[HN Gopher] The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
___________________________________________________________________
The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 148 points
Date : 2024-10-12 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
| docfort wrote:
| I don't dispute the facts in the article, but this question kept
| popping up in my mind: how do they define reading time? I mean,
| in a too-pedantic sense, smartphone screen time is roughly
| divided into reading, viewing (photos/videos), and gaming. Given
| that they are not allowed to take the phones, it seems unlikely
| that the school knows a student's primary usage mode. For
| example, a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their
| phone, thereby reducing their time in the school's library.
|
| In other words, how holistic is the metric "reading time?"
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone
|
| Parent here. They could be, but let's be realistic here:
| they're likely not or if they are, they are the minority.
|
| My kids have dedicated reading time with physical books and, if
| they want to, they are always free to read more long form text
| on their devices (not likely -- that's just reality unless you
| have a dedicated reading-only device).
| jdiff wrote:
| I'm a high school teacher. Not for long, but for a few years
| now.
|
| Never have I ever seen a student reading on their phone. I'm
| not saying it doesn't happen, but it must be a vanishingly
| small fraction that I have not yet encountered. When my
| students are on their phones, it's games, or it's (primarily
| video-based) social media. A smaller but notable fraction is
| background media consumption, either music or movies.
|
| That's not to say I don't have kids who read, though they're
| much rarer than the music listeners, just that the readers seem
| to prefer physical books.
|
| So at least in my experience, I wouldn't expect that metric to
| be vulnerable to this particular flavor of distortion.
| docfort wrote:
| Thanks for the reality check. I was worried about how I could
| be conflating my own personal view as a parent with the
| popular narrative of "kids these days and their
| Instagram/TikTok." Probably says a lot more about me, but I
| vastly prefer the reading experience of a thick book on a
| phone than as a physical copy. And I have since I was a
| teenager (and it was just PDAs and clever TI-89 hackery).
| Ekaros wrote:
| I used to read on PDA and then later on Nokia Internet
| Tablet. But never in school even if I had one where. At
| those times it was just games(Bejewelled, Space Trader,
| DopeWars) or graphic calculator software.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _games(Bejewelled, Space Trader, DopeWars) or graphic
| calculator software_
|
| Snake!
| philwelch wrote:
| Most people don't have the patience and attention span to
| read thick books in the first place. That's something that
| you have to develop with practice, and kids who have access
| to TikTok aren't going to get that practice.
| hooverd wrote:
| I read a lot on my phone as a student.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I know I'm an autist and Wikipedia addictions are not the
| norm, but how can people not enjoy reading?
|
| I got in trouble all the time in school for reading (real
| books) during class time when the teacher was lecturing about
| things I already knew. Do kids like this not exist anymore? I
| thought autism rates were going up!
|
| Seriously, no one reads? I thought kids were getting all
| political and woke, presumably from reading progressive
| things? I guess it's all TikTok mind control?
|
| I categorically oppose phone bans on the grounds that it
| harms the "brilliant lazy", and that these forces are exactly
| the kind you want to cultivate. (insert the famous bill gates
| and 4 types of German officers quote about this here) - but
| if this class of people has evaporated from the school
| systems than who am I even defending?
| hintymad wrote:
| > smartphone screen time is roughly divided into reading,
| viewing (photos/videos), and gaming
|
| My kids are avid readers, but even they won't read on a phone
| or a pad or a computer. If they got hold of a phone, they'd
| always choose either games or viewing videos.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I taught at the high school level for a decade. I would
| occasionally have students review their usage stats and 1) they
| were regularly a bit shocked by the number of hours they spend
| on their phones, and 2) the vast majority of that time was
| games and social media.
| borski wrote:
| I hear you, but not all "reading time" is equal.
|
| > For example, a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on
| their phone, thereby reducing their time in the school's
| library.
|
| That would be a great exception, but very much not the norm.
| Most kids are not reading long-form books or fiction on their
| phones.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Also, all reading time in the school library won't be equal.
| If the school insists on only certain reading time being
| valid they ought to just force kids to read a specific set of
| books. (My personal preference would be for fundamentally
| _less coercive_ education.)
| borski wrote:
| Sure. But I can pretty much guarantee the likelihood of
| finding worthwhile reading material in the school library
| is significantly higher than the likelihood of finding it
| on TikTok or X.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Even if you were watching them, you don't know that they don't
| have an app that plays a game frame at 1 Hz that they sync
| their minds to while you see the other 59 frames at 60 Hz and
| think you're seeing a book.
|
| Without root access to the device and blinkers to ensure they
| aren't looking at a second device strategically placed out of
| sight, you can't conclude anything.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone
|
| It's a nice thought, but I have kids that age and never have I
| once seen this happen or heard of it happening with any of
| their friends/classmates; that's not what phones are for
| according to GenZ/GenA
| Sakos wrote:
| Man, I love reading, but I simply can't focus on reading a
| long book on my phone. There are too many distractions, too
| many urges that are way too easy to satisfy with all sorts of
| time wasters. So if I, as somebody who reads a lot of books
| and has been an avid reader since childhood, can't resist
| wasting time and focus on reading on my phone, then I can't
| imagine any significant number of kids would be able to.
| astrobe_ wrote:
| According to everyone, I think. E-readers exist for that
| precise reason, although actual books are the best according
| to me: no battery, more resilient, can be lent. Phones are
| great as dictionaries (notably foreign language
| dictionaries).
