in schools is just the tip of the iceberg on which the maintenance of democracy itself depends.

1.

On January 13, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed into law Bill No. 4.932/2024, which restricts the use of portable electronic devices, such as cell phones, by students in public and private basic education establishments during classes, recess, and breaks. The part of the bill (authored by Deputy Alceu Moreira – MDB/RS) that presents itself as a regulatory mechanism for portable electronic devices – smartphones, to be more precise – faces opposing opinions from a significant portion of the population.

The fact is that the smartphone as we know it – a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional cell phone with advanced computing resources – is considered (without exaggeration) by a significant number of young people and teenagers as an extension of their own body. Although I do not support the concept of “digital native”, precisely because of the ideological load of this concept, I understand the smartphone as a “total device”. And this is where the danger lies. There is no need to emphasize the ubiquity of these devices in the world we live in. We all know or have lived with children who, from birth, are in front of a screen. At first, this contact occurs during breastfeeding.

As the German philosopher Christoph Türcke rightly observed, this seemingly harmless habit loses something fundamental to the development of the child's cognition: the mother's visual contact with the baby is diverted to the brightness of the uninterrupted content that appears on the screen. The intentionality of breastfeeding, the symbolic power of visual contact between mother and child, is lost due to the hallucinatory and hypnotic torrent of the screen.

This is followed by the habit, later adopted by the child, of only eating when in front of the tablet. The rubbery, colorful tablet propped up in front of the plate is now a common sight. Now, it is the food itself that loses its meaning. The flavor, the texture, the temperature, the combination of foods – all of this is thrown away! It becomes a mess that, in the end, serves only as a source of energy to please the mother and to stay connected until the next meal.

It takes nothing more than these first few years of contact with screens for the device to produce a strange feeling that it is an integral part of the human anatomy. It is not a babysitter, as is often said when you see children behaving well in a restaurant just because they have a cell phone: it is the mother and father themselves. It is “the device”. Without exaggeration, it should be viewed with this concern.

For those born in the 1970s or 1980s (like me, for example), the debate about cell phones has something “intellectual” and “distant” about it compared to those who were born under its “cultural imposition”. For us, just like in Christian times, the debate is also divided into: A/C (before cell phones) and D/C (after cell phones). For them, this “previous world” is like a fairy tale; it is like a survivor of Auschwitz, like someone whose testimony is of a unique experience.

Life before the cell phone acquires, so to speak, a mysterious, idyllic, romantic, but also obsolete, archaic aura. It is only because things have acquired such historical importance since the cell phone – producing social, political, cognitive, psychological and cultural consequences – and it is only because it has become an exoskeleton and an exobrain of the human anatomy, that the simple act of prohibiting or refusing its use can produce dark effects,  like the 19-year-old who strangled his grandmother to death, claiming that she had refused to give him her cell phone password., or that of a teenager who shot his father to death after grounding him without a cell phone.

Regulating the use of cell phones in schools is therefore an act of courage, as President Lula emphasized when he signed the law, precisely because it is, above all, a measure to protect health and learning. However, there must be sensitivity to address the practical issues that must affect the school reality. Or, better said, the multiple school realities.

2.

As the issue is essentially complex, because it brings together psychological and cognitive aspects as well as social and cultural ones, the reading about the restriction must be understood with caution.

Society, and not just children and adolescents, is captured by networks. What I have called here “total device” refers to the fact that practically all dimensions of life, and not just those related to school life, are now permeated by devices.

But in devices, as Borgmann observed: “the relationship with the world is replaced by machinery, but the machinery is hidden, and things, made available by the device, are appreciated without the hindrance or involvement with a context” (Borgmann apud Feenberg, 2018, p. 199).

In this sense, contrary to what is commonly thought, the “connected” society, to the extent that it replaces or outsources social connection to machinery, ends up “disconnecting”. Imagining a society without cell phones today would imply rethinking new processes and means of socialization.

And then there's the problem with social media, which, as Jaron Lanier pointed out, ends up turning us into idiots and depressed people.

It is for these and other reasons that we read in Article 4: “Education networks and schools must develop strategies to address the issue of psychological distress and mental health of basic education students, informing them about the risks, signs and prevention of psychological distress in children and adolescents, including the excessive use of devices referred to in Article 1 of this Law and access to inappropriate content”, and the following paragraphs:

“§ 1º Education networks and schools must offer periodic training for the detection, prevention and approach of signs suggestive of psychological and mental suffering and harmful effects of the immoderate use of screens and personal portable electronic devices, including cell phones.

§ 2 Educational establishments will provide listening and reception spaces to receive students or employees who are experiencing psychological and mental suffering resulting mainly from the excessive use of screens and nomophobia”.

That said, the debate about how schools should deal with the new law remains open. How will schools adopt the new legislation? How will education networks and schools act in practice? What would be considered pedagogical use? To what extent can cell phone use be used to meet students' health needs (purpose III of the aforementioned law) – when, in many cases, health is harmed by excessive use? These questions should guide the debate on the topic.

It is a clear sign that we are not dealing with prevention, but with confronting a devastating problem, not only on an individual or social scale; in essence, the problem is just the tip of the iceberg on which the maintenance of democracy itself depends.

*Fernando Lionel Quiroga is a professor of Fundamentals of Education at the State University of Goiás (UEG).

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