Sweden to ban mobile phones in schools as screen backlash grows

Sweden is moving to lock mobile phones out of classrooms and school days, a sharp reversal in a country that once sat near the front of Europe’s digital learning push. The government said schools would be required to collect pupils’ phones for the whole day, a move officials cast as a return to reading, physical books and quieter lessons.

The policy comes as Swedish leaders warn that screens have begun to crowd out basic skills. Joar Forsell, who chairs parliament’s education committee, said officials had seen a decline in reading and writing ability among younger students and that books and more traditional methods were better for children. Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm has framed the shift as a move back to analogue teaching aids, staffed school libraries and more time with printed texts.

The numbers behind the turnaround are striking. In June 2024, Sweden said 30% of pupils were distracted by mobile phones and other digital devices at school, and that the country ranked above the OECD average on that measure. The government also set aside 555 million Swedish kronor, about $59 million, for textbooks and teachers’ guides in 2026 and later years, with a temporary 500 million kronor increase planned for 2028, as new curricula are prepared.

That investment matters because officials say access to textbooks had not previously been guaranteed. The February 2024 announcement covered compulsory schools, adapted primary schools, special schools, Sami schools and out-of-school centres, signaling that the phone restrictions were meant to be systemwide rather than limited to a few age groups or school types. Sweden is also not starting from zero: the law on pupils’ use of digital devices during lesson time changed in 2022, and the Swedish National Agency for Education has since been asked to review how the rules are applied and how other digital devices are used during school time.

The broader debate is moving well beyond Sweden. Denmark is heading toward a similar ban, Finland has already imposed restrictions, and countries from Spain to South Korea have adopted varying limits on phones or screen-based homework. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District has also moved to restrict screens for younger grades and cap screen time more broadly.

Sweden’s own reading data helps explain the urgency. The national agency says fourth-graders performed at a lower level in reading comprehension in PIRLS 2021, part of a study Sweden has joined since 2001. As officials push mobile-free schools and more physical books, the central question is whether the change will lift learning or mainly hand another daily management task to schools already trying to hold students’ attention.