From Smartphone Control To Digital Akhlak Formation: Moral Responsibility Among Vocational Students In Indonesia

Abstract

This study examines how vocational schools govern students’ smartphone use as part of digital akhlak formation. A qualitative field study was conducted in three public vocational schools in Bantul Regency through interviews, observation, and document analysis. The findings show that smartphones help students access information and complete school tasks, yet they also fragment attention, alter sleep rhythms, weaken social sensitivity, and create digital harm through memes, indirect insults, and mocking comments. Schools respond through phone-use regulations, learning contracts, religious habituation, teacher exemplarity, classroom supervision, educative sanctions, and counseling services. However, this formation remains fragile because smartphone use continues at home and in peer-based digital spaces that schools cannot fully monitor. The study proposes digital akhlak formation as a process of cultivating students’ responsibility for time, body, language, information, and social relations through the negotiated roles of schools, families, and communities.