by kepler471 on 6/17/24, 3:02 PM with 187 comments
by jasonjei on 6/17/24, 4:12 PM
There is a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. NYU Prof. Jonathan Haidt argues that the rise of smartphones and overprotective parenting have led to a "rewiring" of childhood and a rise in mental illness. Suicides for both teenage girls and boys are up.
I’m choosing to send my kids to a school whose parents have also agreed to remove or drastically curb the use of social media. Not eliminate the creative sense of electronic tinkering.
by teekert on 6/17/24, 4:01 PM
I think that shows that indeed it should be a rule, voluntary will not work because of something akin to the network effect.
When we get interns at our company many of them, instead of communicating with us are in their phones during lunch and coffee breaks. It’s a disease, they don’t integrate, they don’t learn being social around collegeas. I don’t like most people of that generation and they never get to know me. Something has to change.
by vidarh on 6/17/24, 4:12 PM
The one school my son went to that had a "must be left at home" policy, I think went slightly too far (many students there had a complex travel route, and parents wanted to be able to check in if e.g. they were running late), but at the other ones having them lock it in a locker or hand it in at the door didn't see to be an issue for either the students or parents, nor did many students seem to want to risk detention for taking their phone out of the bag without good reason at the school were that was policy.
by candiddevmike on 6/17/24, 3:26 PM
by andyjohnson0 on 6/17/24, 3:55 PM
> The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated.
In my experience as a parent, this is nothing new. Until last year one of my children went to a very large secondary school in the UK (not in London though). The above was the rule for all of the seven years they were at the school: if you kept your phone out of sight and set to dnd then you were ok, but if it was visible then it was confiscated. My impression as a parent is that it was reasonably well observed by students and enforced by staff.
Context: We have an election here in the UK in ~2 weeks and phones in schools have been a minor moral panic issue that some of the parties are trying to use to assert their education credentials. I'm not saying there is no problem with children and phones - I believe there is - but theres a reason its getting attention at the moment.
by leohonexus on 6/17/24, 3:34 PM
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62d1643e8fa8f...
Some things that concern me:
- Page 19: Staff may examine any data or files on an electronic device they have confiscated as a result of a search, as defined in paragraph 57, if there is good reason to do so.
- Page 20: In determining whether there is a ‘good reason’ to examine the data or files, the member of staff should reasonably suspect that the data or file on the device has been, or could be used, to cause harm, undermine the safe environment of the school and disrupt teaching, or be used to commit an offence.
It also doesn't seem to lay out a limit on the duration for which a device can be confiscated - which makes confiscation for a week look a bit like a grey area to me. Would love to hear from anyone with more experience on this area.
by rubymamis on 6/17/24, 3:28 PM
by Balgair on 6/18/24, 5:00 AM
Denver's public school system (DPS) is a bit unique, just FYI. All public schools are chartered, including the DSSTs. Meaning that all guardians are required to select the school that they want their kids to go to, there are no defaults. All kids get free bus passes on municipal transport. As is usual in Colorado public schooling, things get really law-y as the city and school district lines cross over county lines (cities are not entirely within counties in CO).
by jeffbee on 6/17/24, 3:29 PM
https://berkeleyhighjacket.com/2023/news/bhs-teachers-unify-...
by Delphiza on 6/17/24, 4:43 PM
The hope that stopping phones in school will help the mental health issues that children are facing today is a ridiculous hallucination. The second paragraph of the article states "in the hope of also addressing the downsides of their use outside the school gates". Hoping for a better result is not enough.
Phones enable a level of socialisation, both positive and negative, on a scale that people who finished school as recently as five years ago will not understand. My child is a product of the covid-taught secondary schoolers and has very complex relationships with communication technology.
It is not about the phones in school. It is about games, apps, social media, media, influencing, content creation, filters, pr0n, spam, bots, AI, news. Those same platforms and tools are used to bully, shame, abuse, and stalk. Whatsapp 'in' groups allow social inclusion and exclusion at a pace that would never have happened at the same rate as before. You can be in and out of a group in seconds. You can feel the pressure to have to 'engage' at 2am. The phones are the problem, but switching them off while at school will make no difference.
By all means, let those schools trial it and give us the data. Adjust the results levels of family income, ethnic background, previous mental-health issues. I doubt we will see a drop in cases of teenage depression, self-harm, and suicide.
The UK (and many other education systems) have a pattern of 'parental blame'. For many educators, if a child kicks off at school it is not because they are being bullied, but because their parents expose them to domestic violence. 'Phones off at school' makes all the phone-related problems the parents' fault. Forgetting, of course, that the phone is just a device that connects children to their school peers.
by jurmous on 6/17/24, 3:28 PM
https://www.iamexpat.nl/education/education-news/netherlands...
by wafflemaker on 6/17/24, 3:32 PM
If I had a phone with calendar and a to do list, when at school, I might have fared better.
by ghaff on 6/17/24, 3:45 PM
by hnthrowaway0328 on 6/17/24, 4:14 PM
IMO the issue is with the school, not us. Schools will inadvertently introduce pad as a learning device, and his friends will use such devices too. I hope they ban it in Canadian schools too.
by fumar on 6/17/24, 3:57 PM
by gonzo41 on 6/17/24, 4:35 PM
Kids are missing out on the fun stuff and replacing it with phones. i hope we start to see change.
by rysertio on 6/17/24, 6:08 PM
by prmoustache on 6/17/24, 3:53 PM
by Angostura on 6/17/24, 3:56 PM
The speaker suggested that the question’at what age do you give your child access to the internet’ could better be framed ‘at what age do you want to give internet companies access to your child’
by giantg2 on 6/17/24, 3:56 PM
by Hizonner on 6/17/24, 3:56 PM
by lupire on 6/17/24, 4:34 PM
Why can't a school decide on their own?
by ilrwbwrkhv on 6/17/24, 3:39 PM
by cynicalsecurity on 6/17/24, 3:55 PM
by cedws on 6/17/24, 3:36 PM
by slavboj on 6/17/24, 4:24 PM
by rvba on 6/17/24, 3:54 PM
Story old as time.
Fascinating that people here cant predict it.
by zarzavat on 6/17/24, 3:57 PM
At some point a child will get abducted on their way home from school, or be unable to contact emergency services, because the school confiscated their phone.
They seem to want parents to buy dumb phones instead for their children. Can you imagine trying to text “I’m being followed by someone on XYZ road” on a Nokia-style keyboard? Do dumb phones support sending GPS coordinates to emergency services like smartphones do?
Even mundane things like what if a child’s train gets cancelled and they need to check Google Maps to find an alternative way home.