The screen cost: Nigeria's digital challenge

The Global Shift in Classroom Technology

Across the world, governments are rethinking the role of digital devices in classrooms. Digital devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smartwatches, are electronic tools that enable communication, information access, and interactive learning. While they have become central to modern education, their overuse is now under scrutiny. Countries once hailed for their rapid embrace of technology are now reversing course, citing evidence of declining attention spans, concentration, difficulty with information retention, and a rise in what experts call digital dementia, a condition where overdependence on screens leads to memory lapses, poor focus, and a decline in cognitive abilities once strengthened by handwriting, deep reading, and sustained attention.

South Korea recently passed a landmark law to ban mobile phones and digital devices in classrooms beginning March 2026, after surveys revealed that more than a third of students admitted social media disrupted their daily lives and a fifth reported feeling anxious when separated from their devices. Brazil followed suit earlier this year, passing federal legislation that restricts smartphones in both public and private schools, a move already showing benefits in improved social interaction. Madrid is going even further, from September 2025, computers and tablets in primary schools will be capped at just two hours a week, with no screen-based homework. Meanwhile, the Netherlands outlawed mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches in classrooms from January 2024, and Italy expanded its classroom bans in 2025 to cover high school students, requiring devices to be locked away during lessons.

Importantly, these policies are not blanket rejections of technology. Exceptions are made for students with disabilities or specific learning needs, where digital devices serve as assistive tools to aid communication, comprehension, and inclusion in the classroom. When used thoughtfully, technology can even scaffold learning just as psychologist Lev Vygotsky emphasized in his theory of the 'zone of proximal development.' With proper guidance, devices can provide the right level of support to help children grasp new concepts, build skills, and bridge learning gaps.

The Challenge of Balance

The challenge, however, is balance. Nigeria is moving in the opposite direction of these global shifts. Instead of limiting device use, our schools are pressing forward with greater integration, encouraging students to type assignments and use screens as their primary learning tool. Handwriting, once central to cognitive development, is being quietly phased out. Yet research shows that handwriting engages multiple areas of the brain, strengthens memory, develops fine motor skills, and cultivates patience and concentration in ways typing cannot replicate. By sidelining it, we risk raising a generation that types faster but remembers less, focuses less, and thinks less deeply.

The problem is not limited to the classroom. After school, many Nigerian students return home and pick up the same devices, this time for endless scrolling through social media. What starts as three or more hours of structured device use in class extends into many more hours of unstructured use at home. This 'double shift' of screen exposure fragments attention, creates dependency, and gradually undermines the brain's ability to process information in depth. Worse still, digital devices in schools are not always used for learning. Increasingly, reports from teachers worldwide draw attention to how students misuse them for bullying, gaming, or social media chats, sometimes even while lessons are in progress. Instead of enhancing focus, devices can become a gateway to distraction, ridicule, and cyber-harassment, eroding the safety and seriousness of the classroom.

Long-Term Implications

Educational psychologists warn that unregulated device use in childhood and adolescence has long-term implications. They point to rising cases of poor impulse control, reduced face-to-face social skills, shortened attention spans, and sleep disorders, trends strongly linked to screen overexposure. 'The brain is like a muscle,' one psychologist explains. 'When children stop exercising their memory through handwriting, storytelling, or deep reading, those neural pathways weaken. Devices give quick answers, but they do not train the brain to think critically or remember deeply.'

Global studies reinforce these concerns. School-aged children now spend an average of four to six hours daily on electronic devices, while teenagers often exceed nine hours, far above the recommended one to two hours for healthy development. This heavy use also exposes them to the hidden toxicity of blue light, which suppresses melatonin and disrupts sleep cycles. As a result, many children and teens stay up late at night, glued to glowing screens, sacrificing the deep sleep essential for memory, emotional balance, and focus.

What Can Parents Do?

So, what can parents do? Educational psychologists recommend setting healthy digital boundaries at home, encouraging 'device-free zones' such as bedrooms and dinner tables, monitoring nighttime use to prevent sleep disruption, and balancing screen time with handwriting, outdoor play, physical activity, and family conversations. Parents are also urged to model responsible digital habits themselves, since children often imitate adult behaviors. Most importantly, families can reinforce the value of handwriting by encouraging journaling, letter-writing, or note-taking, ensuring that children develop cognitive depth alongside digital literacy.

Shaping the Future Learners

What we are witnessing is not simply a battle over teaching tools. It is about the kind of learners and citizens we are shaping for the future. If children are trained to rely on devices for both learning and leisure without boundaries, they risk losing the very skills education is meant to build: focus, memory, patience, and critical thinking.

Digital literacy is vital in today's world, but balance is even more crucial. Other nations are not rejecting technology outright; they are setting boundaries to safeguard young minds. Nigeria must take heed. The task before us is to prepare our children for a digital future without sacrificing their cognitive, emotional, and cultural development. That means blending, not replacing, preserving handwriting, deep reading, and face-to-face learning while using technology thoughtfully as a scaffold for growth and inclusion.

If we fail to strike this balance, we may find ourselves raising a generation that is digitally savvy but mentally scattered, more connected online but less capable of sustained thought, problem-solving, or creativity. And that is too high a price to pay for convenience.