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Banning the Bottle, Hiding the Phones: What Prohibition Can Teach Us About Mobile Technology in Schools



This past month, Denmark became the latest country to ban mobile phones in classrooms, joining a growing global trend of tightening restrictions on student device use. The Danish Education Minister, Mattias Tesfaye, announced the move citing rising concerns over screen addiction, distraction, and deteriorating social skills. “Children are increasingly losing the ability to be present and concentrate,” Tesfaye said, echoing what many teachers worldwide have been saying for years [BBC, 2024].


The story captures something many of us working in education already feel: the issue of mobile phones in schools is reaching boiling point. The same article reveals that 80% of Danish parents support the ban, while teachers describe classrooms becoming “zombie-like” with students glued to screens. And yet, the proposed solution—a blanket ban—is not without complications. As one Danish student aptly put it, “You take the phone away from the hand but not from the mind.”


That phrase struck me deeply. Because history tells us that removal rarely equates to resolution. When the U.S. government banned alcohol in the 1920s during Prohibition, it didn’t vanish. It went underground. It became ritualised in secret, driven into the shadows where it grew harder to monitor, more culturally seductive, and often more dangerous. In schools today, phones are following a strikingly similar trajectory.


Banning mobile phones doesn’t remove them. It drives them underground. Ask any teacher or school leader: phones are being stashed in hoodies, slid into shoes, or hidden behind toilets. Policing becomes a daily cat-and-mouse game. Some schools have responded with extreme sanctions—confiscations, long exclusions, or public shaming. But the more punitive the approach, the more subversive the behaviour.


Earlier this year, I sat with a group of seasoned education leaders and policy makers—heads of schools and consultants with years of experience between them. Every single one had a mobile phone policy. Not one of them felt it was working. Despite different approaches, not a single school had found a strategy that truly solved the issue. The problem isn’t the policy—it’s the culture around it.


In fact, I’ve even seen entrepreneurial students turn the system into a business. In one school, a group of teens offered a “phone holding” service, where classmates could check in their mobiles for a fee. If a teacher discovered the phone, the student who ran the business took the hit—protecting the original owner and pocketing a profit. These underground economies, while cheeky, point to a much deeper truth: students will always find ways to reclaim agency.


This global dilemma is playing out in real policy changes. France introduced a national ban in 2018. In the UK, debates continue around solutions like Yondr pouches to restrict access without total removal. UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report [UNESCO, 2023] called for limits on digital technology in classrooms, noting that overreliance can exacerbate inequality, affect student wellbeing, and limit creativity. Yet it also warned that blanket bans risk excluding students who rely on phones for safety, translation, accessibility, or internet access.


A 2022 study in Nature Human Behaviour [Orben et al., 2022] found that while temporary bans on phones in classrooms may improve concentration, they don’t consistently enhance academic achievement or wellbeing over time. Meanwhile, the London School of Economics [LSE, 2020] reported that enforcement challenges and disciplinary measures surrounding phone bans can negatively affect student-teacher relationships and disproportionately impact disadvantaged students.


The reality is that phones are no longer just tools for texting or TikTok. They are students’ wallets, bus passes, social lifelines, and sometimes safety nets. They use them to book Bolt taxis, contact parents, and pay for lunch. Removing them entirely also means removing a layer of autonomy and security—especially at the end of the day when students walk home alone.


Still, concerns around screen time, distraction, and cyberbullying are legitimate. A growing body of research warns of the mental health risks linked to overuse of digital devices. Yet schools remain caught in an impossible bind: to ignore phones is to risk chaos; to ban them is to fuel rebellion.


There’s no clear answer—but perhaps that’s the point. The real issue isn’t about whether phones should be “allowed.” It’s about education. We need to teach young people how to use technology meaningfully, responsibly, and safely. That means:


  • Educating students about digital literacy, consent, cyberbullying, and screen hygiene.

  • Educating parents on how to model and monitor healthy tech habits at home.

  • Educating teachers on how to integrate mobile technology in ways that enhance rather than distract from learning.

  • Involving students in the conversation. Most teens will tell you outright: we are not you. We don’t socialise like you did. You kicked a ball—we send memes. It doesn’t mean we’re disconnected. It means our social landscape is different.



In the Global Classroom, we don’t ban phones—we guide their use. With no access to textbooks or a physical library, mobile devices become indispensable. Students use apps for translation, photography, filmmaking, note-taking, and research. They use them for mapping nature walks, documenting sustainability projects, or capturing oral histories in the local language.


But just as important is how they use them. We create space for conversations around appropriate use. We explore what it means to be distracted, to be present, to be digitally mindful. We make mistakes, reflect, and grow. In short, we treat mobile technology the way we treat all tools: with purpose, with awareness, and with respect.


In 1933, the U.S. repealed Prohibition because the law had become unenforceable and counterproductive. Instead, the government focused on regulation, education, and public awareness. Maybe schools need to do the same. It’s time we move beyond control, and toward consciousness.


This conversation also intersects powerfully with our Global Politics curriculum. Questions around surveillance, digital rights, personal agency, and state control are not abstract—they’re alive in every school corridor. Within the Global Classroom, we use real-world issues like mobile phone bans to spark debate, explore civil liberties, study youth activism, and examine how policy shapes behaviour. It’s about empowering students not just to follow rules, but to question them thoughtfully, ethically, and with a sense of global responsibility. Technology, like politics, is ultimately about people—and how we choose to live together.


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