KarunaNews Story

This autumn, pupils in the Finnish town of Riihimaki headed back to school with backpacks full of books. Until recently, many schools gave laptops for free to all pupils from as early as age 11, but Finnish parents and teachers are increasingly concerned over the impact of screens on children."Young people are using phones and digital devices so much these days that we didn't want school to be one of the places where children are only staring at screens," said teacher Maija Kaunonen. "Most students just did the exercises as quick as they could so they could then move on to playing games and chatting on social media." Children's learning results have been eroding in recent years, prompting the government to plan new legislation to ban the use of personal devices, such as phones, during school hours.