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New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

theguardian.com

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Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#31

Post by slothtrop »

strawhatdev wrote: post #22
rpcope1 wrote: post #13

Good, I don't see any good reason for kids to have smartphones in school. If someone needs to get a hold of the kid, the old fashioned way of just calling the school still works just fine.

Medical devices, e.g. (some) insulin pumps like the Tandem Mobi, are managed via smartphone apps only. It's an unfortunate fact of life that life supporting technology can increasingly only be interfaced via smartphones. From my perspective, that's an unfortunate but ultimately good reason for some kids to have smartphones.

A case at the extreme margins. Exceptions are trivial to deal with.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#32

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

or maybe the thing ruining kids is

1) That their freerange land has been wiped out and replaced with narrow strips of moving vehicles. Kids have ~no alternatives to being cooped up in adult-filled buildings.

2) False stranger danger alarms have wiped out peer time and 20k years of adultfree self-sufficiency training.

3) Wiping out multi-generational households and walkable communities. Kids used to have many parenting adults but have two. Or one. Or none.

4) Besides needing the wisdom of 100, parents now need to parent 24/7, every day of every week of every year. It's massively more time than the last x0000 years.

Maybe what is ruining kids are adults who've eliminated kids' natural growth builders and now are hell bent on sabotaging their last peer connector.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#33

Post by kube-system »

larvaetron wrote: post #15

I still don't understand why they were ever allowed in the first place. I went to public school in the 00s and if you got caught with your phone out in class, it would be confiscated until the end of the day. Repeat offenders would need their parents to come up to the school to get the phone back.

They might not have been allowed before. This is a law that prohibits them. Many schools prohibit phones as a matter of policy.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#34

Post by pavel_lishin »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #19

This is wonderful. Make it National. Then collective elderly Us can rest assured the generation that's running the country received a "proper" education closer to what many of us experienced since we were in school before smartphones were everywhere.

But where will we get the funding to build uphills both ways on the walk to school?

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#35

Post by ethbr1 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #20
leetharris wrote: post #16

This needs to happen on a country-wide scale. Our children are getting destroyed by the attention economy. I tried to setup a mobile game the other day and I immediately deleted it because every single popup was a psychologist-optimized addiction machine designed to suck every bit of dopamine from undeveloped children. This is the #1 issue plaguing children in my opinion and it will only get worse without regulation.

I'm not sure how much this will help, given how many parents I see allowing their children to be glued to screens outside of school, from incredibly early ages.

Public school has long succeeded, to the extent that it has, in spite of whatever happens at home.

Which IMHO, is what publicly-funded school should be: an island of normalcy regardless of whatever else is going on in a child's life.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#36

Post by stackskipton »

strawhatdev wrote: post #22
rpcope1 wrote: post #13

Good, I don't see any good reason for kids to have smartphones in school. If someone needs to get a hold of the kid, the old fashioned way of just calling the school still works just fine.

Medical devices, e.g. (some) insulin pumps like the Tandem Mobi, are managed via smartphone apps only. It's an unfortunate fact of life that life supporting technology can increasingly only be interfaced via smartphones. From my perspective, that's an unfortunate but ultimately good reason for some kids to have smartphones.

Sure, and law can be written in a manner that those with medical device reason can keep their phone with them.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#37

Post by pavel_lishin »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #32

or maybe the thing ruining kids is 1) That their freerange land has been wiped out and replaced with narrow strips of moving vehicles. Kids have ~no alternatives to being cooped up in adult-filled buildings. 2) False stranger danger alarms have wiped out peer time and 20k years of adultfree self-sufficiency training. 3) Wiping out multi-generational households and walkable communities. Kids used to have many parentin…

I mean, multiple things can be the cause of these issues - it's more difficult to legislate away parental fears.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#38

Post by slothtrop »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #32

or maybe the thing ruining kids is 1) That their freerange land has been wiped out and replaced with narrow strips of moving vehicles. Kids have ~no alternatives to being cooped up in adult-filled buildings. 2) False stranger danger alarms have wiped out peer time and 20k years of adultfree self-sufficiency training. 3) Wiping out multi-generational households and walkable communities. Kids used to have many parentin…

Or maybe this is about school performance / group behavior and none of what you're bloviating about.

Smartphone use and plummeting grades has been a global phenomenon.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#39

Post by tootie »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
tootie wrote: post #14

This just feels like more social panic pandering from Hochul. I sincerely doubt this will have any appreciable affect on kids well-being. My older kid's high school just leans way in. They use phones in class for tasks. They watch videos, do research, use calculator aops, Google Classroom. The teachers who won't answer email are the ones who are just being stubborn.

> The teachers who won't answer email are the ones who are just being stubborn. Is that relevant to the cellphones-in-school bit?

Technophobia. Kids use phones to communicate with teachers and that includes during the school day.

Re: New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools

#40

Post by ethbr1 »

jjulius wrote: post #12
SavageBeast wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bill wont strictly "mandate buying a Google Kids Watch" but it will stipulate a ban on smart phones (iPhones being the dominant device) in schools. The Google Kiddie Crack watch is $200, the Apple Watch can't compete at that price point. Dumb Phones (flip phone) wont offer location tracking the parents can monitor. What option is a parent to choose I wonder? This product seems suspiciously designed for a very spe…

>What option is a parent to choose I wonder? You do know that there are other alternatives to smartphones besides a "Google Kids Watch", yes? Edit: > If passed, schoolchildren will be allowed to carry simple phones that cannot access the internet but do have the capability to send texts... That's every dumb phone out there, and a far cry from Google cornering some kind of market. Plenty of options available from a va…

Furthermore, if this and similar laws create a new set of requirements for school devices, companies (including Apple!) will create products to meet demand.

It seems like the tail wagging the dog to reason back from a dominant device now being excluded to regulation shouldn't happen.

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