By Juan Larrosa, August 24, 2026
Fifteen days ago, I wrote about how anachronistic the national debate around audience rights seems to me and about how, in addition, this discussion reflects a moment of intense political polarization that prevents us from thinking clearly about which public problems we are trying to solve through the development of new laws, rules, and prohibitions. Today I want to bring up a similar case: the initiative to ban the use of cell phones in classrooms.
After more than two decades of teaching, I can say that the problem this measure seeks to address is real and serious. Let me begin with a story. In a recent semester, I taught a Wednesday class during the spring term, from one to three in the afternoon. The group was small, with twelve students. At some point during the semester, I noticed that in some sessions two or three students would remain almost catatonic in front of their screens, some on their mobile phones, others on their laptops, and suddenly they would make very strange faces. It was easy to connect the dots and realize that they were watching the finals of European football’s Champions League. I could tell many other stories like this one.
As in many other cases, the problem is not a technology or an object in itself, but what human beings do with it, the use we give it. In other words, pointing to the cell phone as the problem reduces the complexity of the issue. One way to make the discussion more complex is to understand that we are facing a problem of attention. Through screens in general, and not only mobile phones, different companies, such as the major technology firms—Alphabet, Meta, Amazon—are engaged in a constant struggle to keep our attention on the screen. TikTok has perfected the way of hooking users and sending them down an endless slide of videos; WhatsApp and Outlook keep our attention constantly focused on work matters, and X is the arena for those addicted to political information.
Competing with these contents in the classroom has become a titanic task. Students are constantly checking their phones and, although their computers are useful for taking notes, they are also useful for chatting and watching the Champions League. So, certainly, a sensible first measure is to find mechanisms to keep screens outside the classroom and allow them in only for activities that require them for pedagogical reasons. There is already academic research showing the benefits of this measure and documenting how students can pay more attention and how, for example, during recess they tend to socialize more when they are not glued to a screen playing video games.
However, prohibition is only a first step toward solving this complex problem. Jonathan Haidt, an academic and activist on these issues, has shown that even when phones are kept outside classrooms—a measure he supports—people, students, continue thinking about their phones. Their attention is focused on what they will do when they have the device back in their hands; they begin to experience FOMO, an English expression meaning fear of missing out, because they are not part of conversations with their families or watching the latest “farming aura” clip. This suggests that the attention problem we face cannot be reduced to the dilemma of whether or not to allow screens into the classroom.
And here I connect this issue with my previous text on audience rights. My student who was watching the Champions League is an audience member, a consumer, a citizen, and a student. What other debates should we be having, both regarding audience rights and the use of cell phones in the classroom? How should the State intervene in the education of younger Mexicans? What policies should be promoted to educate young people who are healthy and attentive, while at the same time enjoying digital technologies and artificial intelligence?
As we can see, we are still far from having a debate that transcends the polarizing dichotomies that currently shape Mexican public discussion. Without a much more robust discussion, the results of our legislation will be mediocre.
This text was originally broadcast on NTR Radio News on August 24, 2026, hosted by journalist Sonia Serrano.