This week, a debate has regained momentum following the most recent editions of the ENEM, Brazil’s national university entrance exam. After all, should smartphones be allowed in the classroom or not?
Let me be clear: I’m not talking about the use of generative artificial intelligences, as in previous posts. I’m referring to a much broader issue — the simple fact of a student entering a classroom with a smartphone in hand. Naturally, there are many arguments both for and against — otherwise, it wouldn’t be a controversy. As a digital humanist, I feel it’s my moral duty to express what I think and what concerns me.
Let’s start with how I’ve seen some educators define the phenomenon that occurs when students rely on generative AI tools and, without much discernment, simply copy and paste the output into their assignments. They have begun labeling this behavior as functional illiteracy.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Education (MEC) and the Paulo Montenegro Institute (2016, 2018), functional illiteracy includes two categories:
- The “illiterate,” who cannot perform basic tasks involving reading words and phrases, though they may recognize familiar numbers (like phone numbers, prices, etc.); and
- The “rudimentary,” who, among other limitations, can only locate explicit, literally stated information in simple, everyday texts (like posters or calendars), and are unable to do the same with more complex texts (such as journalistic or scientific ones) or make basic inferences.
When a teacher takes a shortcut and ignores the entire process involving digital technologies, learning, inclusion, digital autonomy, and the development of critical thinking among students at any academic level—and then labels their own students as functionally illiterate—they unwittingly include themselves in that same, flawed classification. After all, a quick Google search and five minutes of reading a brief paragraph would provide the official and reliable definition above, and reveal that the issue lies elsewhere. Tragic…
When we refer to a situation or fact as a “question,” we are assigning a problem to it. When we say “the question of feminism,” “the question of poverty,” or “the question of marginalization,” we sometimes speak out of habit—and other times, the real issue isn’t even there, but lies in other viewpoints we choose, or were taught, to ignore.
In the second half of the 19th century, during Brazil’s imperial era, waves of immigrant peasants—mainly from Italy—arrived to find a society with no minimum working age (that would only come with the Republic in 1891), and no access to public education unless one was born male in a wealthy, influential family. Black and Indigenous people were not even considered citizens, and thus had no voice. The concept of a nation back then was vastly different and still had a long road to evolve into what we define today.
Personally, I grew up in a decade when the quality of public education lagged far behind that of private schools. In the 1990s, it was common for schools to be missing teachers in multiple subjects for much of the school year. I’m still waiting for the textbooks we were supposed to receive in fourth grade! That was my only year in a public school, and we had to copy the entire textbook by hand as the teacher dictated it. I went through more notebooks that year than in private school. But my mother could afford it. And the others?
Back then, many teachers dreamed of the day students would learn not from chalk drawings on a blackboard, but through sensory exploration, with 3D animated projections of solar systems, sounds, and interaction. Other teachers hoped they could someday teach remotely via a computer screen—that was the first time I heard the name Isaac Asimov. Minigames and Tamagotchis were strictly banned in the classroom.
In thirty years, we’ve made enormous technological strides. Notebooks became commonplace, smartphones and tablets arrived, internet speeds soared, and digital technologies were adopted by businesses, banks, and governments. We’ve advanced so far that some governments now operate entirely digitally through smartphones. Anyone with a smartphone has a window into a digital universe of immeasurable knowledge and information.
Those who once owned an 8GB hard drive weighing a full kilogram—and thought they had a true digital empire—know just how powerful today’s devices are: ten times lighter, thirty times more storage, 10,000 times faster, and connected to an internet 3,636 times quicker. This is no Tamagotchi or minigame! After so much evolution, should we really ban students from bringing these devices into the classroom, instead of encouraging them to use what they already have in hand to its fullest potential?
And why is a notebook or tablet allowed in class without issue? If we want to talk about “the issue of access to social media” as a distraction, I have bad news: social media is just as accessible from computers and tablets. Or should we talk about “the issue of the internet,” where all the actual knowledge resides?
And what do we tell the marginalized student who can’t afford more than a smartphone? That they’re not allowed to use the powerful tool they do have, and must therefore remain limited to the rudimentary and the marginalized? How is this different from the “issue” of access to education for immigrants, Black, and Indigenous people in the 19th century—or the “issue” of the student who couldn’t afford two extra notebooks to copy an entire dictated textbook? Where are those forward-thinking teachers from thirty years ago who championed these modern technologies? Did the next generation learn nothing from them? Or is it fear of the unknown that leads them to fight against it?
Those who say millennials have failed—and continue to fail—are right. If there’s a real “issue” here, it’s not with smartphones or social media. It’s the inability of an entire generation of professionals, especially educators, to step outside their comfort zone—where it’s easier to talk about problems than face solutions—and to develop what we call digital literacy. This is no longer a bonus; it’s a basic need that brings dignity to an increasingly digital society that won’t stop or wait for anyone.
What are we offering the next generations? More of the same old “issues” that haunt the past, or finally, some truly positive change?
Because if tools exist to access boundless knowledge, it is the educator’s role to teach students how to use them responsibly and ethically. The world isn’t changing. The world has already changed. Resisting this will only bring more work and worse outcomes. It’s better to draw inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s famous words—“learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets”—than to find ourselves reflected in Jean Delumeau’s classic “History of Fear in the West.”
