SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Vec, you introduced a no-screen policy in the lecture hall. Your students should not look at their smartphones or laptops during your lecture. Why?

Milos Vec: My students should listen to me and each other again. It is frustrating to tell them, for example, how Vasco Núñez de Balboa discovered the Pacific in 1513, waddled through the surf with his sword and shield drawn out to declare all lands and islands between the Arctic and Antarctic the property of the Spanish crown - and then someone is typing on his smartphone. This destroys the learning atmosphere. This fascinating story stands for the right of occupation in modern international law. It shows why we still have problems with inequality and Eurocentrism today.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does that make you angry?

Vec: Angry is the wrong word. I can understand the behavior yes, I know from personal experience, how dependent one can become from smartphones. But it distracts me a lot when students read or write in the lecture. My own capacity is undermined when I see someone busy with their cell phone. I can not finish my sentences properly, lose the thread and forget what else can be deduced from a story or what are the important exceptions to a rule of law. In addition, I tell them about the devastating passive smoking effect of the smartphone.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And that would be?

Vec: Even the students who leave their smartphone in their pockets are distracted by those who read the news. Some have to get up at six in the morning to be right on time in my lecture - they did not come to get distracted.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do the students react to your announcement?

Vec: Almost all of them are actually packing their smartphone away and closing the laptop.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you more attentive?

Vec: Yes, they suddenly look more curious, alert, open and interested. They are more present, concentrated. And they are more willing to participate, because I make my lectures interactive. And they exude a sense of relief and relief because they are no longer in the stress of constantly having to check messages.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you do with students who do not adhere to your no-screen policy?

Vec: I speak to them directly and tell them that they are not getting much. Then I explain to them again that in legal history as well as in the law in general accuracy is important - I also have to concentrate extremely, and I can not do that if the students are unfocused.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why did not you try to integrate smartphones in your lessons?

Vec: I even wanted to do that. There is a program for the smartphone, with which one can interrogate knowledge interactively. For example, I wanted to ask my students how many laws there were in the Holy Roman Empire. This is a question to surprise them with between six and ten million between 1500 and 1800. With this software I could also check how much knowledge got stuck.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But you have not tried it?

Vec: No, because I was thinking about the empirical effects that would have on the use of media in the lecture hall: If I were to use such a software, the students would always have the smartphone within reach and get it with them when they receive news. That would undermine the learning effect.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Many education researchers are in favor of using smartphones in the classroom.

Vec: A Bertelsmann representative said the other day, to a good lesson belong the cell phone. Such a thing can not be explained for me otherwise than economically and by total alienation of the world.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But turning off the phone is also a bit strange.

Vec: I do not ask students to turn it off all day, just to put it away for 90 minutes during the lecture. Maybe it makes sense to use such tools in other subjects, such as the natural sciences. I do not want to speak against her per se. But I think the disadvantages are bigger. Students are more attentive without smartphones. Rooms at the university, where they would have no reception, would certainly be in strong demand. There they could read and work undisturbed. You have to force yourself to read a hundred pages at a time, without looking at his smartphone.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where is your mobile phone when you give a lecture?

Vec: Since the no-screen policy I leave my cell phone in the office when I lecture. I did not want to see it anymore. Alone, when I knew it was in my jacket pocket, I was less aware of it and somehow felt miserable. It gives me a lot more to be more attentive than constantly available.

In the video: Digital abstinence in self-experiment

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