In Rio de Janeiro, children are playing again "like in the old days," and their focus in class has improved after a school cellphone ban pioneered in the city that has now gone national.

Students across the country of more than 200 million people are starting the school year with phones banned from classes and break time after a new law signed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in January.

Brazil, which has more smartphones than people, joins a growing number of nations using such bans to pry devices from the hands of children hooked on social media.

"It was difficult because we get addicted and ... it ends up causing a certain withdrawal ... but after the habit passes, we interact more," said Kamilly Marques, 14.

A student at the Reverend Martin Luther King public school in Rio de Janeiro, Marques told AFP she didn't even bother bringing her phone to school anymore, a year after the city first implemented the ban.

She is not alone. Only a few students now stop under a large mural of the US civil rights hero to place their........

© International Business Times