South Korea prohibits phones in the classroom in the country

South Korea has approved an invoice prohibiting the use of mobile phones and smart devices during the classroom hours of school – to become the latest country to restrict the use of the phone between children and adolescents.

The law, which enters into force from the next academic year in March 2026, is the result of the bilateral partisan efforts to reduce smart phone addiction, as more research indicates its harmful effects.

Legionships, parents and teachers argue that the use of a smartphone affects the academic performance of students and takes time to study.

The skeptical ban, including students, who wonder how it works, its wider effects and whether it treats the root cause of addiction.

The draft law was convincingly on Wednesday afternoon, with 115 votes in favor of 163 members.

Most South Korean schools have already carried out a form of a smartphone ban. They are not the first to do so.

Some countries such as Finland and France have banned phones on a smaller scale, to apply restrictions to schools only for young children. Others like Italy, the Netherlands and China have restricted the use of the phone in all schools.

But South Korea is among the few to perpetuate such a ban on law.

Choi Young, a 14 -year -old mother in Seoul, says children “cannot put their smartphones.”

It is not just children though. Nearly a quarter of the country depends on their phones too much, according to a government survey 2024. But this number is more than the marital – to 43 % – for those between the ages of 10 and 19. It has risen over the years.

More than a third of adolescents also says they are struggling to control the amount of time they spend passing through video clips on social media. Parents fear that this hinders everything else that they can do in their time.

“When they go to school, they are supposed to study, but they also build friendships and participate in various activities. However, they are unable to focus on these things,” says Ms. Choi. “Even when they talk to friends, they quickly return to their phones, and of course this interferes with learning as well.”

Some parents, such as Kim Sun, whose two daughters are in the elementary school, are also concerned about bullying on social media, as “children wander in harsh insults in an unimaginable way” on each other.

Zhou Yong-Hun, a member of the opposition People’s Party, who submitted the bill, says he was encouraged to act when other countries have taken similar moves. He says that there is “important scientific and physical evidence” that smartphones addiction “has very harmful effects on the development of students’ brain and emotional growth.”

Although it is prohibited to use the phone only during the class hours, the law gives teachers the ability to prevent students from using their phones at the school headquarters. It also asks schools to educate students about the proper use of smart devices.

There are some exemptions. The draft law allows students with disabilities or special educational needs for the use of auxiliary devices, permits for use for educational purposes or during emergency situations.

Teachers, however, seem to be divided into the ban. Among the two major teachers in the country, the Korean Union Association for Conservative Teachers only supported the draft law, saying it provides a “more stable legal basis” to restrict phones in the classroom.

A spokesman for the group said that according to its internal survey, nearly 70 % of teachers have reported disturbances in the classroom due to the use of a smartphone, with some students “unable to control their emotions at the present time (when teachers restrict the use of the phone), and they are divided into teachers.”

The other group, Korean teachers and the Educational Workers Union, said that it had no official position on the law – and said that some members are concerned that the law violates the right of students to reach their smartphones.

“In the current reality, students have no place to meet friends outside Cram schools except through Kakaotalk (Etisalat App) or Instagram, and they are constantly pushed to compete in the school,” says Zhou Young, a high school teacher who believes that the draft law targets the phones that students face, which is the country’s competitive college entrance exam.

Known as Sunung, an eight -hour marathon of consecutive tests, many Koreans believe to conclude their fate. The result plays a major role in determining whether they go to university, and if they do so, it will be, and this in turn decides the chances of their job and their income.

Korean children start preparing for the exam from the first day of school. A 13 -year -old student, who did not want to be named, told BBC that he simply had no time to addiction on his phone, as teaching sessions and homework after school in the middle of the night every day.

“Instead of just taking phones, I think the first step should learn students what they can do without them,” says Seo Min John, a 18 -year -old high school that was speaking against a smartphone ban.

He says that banning phones during the class hours does not achieve much, because “students will remain on their phones while moving or lying in bed at night.”

“There was no real education on health use, just confiscation.”