Finland's Schools Return to Tradition: Books Instead of Screens

In Riihimaki, Finland, schools are shifting back to traditional pen-and-paper learning after a decade of digital focus. Despite Finland's successful education system, concerns over screen time's impact on children have prompted this change. The move aims to improve concentration and reduce physical and mental health risks associated with excessive digital use.

This autumn, pupils in the Finnish town of Riihimaki headed back to school with backpacks full of books after a decade of state-backed promotion of laptops and other digital devices in the classroom. Finland's public education system has gained global renown for its good results in recent decades and its readiness to try new teaching techniques. Until recently, many schools gave laptops for free to all pupils from as early as age 11.

However, Finnish parents and teachers, much like their counterparts elsewhere, have grown increasingly concerned over the impact of screens on children. As a result, Riihimaki, a town of 30,000 inhabitants located 70 km north of Helsinki, which since 2018 had halted the use of most books in middle schools, is trying something different this academic year: returning to pen and paper.

"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 Maija Kaunonen, an English teacher at Pohjolanrinne middle school. The constant distractions that come with the use of digital devices make many children restless and too flighty to focus.

"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," she told Reuters during a break in class. "And it took them no time at all to change tabs in the browser. So when the teacher came round to them, they could say: 'Yes, I was doing this exercise'."

Across Finland, children's learning results have been gradually declining in recent years, prompting the government to plan new legislation to ban the use of personal devices, such as phones, during school hours to cut back on children's screen time.

Improved Concentration

One of Kaunonen's pupils, Elle Sokka, 14, admitted she didn't always focus on school subjects when learning digitally. "Sometimes I would drift off to different websites," she said.

Eighth graders Miko Mantila and Inka Warro, both 14, noted their concentration has improved since books were reintroduced. "Reading, for one, is much easier and I can read much faster from books," said Mantila, although she acknowledged that writing was easier on a digital device.

"And if you have to do homework late at night, it's easier to go to sleep when you haven't just been looking at a device," Warro mentioned. Minna Peltopuro, a clinical neuropsychologist collaborating with the town on this transition, emphasized that total screen time should be minimized—Finnish teenagers currently face screens for up to six hours per day as excessive digital use poses various physical and mental health risks, such as eye strain and increased anxiety.

"Another challenge is multi-tasking," Peltopuro added. "The brain is very vulnerable to multi-tasking, and especially at a young age, it cannot manage it well."

(With inputs from agencies.)