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| I find most ereaders to be absolute garbage and just read
| books on my phone.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Doomscrolling is not reading. And is the one behaviour above
| literally any other thing that phones force you into. Their
| form factor and their apps have converged on the perfect device
| for "making you keep meaninglessly looking at the device" while
| reinforcing that behaviour.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| Speaking for myself (a grown-up) I do read a lot on my phone,
| but it's almost all "brain junk food" like Hacker News comments
| :) instead of something which slowly develops a complex idea
| like a book.
| ksymph wrote:
| Personally speaking, myself and my friend group used our phones
| mostly for reading in high school in the mid-2010s. It's the
| exception but certainly not unheard of. Those interested in
| writing are likely to do a lot of reading, and there are many
| amateur writing communities online that are populated mostly by
| teenagers.
| itishappy wrote:
| Phones make for poor reading devices. My girlfriend spends a
| lot of time reading light novels on her phone, and I don't
| understand how. The small format, constant scrolling, and the
| presence of ads on many apps and sites makes the experience
| look miserable. I don't know how many kids are using the paid
| versions of their reading apps, let alone reading long-form
| content at all.
|
| There's been a few studies suggesting reading on paper is
| better for retention than reading on screens, and I've found
| one suggesting the size of the screen makes a further
| difference, but it looks like the latter may have some
| conflicting findings as well.
| tootie wrote:
| This is the principal of a school saying his policy works but he
| has no data to back it up. Seems like not a story.
| borski wrote:
| Qualitative observations can often also be useful, even if they
| can't be relied upon as proof.
| tootie wrote:
| Sure but not when there's a direct conflict of interest. I'd
| also wager he has loads of data on things like test scores
| and if he says there's nothing conclusive it likely means the
| data shows no change.
| borski wrote:
| I'd wager he has less data than you think, and even less
| knowledge of how to analyze it. Like most local school
| programs, I can pretty much guarantee this was a "let's see
| how it goes" and the success metrics were qualitative, not
| test scores.
|
| If students were more attentive, more enthusiastic, etc.,
| those would not be numbers that you could report, but would
| absolutely be positive results.
| al_borland wrote:
| It could also be the students hide them better, because they
| aren't allowed to have them.
|
| When I visited one of our offices in India there was a phone
| ban. Employees were given a locker for their phone (and other
| stuff if they wanted), where the phone was to remain while
| they were in the work area. Being a visitor, I complied, but
| then quickly found out almost no one else did. They all
| secretly had their phones out doing whatever when the boss
| wasn't looking. I stopped locking mine up after a bit as well
| after seeing this.
| borski wrote:
| That's possible, but harder to hide for students than
| employees. Employees are given, generally, a bit more trust
| than students are. At a lot of schools, students aren't
| even allowed to leave for lunch.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Glad to see phone bans become more popular. Jonathan Haidt had it
| on his list of suggestions to parents, to avoid the anxiety
| generation continuing. He had a longer list but the four big ones
| were:
|
| No smartphones before high school
|
| No social media before 16
|
| No phones in schools
|
| More free, independent play
| pkphilip wrote:
| All very sensible points. I would add no TV at home till 16
| astrobe_ wrote:
| You just get hooked to radio and get a weird fetish for
| voices ;-)
| talldayo wrote:
| I don't get this. I have very little love for programmed
| television and news channels these days, but I mostly feel
| that way because I grew up around them. Reality TV sucks, the
| news is gruesome, Marvel movies are all the same, HBO just
| airs different flavors of sex and violence. If you're not
| exposed to this media and the inherently pulpy context it
| exists under, you're training your children to treat it as
| exotic and desirable. You owe it to your next-of-kin to show
| them the news and global politics in the same way too, lest
| they fetishize extremism in their late age because they
| weren't exposed to moderate opinions.
|
| On the flip side, I lived in a rural area and my parents
| would frequently take me to play with kids that had no TV or
| internet access. Words cannot describe how thick these people
| can be. One of them was a pair of history buff brothers that
| weren't allowed to read anything their parents didn't vet -
| they didn't even know what the Civil War was when I mentioned
| it. There was a family that lived on a farm, where every time
| I visited their kids would ask me what weed looks like, what
| porn was and how alcohol tasted. There were the kids that
| asked me to recite Newgrounds videos verbatim, explain who
| "Iron Man" is and even ones that (tragically) didn't know the
| Mormonism their parents loved was a cult. Rejecting social
| media is a smart thing to teach _anyone_ , but you have to be
| extremely careful to not use it as an excuse to shelter them.
|
| Sometimes I worry that HN creates a "growth hack" mindset for
| parents that inhibits them from thinking rationally about how
| a child develops. It's not a new phenomenon but it seems fear
| overrides our willingness to empathize with the events of our
| own childhood. It all feels reminiscent of when people played
| Mozart for their baby because an unreviewed paper correlated
| it with higher IQ. Missing the forest for the trees, a bit.
| kelnos wrote:
| While I can understand that some more extreme parents might
| go for this (I imagine there were some like this even before
| the internet and smartphones), that seems... well, a bit
| extreme?
|
| Certainly sitting in front of a TV all day is bad for you,
| but I think policing TV use for a child to ensure it doesn't
| become a problem is a lot easier than policing smartphone
| use.
| didip wrote:
| No TV and no video game as well before 16?
| seany wrote:
| We're doing "no internet connected games", which seems like a
| reasonable balance.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Even that's a little unfortunate, because in my experience
| the older generation of straightforward competitive
| multiplayer games can be a productive and mostly safe
| experience.
| wincy wrote:
| Weird my experience as a teenager in the early 2000s was
| being told how much everyone had carnal relations with my
| mother on multiplayer games on the internet.
| philwelch wrote:
| That's just socializing with other kids, not being preyed
| on by an abusive game industry.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It was still a form of abuse, just not backed by
| multimillion corporations. Boys will be boys, but it's
| less toxic when it's in real life with kids you actually
| know and can see, vs. anonymous strangers over Xbox Live.
| philwelch wrote:
| Trash talk during competitive games is normal, harmless
| behavior, not abuse. Boys back then weren't sheltered and
| overprotected the way they are now so they could handle
| it.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Yeah, different games had different cultures. That's why
| I hedged with "mostly safe."
| tuna74 wrote:
| My 8 year old plays Fortnite sometimes together with his
| friends. I am a bit jealous, they seem to have a lot of
| fun.
|
| Sometimes one of his buddy brings his Switch home to us
| and they can play together in the same room (I have a PS5
| my kid plays on).
| Ekaros wrote:
| I don't have kids, but now I am thinking about
| possibilities of setting up some old Windows PC with
| collection of DRM free relatively age appropriate zip or
| installer files. Preferably with mostly random filenames
| and only some list somewhere. Then allowing kids to just
| pick anything from there.
