A citizens' initiative launched in late March and aimed at restricting the use of smartphones in the classroom had garnered almost 5,900 signatures by the afternoon of 18 April - still well short of the 50,000 needed to bring it before the Finnish Parliament.
The initiative calls on legislators to start preparing a law which would allow elementary schools to require that pupils' phones be turned off during lessons and breaks, except under exceptional circumstances.
According to current rules set by the National Agency for Education, schools cannot prohibit pupils from bringing mobile devices to school.
However, school rules can limit the use of mobile devices during teaching.
The school may require that the mobile device is in a non-disruptive state during lessons. However, the school cannot, by unilateral decision, order any pupil to give up a phone for the duration of a lesson.
Increasingly serious distraction
It is claimed that the prevalence of psychological problems among the young has increase along with the use of digital devices and increasing screen time.
In an interview with Yle's A-Studio TV programme, Professor Markku Jahnukainen, a specialist in inclusive and special education policy at the University of Helsinki pointed to the impact that smartphones in the classroom have on learning.
"It is clear that other activities divert attention. Even we adults know that our concentration may suffer over time because of digital and other types of distractions," he said.
Silja Kosola, a physician and adolescent medicine research group leader at the Pediatric Research Centre at the University of Helsinki, added that smartphones are one major factor in psychological and behavioral problems among the young.
"I cannot but think that these are associated with the rise in demand for special needs education, since they both started growing at the same time, with the rise of social media. Most of these apps appeared around 2010, and in Finland children get smartphones much earlier than in any other country. Most first-graders already have their own smartphones. The question is why," she noted.
Kosola went on to say that if it is about parents wanting to be able to contact their children in the afternoon after their short school day, then a less smart phone would do. She believes that this would make the lives of parents easier, too, since they would not have to restrict their children's social media use, and focusing on schoolwork would be easier for children.
"We know from research that the mere presence of a smartphone on a child's desk negatively impacts concentration and weakens performance of the mental tasks that children are in school to do."
Experts back legal ban
Jahnukainen says that a ban on smartphones during lessons would be a sensible move.
"Digital devices can be and are used in a useful way. But that is in a supervised manner. When other types of teaching are being used, they should be put away. It is entirely possible to do." Jahnukainen told Yle.
Silja Kosola agreed that a legal ban on smartphones in classrooms would make sense. An alternative, she noted, could also be an agreement among children in a class to not use their phones during lessons. However, she pointed out that if even one pupil were to reject such an agreement, then it wouldn't work.
"Phones can only be taken away when they create a disturbance. But how is that defined?" she asked.
Professor Jahnukainen pointed out that laws are often made to deal with hazards, such as the restrictions placed on smoking. Since the hazards associated with smartphones in classrooms are known, he sees no reason why Parliament could not impose legal restrictions on their use.
Some teachers have already made informal classroom agreements on banning smartphones, and according to Jahnukainen the young people themselves have recognised how important it has been.