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Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

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211–220 of 228 posts

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#211

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.” -- Frederik Pohl Car, meet traffic jam. But few, if any saw this one coming. Oddly enough, today's readers would find any story based on this premise mundane - kind of like a story about a traffic jam. From the article: > “We do see a huge, huge difference in the way students are connecting with each other,” Smith said, l…

To recommend good science fiction, "Three Body Problem" from Liu. He predicts the "traffic jam" and all other social impacts from tech.

he is a computer engineer by training after all.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very first thing you did is write a program that prints a pixel-perfect "memory reset successfully" message to the screen as if you had just cleared it yourself :)

yep, remember doing exactly this for the ti-84+ CE. god bless third-party TI-BASIC documentation websites. better than making it seem like you had just done it yourself, you could use the Menu() function to simulate all the menu navigation necessary to actually get to that screen! funnily enough, jabbing all the buttons on the calculator and having to select functions via menu listings created one of the comfiest dev…

I'm not a big BASIC fan, so I've done my stuff in C, since it was a Motorola 68k on the TI-Voyage 200. I don't remember exactly how (it's 15+ year ago), but you could mark your app as a "system app" which was not removed during a factory reset.

Add a cryptic name, blank screen on start with a short timeout to return to menu when a key combination is not pressed and nobody will ever notice.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#214
post #19

As a former student of a Minnesota district right outside Minneapolis, it's interesting to me that they were allowed at all. When I was in school in the late 90's / early aughts we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property. We all had them of course, but if they were seen they could be confiscated - I think it was largely an empty threat but I never saw anyone push it. Some tea…

> They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games. That would have been a huge bummer becuase I wasn't playing games on mine, I was writing programs. It was actually the start of my professional programming career technically. I sold a copy of the program I wrote via link cable to…

I had a TI Voyage 200 in highschool and wrote programs to solve whatever new problems were assigned and that's part of the reason I'm not very good at math.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#216
post #27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird comment. Did you really think most schools widely police cell phone usage in the year 2023?

I am well aware that they don't police it. What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly? Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

They're far worse than a distraction, they enable everything from new forms of bullying to viewing of gore and porn.

Then there's the issue of kids having a high-value gadget that's easily damaged and at risk of theft in schools that never managed to solve old-fashioned bullying let alone whatever the kids get up to on social media these days.

If kids, or, anyone under-18 really, really needs a phone make calls, something like the original Nokia 3110 would be much more suitable than any smartphone.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#217
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just have a jammer on school premises and use mac auth for the wifi in addition to the the metal detectors at the entrance.

The jammer will get you a visit from the friendly people at the FCC. Much easier to just make your school have some thick walls that prevent cell signals :)

If schools want jammers the FCC will make an exception and guidelines.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of half a dozen times that I personally needed to use a cellphone to contact a family member about something that was absolutely none of administrations business. I wouldnt want some judgmental old woman knowing about private health or emotional problems. This stance that the administration is responsible, respectful or helpful enough to field private communication through is ridiculous. The other side of…

The concept of 24/7 availability is ridiculous in it's own right. I don't buy the idea that they need them for "emergencies". Smart phones are constant dopamine dispensers. They create a dependency and cause human brains to go into withdrawal when not present. Once the science is laid bare I believe they will become severely curtailed in K-12 environments.

So which is it? That highschoolers dont deserve to have private communication or that or that we can trust school administrators to handle private communication? Its got to be one or the other, or some other reasoning that I have yet to see?

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#219
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they could wire the jamming system into the fire alarm. Pulling the alarm turns off the jamming.

I'm not going to pull the fire alarm if my friend is having an epileptic seizure.

We've gone many generations without cell phones at schools with trained professionals who are qualified to handle seizures. You don't need a cell phone to contact someone who can get medical assistance on a school campus.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#220
post #140
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

corporal punishment is child abuse. It does not mean children can do whatever they like. You might find it difficult to find alternatives, but better alternatives than violence exists. Save your children the costs of therapy as adults, and focus on real emotional health.

do you have any repoed studies that show kids who were spanked as kids (not beaten) needed therapy as adults? AFAICT, all the parents I know that don't punish their kids have the worst kids with the most problems. I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problems. I was spanked, my sister was spanked. All my cousins etc. None of us have any issues. We love our par…

> I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problem

If you're actually interested in an answer here, it's pretty easy to find people for whom it did cause problems.

If you say it works great in your family, fine. For you to extrapolate and say it's okay for everyone is not fine.

In my own experience, my parents reached for violence instead of taking the time to connect and understand. Now I know I cannot trust them to listen or to take time to try to understand where I'm coming from.

It is super easy to find people whose lives were greatly negatively impacted by domestic violence, especially coming in the form of "loving punishment." That can fuck a person up even more, leading them to believe violence is a part of love.

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