Manchmal wünscht sich Silke Müller, Handys wären nie erfunden worden. Wenn sie wieder einen Schüler ermahnen muss, weil der unter der Bank auf Tiktok ist statt bei den Modalverben an der Tafel. Wenn sie wieder einem Jugendlichen erklären muss, warum ChatGPT zwar eine tolle Erfindung ist, bei der Lösung von Klassenarbeiten aber nichts zu suchen hat. Wenn ihre Schüler zwar körperlich anwesend sind, aber trotzdem ganz weit weg. „Viele sind handysüchtig“, sagt die Leiterin einer Oberschule bei Oldenburg, „die können gar nicht mehr ohne.“
Eine frühere Lehrerin an einer saarländischen Gemeinschaftsschule berichtet gar von dramatischen Szenen. Als sie mal einem Jungen sein Smartphone wegnehmen wollte, weil der wieder heimlich gezockt hatte, wurde er so aggressiv, dass sie andere Lehrer zur Unterstützung holen musste.
Ihr Smartphone verteidigen viele Kinder und Jugendliche bis aufs Blut, oft schon in der Grundschule. Eigentlich sollen die Heranwachsenden in der Schule einen Raum haben, in dem sie ungestört lernen und reifen können. Stattdessen warten sie auch in Mathe ständig auf den nächsten Like.
Abgelenkt und unkonzentriert
Natürlich führt nicht jeder schnelle Tiktok-Ausflug oder Whatsapp-Chat unter der Bank gleich in die pathologische Sucht wie bei denen, die der Jugendpsychiater Rainer Thomasius im Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) behandelt. Diese Kinder und Jugendlichen sind so auf ihr Smartphone fixiert, dass sie kaum noch soziale Kontakte haben, nichts mehr essen, ihrem Handy alles andere unterordnen.
Thomasius hält das Suchtpotential von Smartphones für enorm, das hat er vor Kurzem auch in einer gemeinsamen Studie mit der DAK erforscht. Der Anteil der Kinder und Jugendlichen, die soziale Medien, digitale Spiele und Streamingdienste in einem gesundheitsgefährdenden Ausmaß nutzten, sei besorgniserregend, sagt er. „Die Zahl der suchtkranken Jugendlichen mit medienbezogenen Störungen ist seit 2010 immer größer geworden. Damals kamen die Smartphones auf den Markt.“
Auch unterhalb der pathologischen Sucht haben Smartphones immer gravierendere Auswirkungen. Silke Müller erlebt das jeden Tag. Die Schulleiterin hat vor einer Weile ein Buch über die Gefahren geschrieben, denen schon Grundschüler durch die sozialen Medien ausgesetzt seien – ein wütender Hilferuf, der zum Bestseller wurde, weil das Thema allen Lehrern und Eltern auf den Nägeln brennt. „Die Kinder sind unkonzentriert, folgen dem Unterricht nicht, verabreden sich unter der Bank mit dem Handy. Sie sind quasi in ständiger Alarmbereitschaft“, sagt Müller. An manchen Tagen sei an normalen Unterricht kaum zu denken.
Zu diesem Ergebnis kam auch ein Zusatzbericht zur PISA-Studie, der den Leistungsabfall in der Kohorte der Fünfzehnjährigen unter anderem mit deren intensiver Smartphone-Nutzung erklärte. Müller sagt: „Allein das Wissen, dass das Handy angeschaltet im Ranzen oder in der Hosentasche ist, lenkt die Schüler vom Unterricht ab.“
Dieser Text stammt aus der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung.
But it's not just educational success that's being held back, but also social development, warn educators. In many schoolyards, says the teacher from Saarland, it's eerily quiet because the students are staring at their screens instead of laughing with each other, arguing or playing football. Many are finding it increasingly difficult to engage with others and resolve conflicts empathetically.
This also applies to some parents. Silke Müller tells how a father once called her during school hours and harshly asked her why she had just scolded his son. He had left class to go to the bathroom and immediately complained to his parents. Another father advised his daughter to film the teachers on her cell phone the next time they scolded her – as video evidence, like in football. “My jaw dropped,” says Müller.
So it's actually clear that something is going seriously wrong. One demand is therefore becoming louder and louder: get rid of cell phones in schools, simply ban them! Many countries have already issued a more or less strict ban on cell phones in schools in order to control distraction, cyberbullying and the risk of addiction.
In Los Angeles, the school administration has decided to ban cell phones in all schools and training centers. A school board member was quoted as saying that the results from schools where a ban is already in place are phenomenal: “The children are happier, they talk to each other, their grades are improving.”
Elsewhere in the United States, students are now required to hand over their smartphones at the school entrance like firearms. The debate in America has also gained momentum thanks to a book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In it, he paints a picture of an entire generation that is hopelessly addicted to their smartphones in drastic terms. Haidt, whose warnings some researchers dismiss as alarmism, is calling for drastic measures: a ban on mobile phones in all schools, smartphones only for young people aged 14 and over, and social media only for those aged 16 and over.