| pton_xd wrote:
| That makes me a bit sad to hear as a good portion of my
| social interaction as a kid was via multiplayer games. And
| all that time spent ended up leading to a career for me.
| It's a tough decision for you though, games and life in
| general are quite different now.
| Sakos wrote:
| The nature of online games has changed. There's a huge
| difference between the predatory nature of modern
| multiplayer games vs Battlefield, Counter-Strike, Quake,
| AoE2, etc.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| So essentially, the early 90s?
|
| As a kid for part of that time, I have to say my gut reaction
| is supportive.
|
| Three of the most important consequences of your above were (1)
| creating boredom, (2) promoting independent in-person social
| interaction, and (3) emphasizing present-ness in the moment.
|
| All in ways that are very difficult for children to experience
| today.
|
| Many of my most impressionable and favorite childhood moments
| came from hanging out with friends, being bored, and getting
| engrossed in whatever we came up with...
|
| ... nowadays at that age, we probably wouldn't even get
| together and would immediately fire up our consumptive dopamine
| bricks to banish the first hint of boredom.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's a little funny that everyone talks about this as a "phone
| ban" when surely you really only need to ban like 3-4 big tech
| apps/domains.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when surely you really only need to ban like 3-4 big tech
| apps /domains_
|
| What are you basing this one?
|
| (Semantic note: "surely" implies an internally-reasoned
| versus evidence-based hypothesis. It wasn't always that way;
| maybe it's because of its frequent use in reverse.)
| kelnos wrote:
| Let's see... Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, TikTok,
| YouTube... and that's just off the top of my head without
| thinking. There are more, many more than 3-4.
|
| And unless you block the browser (parental controls on mobile
| are garbage), they're going to get to those sites anyway.
| Sakos wrote:
| It's extremely weird to me that phones weren't categorically
| banned in schools until the recent trend. When I went to school
| in the 90s and early 00s, phones were banned from class, and in
| some schools I went to, even on campus.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Jonathan Haidt has also been critiqued by his peers [1] for
| looking at the data with a foregone conclusion instead of
| getting his conclusion from the data. He's another one of those
| moral panic peddlers and should not be trusted as a reliable
| source. [2]
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/live/Ewxe4pWOH-I 2.
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1647639025879064579.html
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| You seem to dismiss anyone who claims a "moral panic" while
| relying on a source that claims multiple moral panics as the
| issue, such as "the fact that we're living in a late stage
| capitalist hellscape ... [without a] social safety net...as
| climate change cooks the world".
|
| Furthermore, your backup includes 'X can't be caused by Y
| because X happened before Y existed'. This ignores that
| possibility that X can be caused by Y and also caused by
| something else that existed before Y.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Climate change is real, so it's not a moral panic. I am not
| interested in sharing sources about this with you in 2024,
| because this has already been debated to death in the years
| prior. If you are not convinced of its existence, then
| that's more your concern than mine.
|
| Late stage capitalism's reference is a touchy subject and
| probably hyperbole in most cases, but it is also a specific
| reference and does not require the complete abandonment of
| capitalism to repair the problems. Referring to it does not
| necessarily equate to a moral panic in my definition of the
| terms.
|
| I do not ignore the possibility you cite; I find the
| reasoning of it existing prior far more convincing.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Some things don't need data for us to take action. This is
| one of them. You can ignore the problem if it isn't a big
| thing for you, but to many adults the reality of the anxious
| generation is right in front of them. Waiting for drawn out
| debates is not acceptable to them, and these actions have
| almost no downsides.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Picking the first offered action to a potential problem is
| a moral panic. Without intending it, one can potentially
| introduce different long-term negative effects. I am a
| parent of three and am fully aware of the anxieties of
| parenthood.
|
| I once held a similar position of anxiety about this issue
| until someone wrote a response to me that was very similar
| to my own in this thread. I'm trying to share something
| similar with others: to inform those concerned that banning
| is not necessarily the only or best option.
| seydor wrote:
| As essential as smoking ban. I won't be surprised to see this
| expanded to adult situations
| eloisius wrote:
| God, I'd love to see the smartphone/no smartphone sections in
| restaurants.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| What would be the point of a no smartphone section in a
| restaurant?
|
| A concert would make sense though IMO.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What would be the point of a no smartphone section in a
| restaurant?_
|
| It elevates the experience. Going back to the class thing
| [1], cell phone on the table or cell-phone use during
| dining is a noticeable thing between _e.g._ Michelin-
| starred restaurants and diners. (And I'm only counting N >
| 1 tables.)
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41820633
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > It elevates the experience.
|
| For who? Not for the people who might want to use one,
| and for the people who get annoyed seeing someone else
| using one, that's their problem.
| bavell wrote:
| The band Tool does this - they ask for no phones and no
| photos during the show (except the last song)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| smartphone-free cafes are starting to pop up [0]
|
| [0] https://www.facebook.com/reel/1041312411329542
| consf wrote:
| Imagine walking into a restaurant and being asked,
| "Smartphone section or no smartphone section?"
| itronitron wrote:
| I'd prefer to be asked "loud music, or no loud music?"
| wyldfire wrote:
| I'd like one for my living room. Can we just watch the show
| together? Otherwise we might as well be doing our own totally
| separate activities.
| tuna74 wrote:
| You (plural!) can make your own rules in your own living
| room.
| dopylitty wrote:
| It should've been expanded into driving a long time ago. There
| are laws against distracted driving but I still see people
| weaving around like they're drunk on the roads. When I look
| into the car they're usually holding a phone (on speakerphone)
| or holding it up to their ear.
|
| People suck at driving enough as it is without driving one
| handed and distracted.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Isn't it already illegal in most places? (sure peolpe do it
| anyway, but if you're caught there are heavy fines)
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| Last year in Michigan it was made a primary offense.
| Driving was really pleasant for a month or two and they
| realized nobody enforces it where it would help most.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Montana is still legal apparently but I'm sure cops could
| write you a ticket for the infractions you commit while on
| your phone, just not for the phone itself.
