Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things?

For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change?

Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"?

You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements.

The ubiquitous availability of smartphones also limits kids freedom. It creates a very particular style of interaction with peers where quitting means you are left out. That means kids are subject to apps that prey on insecurities, have extremely addictive properties, force feed constant doomerism messaging on them, etc just to stay connected. Another way to look at it is it’s a tax on the joy and freedom of being a kid.

This is a freedom-from / freedom-to distinction. Once you look at kids as a social group rather than as a single individual I think you can come to very different conclusions about what is on balance healthier.

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms

Children’s freedoms ought to be limited, yes.

They’re limiting freedom of children in school, who already don’t have the freedom to ignore other school policies.

Studies show phone bans help school performance, albeit not by much immediately, but there’s not much upside.

If something is hard to measure, is it automatically bad in your eyes ?

There's been several pilots that prove this being very effective. Czechia is not first doing this.

Forcing kids to go to school is already limiting their freedom

I think it's more a mental health or social interaction thing rather than expecting improved school results, some studies even show no short term increase in results.

But you don't need study to know kids staring at phones instead of talking and playing together is improvement.

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements

I think people like you are the reason I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.

Of course the freedom of choice for children is limited because their brains are not mature enough to make an educated decision and quite gullible. That’s why it’s illegal for them to drink alcohol, drive vehicles and smoke cigarettes.

ALL modern electronics should be banned from regular classrooms, up to and including projectors. We now have evidence that at _best_ it does not help. At worst it's actively harming students.

(yes, yes, with obvious exemptions for special needs, computer science classes and so on).