Education researchers in Sweden raised the alarm
Many in Europe do not want to go that far. But here too, some countries have introduced or tightened bans on mobile phones in schools in recent years, such as Italy and Great Britain. In France, all students under 15 are no longer allowed to use mobile phones in class or in the schoolyard. Sweden, which had long seen itself as a pioneering country and had even promoted tablets for children in daycare, has made a U-turn and wants to reduce the use of screens in class. Mobile phones are now to be banned up to the ninth grade. There, too, educational researchers had raised the alarm because children were distracted and their reading comprehension and vocabulary had declined.
And in Germany? “From a medical point of view, a uniform ban on mobile phones, at least up to middle school, would be absolutely desirable,” says Rainer Thomasius from the UKE. Schleswig-Holstein's Education Minister Karin Prien made headlines last summer when she allegedly advocated exactly that, at least in primary schools. “CDU Vice-President calls for: Mobile phones out of daycare centers and primary schools!” wrote the “Bild” newspaper in large letters. It seemed as if politicians could simply ban the devices from all German school buildings if they wanted to. But it's not that easy.
Prien had not even spoken of a “mobile phone ban”, which many lawyers do not believe is enforceable, but of a “private mobile phone use ban”: You cannot prohibit students from bringing a smartphone to school – at most, you can prohibit them from playing games on it during class.
And it's not as if all schools have been completely naive about the issue so far. According to a survey by the industry association Bitkom in 2023, at least half of schools prohibit the private use of mobile phones; a third of students are allowed to play games during breaks and free periods. On the other hand: Why isn't it banned everywhere?
Education is a state matter, and this also applies to the use of cell phones. In all 16 federal states, research by the FAS has shown, the authorities leave it up to the schools to set rules for cell phone use. Some schools allow cell phones during recess and also in class, for example when it comes to right-wing propaganda on Tiktok; others ban them in the classroom and on the schoolyard, and still others confiscate the smartphones at the start of class and only give them back after the lesson.
A mobile phone ban? It's not that simple
For a comprehensive regulation, it would not be necessary to throw out the federalism of education. The Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs could decide on a regulation that all ministers would enforce in their states. But that is not necessary, say many education ministries, it would be sufficient if the schools sorted it out themselves.
Stefan Düll, the chairman of the German Teachers' Association, does not believe in a nationwide regulation. “That will not happen.” Many schools simply do not have the staff to safely store and then distribute the cell phones of hundreds of students.
There are also other pitfalls that many education politicians are aware of. Minister Prien says that in order to be able to lock in cell phones, it must be ensured that children can still keep in touch with their families – for example, if they feel sick or if they have a new sibling.
Or North Rhine-Westphalia: The Ministry of Education there says that school regulations can restrict the use of cell phones on school premises “if at the same time it is ensured that pupils can use their cell phones if they have a legitimate interest” – for example by setting up “cell phone zones”. But what is a “legitimate interest”? When mom asks how the math test went?
Not only students, but also many parents are now mobile phone lobbyists. They expect to be able to reach their children at any time, even in the schoolyard or even in class. The idea that in an emergency, as in the past, the secretary could call them seems just as absurd to many as the idea of being offline for two days. Even the question of whether teachers can (and do) keep students' mobile phones over the weekend has already ended up in court.
The whole of society has long been addicted to mobile phones, says the teacher from Saarland, you just have to take a train. She tells of students who already have a second or third cell phone in case the first one is confiscated. Teachers really only have the option of leaving the cell phones switched off in their school bags or keeping them in the classroom – and imposing harsh sanctions for violations. “Nevertheless, it is a battle against windmills, and we can no longer win it.” But it doesn't help to shut out the digital world. “We should rather help the children to deal with it appropriately.”
Giorgina Kazungu-Haß also sees it this way. She is head of a Berlin school State of the art-Primary school: Every classroom has a digital board, every schoolchild has a tablet. Kazungu-Haß also has many stories to tell about the smartphone epidemic. But she says: “If we don't teach children how to use the digital world properly at school, who else will?” On her boards, she can walk through ancient Rome with her students or explain how the Tiktok algorithm works via YouTube video – never before has world knowledge been so easily accessible.
Kazungu-Haß believes that how schools deal with the issue is also a financial question: the better the digital equipment, the more strictly private cell phones can be banned. However, many schools are so poorly equipped digitally that students have to dig out their own devices to learn how to recognize fake news.
For doctors like Rainer Thomasius, the debate is too short-sighted. He says parents are even more important: if children have learned to put their cell phones away at home, it is easier to do without them at school. But mothers and fathers are often bad role models.
Many parents who are infuriated when their children stare at the screen are staring at it themselves every free second without even noticing it. Or they buy their two-year-old a holder for the stroller – so that the tablet stays in place better.