| ericmay wrote:
| In addition to the added crashes and deaths caused by mobile
| phone usage, state and federal leaders should be setting
| agendas that reduce car usage altogether to prevent deaths
| and injuries and pivot toward safer and by far cheaper modes
| of transit.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| They're not even talking much of the time, they're texting
| (or worse, scrolling some social media)
| xuhu wrote:
| In the daily downtown crawl at 5PM I count about one in four
| drivers on their phone. Is there a way to tell apart the
| adaptive cruise control cars from the ones without ? ACC is
| the only way I can explain why there isn't a crash every 5
| minutes.
| fragmede wrote:
| ACC won't engage under 25 mph. The reason for the lack of
| crashes might be that driving isn't that hard for most
| people.
| xuhu wrote:
| Seems to vary across models. Googling for Honda Civic:
| "And the Low-Speed Follow function can bring the vehicle
| to a complete stop when a vehicle detected ahead slows to
| a stop, and it lets you resume operation by pressing a
| button or the accelerator."
| kelnos wrote:
| This is illegal most (all?) places in the US, but as with
| many things, it's poorly enforced.
| consf wrote:
| Just as smoking restrictions reshaped social norms around
| public health
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Weddings in particular seem to have evolved "check your phone
| at the door" policies. Though perhaps mostly to keep folks from
| ruining the professional photographers shots by constantly
| diving into the action with cameraphones/flashes blazing...
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Do people not have courtesy and decorum anymore??? I won't
| give up my phone because I'm not stupid enough to take it out
| during a ceremony.
|
| I've been to several wedding ceremonies of somewhat large
| size where no one took their phones out, and certainly not
| for photos.
|
| Did trust in society hit a new low while I wasn't looking?
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > "check your phone at the door" policies
|
| No, no, no. A device in a (near-)stranger's unsupervised
| physical possession for hours is a compromised device. No.
| kelnos wrote:
| Conceptually I like the idea of giving everyone a locking
| pouch to put the phone in, with the ability to unlock it
| provided at the end of the event. That way the phone never
| leaves your person, but is unusable.
|
| But at the same time this sort of thing would also make me
| kinda annoyed (as I have no problem, generally, keeping my
| phone in my pocket, on silent, when having it out is
| inappropriate0.
| tylergetsay wrote:
| Not really, a phone in first boot not unlocked state is
| secure against most threat models
| fnfjfk wrote:
| Is your threat model really that people whose wedding
| you're attending are trying to exploit your phone..?
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Not really, not if you secure your phone adequately, which
| these days is easier than ever.
|
| It's unlikely there will be state actors at this wedding or
| whatever ready to open up your phone and swap out a chip.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Don't invite those people.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Your comment would only make make sense in a dictatorship IMO.
| Smoking, nor mobile phones should be banned for adults.
| mhh__ wrote:
| On the reading question raised by another comment: I went to
| school recently enough that we had smartphones but before tiktok.
| You were allowed them but they'd be confiscated if seen in
| lessons or corridors.
|
| On balance I'd probably try and get rid entirely, but vividly
| recall my academic/engineering/whatever awakening being from
| downloading huge quantities of textbooks and the like onto my
| phone at the age of 14 or 15, so I wouldn't go stray too far away
| from modern technology in some sense.
|
| I could also argue that this made me quite distracted but (say)
| also meant that it was the best part of a decade until I would
| see something, conditioned on that I found it interesting, that I
| hadn't seen before in formal education.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Yes. That's in the before fore.
|
| Social media is far more addictive now. And doom scrolling is
| far better tuned. I see my kids and those of my friends. It's
| not at all what it was even 10 years ago.
|
| This is only getting wise as engagement is the only metric
| these companies care about. I support the social media ban
| under 18.
| iambateman wrote:
| I think the question "how do we encourage digital exploration
| without causing phone addiction" is the defining question of
| our generation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Punish companies that make addictive algorithms. Pre-social
| media, websites were no where near as damaging
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the question "how do we encourage digital exploration
| without causing phone addiction" is the defining question of
| our generation_
|
| One component seems to be _not_ providing them with a
| networked general-purpose computer out of the gate.
| codingdave wrote:
| That implies an underlying assumption that we need digital
| exploration. Do we?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > downloading huge quantities of textbooks and the like onto my
| phone at the age of 14 or 15
|
| I also used the internet to get interesting tech manuals (and
| plenty of other books) from IRC channels when I was young
|
| But that was before social media, which has IMO destroyed (not
| entirely, but largely) the positive aspects of internet
| connections for teenagers
|
| A phone is now primarily a source of always-on entertainment
| (in 10 second bytes).
| agrippanux wrote:
| I swapped my high school son's iPhone for an Apple Watch
| w/cellular for school days and his grades and social life
| improved significantly.
| mh- wrote:
| And here our schools don't allow smart watches, depriving me of
| this (wise) choice.
| hammock wrote:
| My school had to ban Tamagotchis back in the day...
| oblio wrote:
| Can't you just give them a dumb phone?
|
| Also, why do parents these days need so much that their kids
| have some an instant communication device?
| Mistletoe wrote:
| At the school by me every day is a line that stretches for
| blocks of parents picking up their kids at 3pm. All of
| these cars and human time was previously handled by a
| school bus and one driver.
| oblio wrote:
| Why does this craziness happen?
| lazide wrote:
| Because clearly a school bus is too expensive. /s
| Spooky23 wrote:
| People are paranoid for a variety of reasons about their
| kids.
|
| Also, culturally, parents don't let kids walk home. When
| I was a kid in NYC only the kids bussed in from the hood
| had busses, the rest of us from the local neighborhood
| walked. State aid only reimburses for trips beyond a
| certain radius.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| A few decades ago (before Sir Tim-Berners Lee invented
| the WWW), I attended a fairly large public elementary
| school, and it seemed that most of us just walked (or
| rode bikes) to/from school.
|
| Sure, a few kids got rides on most or all days, and many
| rode a bus (sometimes a school bus, or sometimes a church
| or YMCA bus that ferried kids off to supervised after-
| school activities). We might get a ride to school if we
| were running late in the morning, or get picked up if we
| had an appointment after school, or if the weather was
| awful. (And I made sure to have a good look for my
| grandpa's car every afternoon: Every now and then he'd
| show up seemingly at random, and we'd go get ice cream.)
