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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

#81

Post by dsalfdslfdsa »

mike_d wrote: post #51
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.

Because phones have become the command center for our lives. Your FreeStyle Libre pings your phone when you have low blood sugar. When your watch detects a serious fall or a heart abnormality your phone calls emergency services. You use your phone to let the dog walker in, check the camera to see if you turned off the garden hose or left it running, use it to find your lost wallet/keys/bag, etc. Childhood is where yo…

Indeed. There are plenty of things that I will teach my kids are not worth the downsides.

As for your medical examples - those devices work fine without a smartphone. Certifying a medical device that includes the user's smartphone as a key part of the therapy is very challenging, and avoided if possible.

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

#82

Post by analognoise »

eaurouge wrote: post #76
analognoise wrote: post #75

So wait, I’m supposed to just let my kids go to school, where there are how many shootings a year, with no way to contact them? Not an icebergs chance in hell I’d let that happen.

I don’t believe that’s the case. In any case, you can always move to a different state. Or you could take your case to the courts.

Parents I know have just started buying Apple watches because they still allow for communication and watches aren't banned.

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

#83

Post by analognoise »

Jensson wrote: post #80
analognoise wrote: post #75

So wait, I’m supposed to just let my kids go to school, where there are how many shootings a year, with no way to contact them? Not an icebergs chance in hell I’d let that happen.

> where there are how many shootings a year There are multiple shootings a year at your kids school? Do you live at the worst school in the country?

Actually there was a school shooting near me and my neighbors kid was there.

It turns out you only need one school shooting in your network to decide never to leave your kids without a communication device, ever.

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

#84

Post by kube-system »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #79
kube-system wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you suggesting?

Take out the sim card

Every day before school? What if they have a new phone or plan that uses eSIM?

Maybe alternatively, they could just teach their kid to be responsible?

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

#85

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

kube-system wrote: post #84
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take out the sim card

Every day before school? What if they have a new phone or plan that uses eSIM? Maybe alternatively, they could just teach their kid to be responsible?

They definitely could do that.

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

#86

Post by strawhatdev »

ryandrake wrote: post #74
beanjuiceII wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my kid's phone is used for managing and monitoring t1d, and they will always have their smart phone at hand i don't care what law people think they are putting in place

What is your plan as a parent for when the kid loses the smartphone by accident? Or if it runs out of battery?Whatever that plan is, why can’t that be the procedure while in school? Making one’s child’s health utterly dependent on a smartphone sounds like... not a well thought out idea. What did people use to manage t1d prior to smartphones? Does that no longer work?

Before Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs), diabetics would need to draw blood from a finger prick and use that with a glucometer to measure blood glucose levels or pee on a test strip.

These ways are still widely used but they still require a secondary device (a glucometer, or test strips) and also lead to much less frequent readings. This means that high and low blood sugars were more difficult to detect and correct.

Because you get far fewer readings (unless you're pricking your fingers every 5 minutes) there are very real health consequences. Having a high blood sugar for too long (oops, that apple had more carbohydrates in it than expected) can lead to nerve damage and blindness in the long term and potentially fatal diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in the immediate term. There are similar negative outcomes for low blood glucose levels.

Before CGMs people managed T1D but the short and long term health outcomes were/are much worse and the risk of death due to undiagnosed hyper/hypoglycemia was also much higher. Of course, we still carry glucometers and urine test strips (very inaccurate + coarse measurement) everywhere we go and the school has these as well.

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

#87

Post by jkaplowitz »

strawhatdev wrote: post #68
jkaplowitz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid, yes. But the law could still require that the medical monitoring device have other functions disabled or (depending on what the legislators consider easy enough) not in use while in class except for the t1d monitor + SMS + voice, right? And they could still apply discipline if the student's phone has other functions enabled or (depending on the legislative wording) in use while in class? The law could also use…

> The law could also use indirect leverage to gradually separate students' medical monitoring from the smartphone. For example, they could begin a multi-year transition period after which NY-regulated health insurance plans could only cover these types of smartphone-linked medical monitoring devices if they also cover a version with equivalent functionality in a non-smartphone version (at no greater out-of-pocket cos…

Then maybe the easier solution is for the states to work with Apple and Google to make a “classroom mode” that disables everything except SMS, voice calls, and medical apps, and the presence of which can somehow easily be detected by the teacher in a privacy-preserving way (e.g. checking only the aggregate number of nearby classroom mode phones broadcasting that status over Bluetooth LE).

In the world where that is common, smartphones can still be banned in the classroom except for people with a medical accommodation, and those people would need to set their phones to classroom mode. The teacher would then have an app to alert them if the number of classroom mode broadcasts deviates from what is expected.

If that number of broadcasts is too low, that’s cause for investigation either because someone with an accommodation is using nonmedical apps in class or because someone’s medical monitoring is impaired due to a depleted phone battery. The former case would lead to discipline for using nonmedical apps in class outside the scope of their medical accommodation; the latter case would lead to whatever medical assistance is appropriate.

There would of course be plenty of other considerations to balance anti-abuse measures, convenience, and privacy. But the basic idea would work.

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