[HN Gopher] Silicon Valley's supposed obsession with tech-free p...
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Silicon Valley's supposed obsession with tech-free private schools
(2019)
Author : williamsmj
Score : 29 points
Date : 2022-03-20 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lareviewofbooks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (lareviewofbooks.org)
| WalterBright wrote:
| On the other hand, tech in the classroom has never been
| demonstrated to improve educational results at all, other than
| for various disabled kids, who have been helped by it.
| rektide wrote:
| im interested in the opposute, in not just teaching via
| technology, but in trying to create an empowered enriched
| relationship with technology.
|
| in my fabtasy worldclasses are setting up & adminhing their own
| clusters, are playing with userscripts & social web protocols,
| are creating nodebots.
|
| im not really sure where to look, where the vanguard forces might
| be. huge respect to projects like the first robotics competiton
| but that still feels like a narrow course, one where the digital
| has some co-incident, but feels extra-curricular & dominated by
| other mechatronics concerns.
| jmathai wrote:
| I used to think that until my kids got to be 9+ years old and
| the negative effects of technology became very real. Not all
| technology is bad but it is hard to draw a line between good
| and bad. Impossible, IMO.
| nostrademons wrote:
| What negative effects, out of curiosity? My kids are a fair
| bit younger and I'm generally pretty positive on technology
| but am interested in what you've noticed.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Kids belong outside running around, setting up their own
| kickball games, building forts, skateboarding, etc.
|
| There's a picture of me outside as a boy wearing shorts,
| and my shins were bruised from ankle to knee. Obviously,
| I'd been out having fun :-)
| copperx wrote:
| Being the devil's advocate for a second: why? If they
| become adult white collar workers they will be indoors
| most of the time, interacting with technology. I loved
| being outside as a kid and teen, but is it really
| deleterious if the new generations don't get exposed to
| that?
| judge2020 wrote:
| In general it's very attractive to see the entertainment
| value in technology and succumb to babysitting your child
| by sitting them in front of an iPad for hours at a time.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Here is a good resource on the manifest harms of consumer
| digital communications technology (smartphones) on young
| people [1]
|
| [1] https://ledger.humanetech.com/
| Tanjreeve wrote:
| Learning to actually use technology "actively" and/or
| creatively isnt the same thing as the "passive" use that gets
| pushed on the public through the infinite scroll, constant
| surveillance and psychological manipulation that people worry
| about.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| As a computer scientist and dad, I have this very simple
| maxim (see [1] for more)
|
| "We should teach our children about technology, not allow
| them to be taught _by_ technology."
|
| [1] https://digitalvegan.net
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority
| complex.. "techies" are somehow the smartest people in the room,
| but also they actually aren't and are full of hubris.
|
| i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" as if
| average software engineers call the shots on what their employers
| do either. its such a well orchestrated distraction. the average
| engineers job is to execute, not to decide what to build. just
| like every other industry, a few people at the top call the shots
| on what to do, the rest of us are executing or making tiny
| decisions on _how_ to do it. me and Mark Zuckerberg are both
| "techies"... no difference right?
| civilized wrote:
| Tech destroyed journalism's ad-driven revenue model over a
| decade ago, and their attitude since then has been a mixture of
| inferiority complex and white-hot rage and contempt.
|
| Also, hearing "learn to code" on Twitter pissed them off.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I agree. Something about the tone of this article felt
| fundamentally dishonest (perhaps an edu-tech puff piece) and
| too keen to prove a point about a whole class of people using
| vague allusions.
|
| > "technologists know how phones really work, and many have
| decided they don't want their own children anywhere near them"
|
| I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist.
|
| > "These articles assume that techies have access to secret
| wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children."
|
| Some of us do because we _design_ it, and under conditions of
| NDA. Only recently leaks of emails proved this precise point.
| Many more of us have "not-secret" wisdom as we proudly publish
| scientific papers about it. Moral judgements aside, we know
| what this stuff does. But the author attempts to insinuate the
| language of conspiracy.
|
| > "Based on two decades of living among, working with, and
| researching Silicon Valley technology employees, I can
| confidently assert that this secret knowledge does not exist."
|
| Then either the author has not been living, working and
| researching very well, or his confidence is misplaced.
| frozenport wrote:
| >>> These articles assume that techies have access to secret
| wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children. Based
| on two decades of living among, working with, and researching
| Silicon Valley technology employees, I can confidently assert
| that this secret knowledge does not exist.
|
| LOL, this didn't age well. See for example Facebook's attempt to
| suppress reports on how their technology is harmful to teen
| girls.
| vletal wrote:
| Mark was on Lexes podcast counter arguing against that. Any
| link? I'm really interested in the source material.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > See for example Facebook's attempt to suppress reports on how
| their technology is harmful to teen girls.
|
| Pretty sure that was confirmed as sensational reporting at best
| almost immediately. Though the major news organization didn't
| let facts get in the way of dunking on Facebook.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think the idea that Facebook is "harmful to teen girls" is
| just media sensationalism. That's not an accurate
| representation of what Facebook's internal reports showed. The
| report had 12 measures of well-being and found that instagram
| had positive impact on 11/12 and negative impact on 1/12. The
| media, naturally, sums this up as "Facebook knows it harms
| girls and does it anyway!!!"
|
| https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a...
|
| In my view, it's quite positive that Facebook is studying the
| impact of their platform on teens. I don't think that's a
| standard that major media companies, e.g. The Wall Street
| Journal or The New York Times, live up to. I also think it's
| commendable that Facebook internally confronts problems with
| their product in terms of impact on teens. I have some concerns
| that the media's hysterics will disincentivize companies from
| studying this kind of thing for fear that it will exploited by
| the media.
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