|
| But at 3:00PM, what broadly happened was that we filtered
| out onto the quiet sidestreets that bordered the school
| and [eventually] made our ways home.
|
| The daily line of cars was short enough that it didn't
| take any particular special consideration to manage:
| Folks just parked on streets that weren't used for lining
| up school buses and it all seemed to work fine.
|
| It worked fine. It seems a bit chaotic in retrospect, but
| it really was just fine. Nobody got kidnapped or
| murdered. If we were late getting home it was because we
| were just out fucking off somewhere being kids.
|
| ---
|
| Nowadays, I do some work sometimes at much smaller public
| elementary schools that requires me to take a break when
| the hallways are flooded with kids, and that gives me
| opportunities to passively observe what goes on.
|
| Every afternoon, rain or shine, a huge organized line of
| cars appears, on dedicated pavement that did not exist
| decades ago, and organized individual dismissal of kids
| into their requisite cars begins. It looks like madness
| to me. Some cars even show up an hour and a half or more
| before dismissal, and the drivers seem to remain in the
| car the entire time -- just waiting.
|
| So what changed?
|
| To posit a theory: In this particular school system,
| reorganization didn't help at all. Schools were
| consolidated, and on average they shrunk (the big school
| I went to still stands, but it is empty). Due to what I
| can only presume is complete mismanagement, this lead to
| a lot of kids needing to go a school that was very far
| away and required riding the bus instead of just walking
| home.
|
| But also: Parents of school-aged kids these days largely
| grew up with the Internet, and that made the world seem
| like a scarier place than it actually is.
| chgs wrote:
| When I was a kid I could phone home from a pay phone.
|
| Can't do that nowadays.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Once when I was 10, 11 years old, I needed to call home
| from school.
|
| I had never used a payphone. I had perhaps rarely used
| our rotary home phone to dial out.
|
| Of course it was after school hours, and a stressful
| personal crisis already, and no adult was hovering nearby
| to explain anything.
|
| I figured out how to put in the coins and enter the
| number on TouchTone, (just like I'd seen on TV) but I
| didn't know what a dial tone or ring tone sounded like,
| nor a busy signal, and the line was in use at home, so
| indeed it was a busy signal that I patiently listened to
| for several minutes. I believed it was ringing and nobody
| was picking up.
|
| By the time I was 21 and working at my first job, I was
| promoted and given a cubicle with a phone on the desk. I
| was quite anxious that it would ring and I wouldn't know
| what to do with the call. I was working for an Internet
| provider!
| nosianu wrote:
| Now I feel reminded of Monty Python' sketch "The Four
| Yorkshiremen" - https://youtu.be/DT1mGoLDRbc
|
| Back in _my_ day we didn 't even have a phone!
|
| 1980s East Germany, many homes did not have a phone. My
| parents could have gotten one, their job was important
| enough, but they did not want to be disturbed at home so
| they never asked for the great privilege of having a home
| phone.
| kelnos wrote:
| While they're at school, they can use the phone in the
| school's main office to call home if there's an
| emergency.
|
| Smartphones can be left in a locker (or somewhere else
| inaccessible during the school day) for use on the way to
| school and home if something happens.
| newsclues wrote:
| Ban smart watches but not phones?
| mh- wrote:
| They require students to deposit their phones in a storage
| thing when they enter the classroom.
| newsclues wrote:
| That makes sense and seems reasonable
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I've been saying the Apple watch needs to be advertised as a
| solution for phones in schools more.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I have a middle school student and have observed this trend
| personally. Our school is considering a cell phone ban during
| school hours (can still bring the phone to school, goes in
| locker, get it on the way out), which I 100% support.
|
| We use parental controls on iOS but those are buggy (and Android
| even worse from what I heard).
| mh- wrote:
| This is how our school works, and I wouldn't have let my kids
| go to school with a cell phone if they _didn 't_ enforce such a
| policy.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| There used to be a Silicon Valley parents versus not divide in my
| personal observation of kids with smart phones/tablets. It's now
| generalised to a class division: the children of the rich tend to
| have tight restrictions at home and, increasingly, at school,
| around device use.
|
| We need statewide rules if we're to avoid creating a generational
| gap in cognitive and social competence.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's not surprising. Rich people can afford childcare for all
| or a large part of the day, and can instruct their nanny to
| actually engage the child rather than pacifying them with a
| tablet screen.
|
| Parents who can't afford that will resort to anything to occupy
| their child when they need a moment of peace, and it's hard to
| blame them, honestly.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| If we want to avoid creating a generational gap in cognitive
| and social competence we should outlaw private education ad
| significantly boost state education.
| andrei-akopian wrote:
| Some schools ban phones but allow laptops and tablets. It is the
| phones specifically that are the problem, not social media.
| (apparently)
|
| My phone usage dropped after I got a personal laptop and an eBook
| reader. So did pretty much every one else's. The phone is just
| really inconvenient for anything other than doomscrolling.
|
| In my opinion, the lack of alternative activities is overlooked.
| It is a ban and a prayer that the problem will solve itself.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > t is the phones specifically that are the problem, not social
| media.
|
| disagree; it's the social media that's the problem; the phone
| just makes it possible to access it at all times
|
| remove social media and you won't have kids on their phones all
| the time (or, if you're very lucky, they might use them for
| something productive)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _remove social media and you won 't have kids on their
| phones all the time_
|
| This is a testable hypothesis. We shouldn't conclude either
| way without more evidence. As it stands, enforcing a phone
| ban has advantages over an app one.
| andrei-akopian wrote:
| FYI: Schools have firewalls that block social media, but
| kids learn to use VPNs.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Firewalls also do nothing if the kid has a decent data
| plan.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Small sample size but already tested in my household. Block
| the social media apps and website and phone use is greatly
| reduced.
| newsclues wrote:
| Yeah in computer class in high school the normal kids were on
| MySpace or chat in the computer lab instead of doing the
| boring work.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Mobile operating systems are designed to engage and distract
| the owner. Lost your attention for a few minutes? Screen dims
| and threatens to darken! Oh no! Touch its face and keep it
| alive! Notifications from everything. Alarms that won't shut
| off until you do something about it. Pleading with us to
| recharge the battery. Insisting that radios be turned back on
| and sensor access be granted.
|
| Every app, every website you visit is infested with dialogs
| and pop-ups that you're brushing out of the way, trying to
| get something accomplished.
|
| It really tests your resolve and concentration, to see if you
| finished that one task you had in mind when you unlocked your
| phone, without going into 5 more on the side, or whether you
| can tame your phone sufficiently to be an assistant or
| productivity tool, rather than a firehose of marketing from
| dozens of companies to you, the consumer.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Phones are ok as communication devices though, even if it's
| only "lunch half twelve 2nd floor canteen?" to a coworker.
| Whether schools need that or not is another question, though
| "Mum can you check did I leave my maths book on the desk?" via
| whatsapp seems to be a thing these days.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Bring back alpha-numeric pagers!
| newsclues wrote:
| Going back to blackberries would be ideal imo
| fragmede wrote:
| All the way back to the Blackberry 950.
| newsclues wrote:
| Glorious physical buttons!
| consf wrote:
| Without that, the ban becomes more of a hope than a solution
| hooverd wrote:
| There's nothing magic about phones that makes them bad. It's
| mostly the content on them: social media. Which people here
| earn money hand over fist making more addictive and then wonder
| how it all happened. I was in high school right around the
| first iPhone. Kids got good at T9 texting but it wasn't
| anything like now I guess.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| It isn't magic but they are different than laptops and
| desktops in important but subtle ways.
|
| They are (generally) always on your person. They discourage
| the creation of text. They always have an internet
| connection. They are usually charged right next to your bed,
| so they are the first and last thing you interact with every
| day.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| It really can't be underestimated either for children or adults
| how much we are dependent on ease of access.
|
| If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is read a
| math textbook you are going to do it. If you are stuck in a room
| and you have a math textbook and a novel you now have a choice.
|
| A phone? A phone is everything else. You're putting "the thing we
| are supposed to be doing" and "everything else" in the same
| place. I can't even do it as an adult, I need to put my phone on
| the other side of the room if I want to read something proper.
| consf wrote:
| Managing distraction in an age where everything is at our
| fingertips is a hard task
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It's not only distraction though. The phone is a window to
| the internet which offers all the knowledge of the world.
|
| And in 'my day' I spent a lot of time at the library which
| was full of thrillers and comics. And spent most of my time
| learning about computers and electronics.
|
| It's not an unprecedented problem and offers new offers new
| opportunities too.
| lifty wrote:
| Sure, but the quick dopamine fix that you can get from
| scrolling TikTok or Twitter is way more corrosive than
| reading long form content in a library.
| exe34 wrote:
| I simply don't use either. never have, never will. they
| do not serve my purpose, so they are irrelevant to my
| life.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Then it is important for you to recognize that you are a
| unicorn.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I think that's only the case if you only meet people
| through TikTok and Twitter
| oblio wrote:
| Your comment is totally irrelevant to the conversation
| regarding schools, though. Smartphones are massively
| corroding kids' brains these days, and YES, this is much
| worse than TV or video games back in the day.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That's not a fact, it's a point being debated.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And yet, you're still on here posting along with the rest
| of us.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| You've definitely used Twitter, even if just to see an
| announcement or something. Too much important information
| has been posted there over the last decade for anyone
| online a lot to have been able to avoid it.
| exe34 wrote:
| I've seen screenshots of Elon acting like a loser, that's
| about it.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| So you've _never_ clicked on Twitter links, even when
| they have been submitted to HN?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah still I'm much more drawn to long form content.
|
| But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site
| that promotes learning new things though text-heavy
| presentation.
| luzojeda wrote:
| Having instant access from your pocket to an infinite
| source of entertainment is literally an unprecedented
| problem.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It's not all the knowledge. Frequently I have searched for
| something and not found it
| Nux wrote:
| Or we are at the fingertips of everything else..
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| This is why I think managing notifications is so important.
| bmitc wrote:
| I personally balk at the idea that everything is at our
| fingertips. Yes, a lot of information is readily available,
| but it is mostly very shallow, poorly referenced, and in
| short form. It is actually very hard to find in-depth, long
| form content on the Internet these days. You have to look
| very hard. Almost the only way to find it is by crawling
| dedicated forums and getting links that way. It's still much
| easier to find information in books.
| exe34 wrote:
| I use my phone to look up words/concepts/references all the
| time while reading - I couldn't do without it, flipping through
| a dictionary or walking up to a computer to read a quick
| Wikipedia intro to a concept/person/place/etc would just get me
| far more distracted.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| There's always a reason why we "need" our phone at all times,
| isn't there?
|
| For the purposes of public policy (where schools are
| concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be
| the best recourse?
| fragmede wrote:
| I find an eink tablet with no browser or a digitizing pen
| good for taking notes in this tech era.
| nosianu wrote:
| Weelll....
|
| I did that, and I use my Remarkable 2 mostly for reading
| epub novels and even leave the pen at home by now... :(
|
| Okay, knowing myself I never thought I would use it much
| for creative work to begin with (and I was right).
|
| I still think I did my best programming and learning
| about computers when I did not actually own one. East
| Germany, 1980s, I was in school. All programming happened
| with my head and paper,
| fragmede wrote:
| oh no.
|
| do you have a case so it's convenient to have the pen
| with you?
| nosianu wrote:
| I got the cheap standard case of the very first iteration
| (I was an original pre-order customer for the RM 2), not
| expecting to carry it around much (I was working from
| home most of the time anyway). I have to stick the pen
| somewhere else in the bag.
|
| I just looked, they don't even have that cheap model
| anymore.
| fragmede wrote:
| yeah I have something like https://a.co/d/3JUuMjd so the
| pens harder to lose
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Let the schools make rules, just like they do for a
| thousand other things.
|
| If you make it a "public policy" issue, it will become
| another partisan football for the authoritarians among us
| to create drama about.
| piva00 wrote:
| Nonetheless I did it all the time as a kid and it was fine
| using a dictionary. Is it much easier on a phone? Absolutely,
| but then I also get caught up reading the etymology, looking
| up on Wikipedia the Greek roots of the word, ending up at
| some Greek wars' battle in 500BC and what's the current
| geopolitical situation of the region, how did they vote on
| the last Greek Parliamentary election, etc.
|
| For my curiosity it's amazing, not so much for getting shit
| done.
| stephenlindauer wrote:
| Yet somehow we all survived before smartphones. If you have a
| question and raise your hand to ask, everyone else benefits
| from getting the answer as well.
| reidrac wrote:
| Sometimes when I'm reading a paper book I miss the easy
| access to a dictionary that I get on my ebook reader, but I
| have found I can just keep reading and infer enough to not
| interrupt my reading. I keep notes on a post-it and I check
| those later.
|
| I'm not suggesting you do the same, is just that I felt
| identified with your comment.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Write those down on a list and look them up every 15 minutes.
| bmitc wrote:
| Do you think that's useful? The old school way would be to
| jot down notes about questions and followups. I'm curious if
| the old school way relates to better retention of both the
| questions and answers. My suspicion is yes. I should do this
| myself more.
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm now going to a Third Place to get about half of my reading
| done. It's silly to go somewhere and sit on my phone. I can sit
| on my phone anywhere.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is
| read a math textbook you are going to do it.
|
| I'm not so sure if this is true. No clue about kids, but if I'm
| (personally) stuck at the office and I'm really not feeling
| like working, I can literally stare at a wall daydreaming
| rather than do something. And the contrary is also true - if
| I'm "stuck" at some fancy place with lots to do (like home,
| lol) but feel like working (and have means to do so), there's
| no stopping me.
|
| I suspect the problem isn't the phones, the problem is lack of
| honest, genuine interest. Compliance can be enforced, but I'm
| not sure about efficiency of learning under duress. Compulsion
| brings aversion.
|
| This, of course, is a purely idealistic view, assuming ideal
| high-skilled spherical educators in vacuum rather than actual
| real-world conditions. While there are always ways to captivate
| interest and steer it into productive learning, it requires
| some orders of magnitude more resources than what's available.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| > I can literally stare at a wall daydreaming rather than do
| something. And the contrary is also true - if I'm "stuck" at
| some fancy place but feel like working (and have means to do
| so), there's no stopping me.
|
| I mean there's a very broad spectrum here, and a slight
| distraction can be the difference between spending 5 minutes
| staring at a wall followed by three hours in flow state vs.
| spending three hours in mindless distractions.
|
| And children don't have any experience in how to cultivate
| flow state in the presence of distraction. Removing
| distractions naturally provides more opportunities to find
| the flow.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I agree. An adult can ask themselves what they're doing and
| why and how it aligns with their interests so on (aka have
| that midlife crisis, haha), a kid probably doesn't yet have
| enough self-reflection capacity yet.
|
| In my perception, distractions are ideally managed through
| interest management. Make the desired task actually truly
| desired - and you're guaranteed to not get distracted. And
| in an ideal environment, there should be an educator
| overseeing a kid and asking what went wrong if kid decides
| they wanna play with their phone instead of working.
|
| When you don't have someone to help with "why am I doing
| this and not that?", I guess it's true that next best
| option is to eliminate potential of distraction. It's not
| great, but is probably better than not doing anything about
| it.
|
| So, as always, there is an ideal approach (that doesn't
| work because it requires ideal environment), and a working
| approach that's very contrary to the ideal way of doing
| things.
|
| Hm... Maybe teaching kids (and adults) about the modern
| attention/spam economy actually works can help to lower the
| distractions. After you see through attention-grabbing
| tricks, scrolling through online feed wastewaters (or
| watching junk on streaming platforms, or playing "games"
| whose entire raison d'etre is to make money on players)
| becomes much less interesting or rewarding. Just a thought.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's more than that. You sitting in your living room watching
| Netflix instead of working is different than a classroom.
|
| In a classroom environment, once one kid is futzing around on
| their phone, others follow. That creates issues for the
| teachers who end up policing behavior instead of their jobs.
| You also have the obvious issues with cheating.
|
| When I was the president of a school board, a subset of
| active and vocal parents were against the ban, citing a
| desire say goodbye to their kids in the event of a school
| massacre. In some cases I had doubts with respect to the
| veracity of that argument. The parents are a problem too -
| many have an expectation to text or speak to kids throughout
| the day.
|
| The school handled it well IMO, no phones until grade 5, then
| kids can have them in their locker and use them at specific
| times.
| croes wrote:
| I bet it's the phone.
|
| Even if you're interested a smartphone can distract you.
|
| So no smartphone helps those people to focus on the remaining
| possibilities.
| lemoncookiechip wrote:
| > If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is
| read a math textbook you are going to do it.
|
| I would literally doodle, stare out a window, zone out
| daydreaming, or anything else other than read a textbook I
| didn't want to read for one reason or another, or pay attention
| to a teacher for that matter.
|
| Yes, it is anecdotal, but I'm sure we've all been children
| before, and even if you didn't do it, people around you surely
| did if you paid any attention. For god sake, I remember my
| classmates just using a lighter on small patches of whiteout
| ink during one specific class because of how bored they were.
| Extreme example? Yes. But passing papers, making paper planes,
| and other crafts, literally anything to pass the time.
|
| This isn't exclusive to children either. If an adult doesn't
| want to do something, they might very well not unless forced
| to, and even then.
|
| Btw, I'm not trying to argue about banning or not banning a
| phone, this is specifically about the statement above.
|
| EDIT: I should probably mention that this isn't a 5min thing, I
| could easily zone a teacher out for 45min-90min blocks if I
| didn't care about what they had to say, much less a book I
| didn't want to read.
| croes wrote:
| I think it about probabilities.
|
| A smartphone is a guaranteed distraction because of what you
| can do with it.
|
| No smartphone doesn't guarantee you read the book, but the
| chances are higher.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Yes, exactly right. And there are many students less likely
| than that to zone out, and many more likely to zone out.
|
| But if you give them a tool to aid in being distracted, it
| will encourage _all of them_ to not pay attention. It really
| is a question of likelihood
| erebearalte wrote:
| Reminds me of my time in boarding school, my grades were
| awesome there and I read alot cause I can't play video games,
| unfortunately it didn't make me wiser so I struggled a lot with
| self discipline later on.
| pipes wrote:
| I tried leaving a stack of programming books beside my pc while
| I'm working and putting my phone in another room. It does work.
| But I keep forgetting to do it.
|
| I was considering trying a month of no I internet browsing
| unless it is required for my job or learning.
| tmnvix wrote:
| I did something like this for a couple of weeks recently. I
| call it 'no idle screen time'. Any activity that involved
| using a screen (phone, computer, or television) had to have a
| purpose. The purpose could be simple such as messaging
| friends, finding an answer to something I was curious about,
| or simply looking at the weather forecast. Usually it would
| be work related.
|
| Benefits became clear almost immediately. I got more actual
| work done. I suddenly had way more free time than I imagined.
| I renewed my library card and started reading again. My focus
| improved. I actually started actively listening to music
| again (rather than just having it on in the background). I
| got more exercise. I took the time to prepare better food. A
| certain low-level sense of anxiety that had become all too
| familiar simply disappeared.
|
| I did slowly regress. It started with watching a movie or
| show in the evening, that sort of thing. Now, here I am
| writing this comment. Probably time to give it another go.
| pengaru wrote:
| > It really can't be underestimated either for children or
| adults how much we are dependent on ease of access.
|
| nit: If you mean to say these groups are so dependent on ease
| of access it's impossible to estimate correctly to what degree,
| you mean it can't be _over_ estimated, not underestimated.
| grakker wrote:
| It's amazing to me that people argue about this, using weak
| personal anecdotes or just strange self-righteousness.
| dash2 wrote:
| Has anyone here tried the Haidt recommendation of "no smartphones
| till high school, no social media till 16" with their children?
| Is it better than just banning them in school?
| jedberg wrote:
| The problem is if the school doesn't ban it, it's a lot harder
| for the parent to enforce. The child will either complain
| constantly about their friends having it, or just do it behind
| your back.
|
| If there is a school ban, then enforcement happens at school
| too, making it harder to do behind your back, and the bulk of
| their social circle isn't on social media, avoiding the FOMO
| issues.
| itishappy wrote:
| Having personally not had a smartphone or laptop through most
| of college back when Facebook was still cool (smartphone by
| choice, laptop by crime), I can say that social media on a
| library computer is a very different beast. You get most of
| the social benefits (I'd argue all of the important ones, is
| instant chat really needed?) while avoiding most of the
| distractions.
|
| So I get the complaint, but I feel like even if kids sneak
| around behind your back (been there too, lol, I rooted my
| iBook G4 when my parents added a password) the added friction
| makes a difference. In other words, kids will be kids, but
| that shouldn't stop us from setting healthy boundaries.
|
| Edit: Bit of a tirade, but I'm trying to say I agree with
| you! Just trying to add interesting context.
| consf wrote:
| Wow! Interesting how this change not only reduced phone use but
| also led to improvements in school culture and social engagement.
| But I think the success of such a ban lies in its careful
| implementation, with collaboration between students, parents, and
| staff.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Maybe it's a translation issue, but it seems in this article that
| the effect on school work (i.e. tests, quizzes, reports, homework
| assignments, etc.) was not studied, as I think the title of the
| article implies it was. Rather, they studied the phone ban's
| effect on school culture and bullying.
|
| To be clear, I believe a phone ban in schools would have a
| positive effect on academics, and that that would show up if it
| were studied. It's just that it doesn't seem like that's what
| they did in this case. Thus, arguing about whether phones affect
| attention span, memory, even reading time, is not relevant in the
| context of this article.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I was hoping some good studies would come out on this topic.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| One great thing about phone bans is that it brings equilibrium to
| teachers.
|
| A teacher has a bad day and a kid films the teacher crying? It's
| all over the socials and teacher is mocked.
|
| A kid has a bad day and throws a chair through a window while the
| teacher films it? Teacher is likely sacked for filming kids at
| school.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _A kid has a bad day and throws a chair through a window
| while the teacher films it? Teacher is likely sacked for
| filming kids at school._
|
| Assuming the teacher doesn't post that video, and only uses it
| as evidence for what the student did, why would they get fired
| for this?
| kelnos wrote:
| It has always felt absolutely bonkers to me that smartphone bans
| weren't put into place _instantly_ across US schools as soon as
| they started becoming common.
|
| I grew up in the 80s and 90s. If I'd brought a handheld game
| console like a Gameboy or something into class, it would have
| been confiscated immediately. Sure, I get it, that's not the same
| thing; obviously phones have other uses.
|
| But there is absolutely zero reason a kid needs their smartphone
| during class. All educational materials should be provided by the
| school. Kids do not need to be and should not be communicating
| with anyone outside class. If parents/guardians need to get in
| touch with kids during an emergency, they can do it the way
| they've done it as long as we've had the telephone: call the main
| office and have someone walk to the class to bring the kid to the
| phone.
|
| I do expect that smartphones could actually bring something
| useful to the classroom -- after all, they grant access to more
| or less all the world's knowledge -- but the downsides of
| allowing them far far far outweigh any possible upsides.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's a lot of reasons where possessing a phone in school is
| legit. In cities, transit passes are commonly phone bases. Some
| apartments require smartphones for gate entry.
|
| In class, different story of course.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| why can't a student leave their phone in the locker? or the
| teacher has a large bin where all students must put their
| phone into (powered off) before class starts.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Agreed, and they shouldn't need to be instituted, because they
| were already policy, weren't they?
|
| I had a CD Walkman during high school. Was smart enough to
| never to bring it out unless everything else in class was done
| and neighbors had nothing to say.
| countrymile wrote:
| A lot of interesting debate on phone bans right now. Including a
| great discussion on twitter about how some of the research being
| used to justify bans is using some dodgy stats:
| https://x.com/MatthewBJane/status/1843795198109000034
| hackable_sand wrote:
| it's not the phones
| musicale wrote:
| ChatGPT can only be used for homework now.
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