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Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

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Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#141

Post by tsimionescu »

AlbertCory wrote: post #125
xoa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How ever did anyone survive before I really, really hate this mindless, lazy line of argument in general. It gets tossed out with absolutely everything, from the internet to vaccines to modern farming. The simple answer in many cases to "how did anyone survive before X" is "well, often they didn't". Life expectancies were in fact lower in the past. More people died, or were maimed, with no hope of treatment. Or som…

A 300-word answer isn't 20x more intelligent than a 15-word one. I think Walter said all that needs to be said, and more economically than you did.

Walter's comment could be applied exactly as well to an argument that there shouldn't be electricity in schools (after all, kids survived without electricity just fine for decades).

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#142

Post by teekert »

underbooter wrote: post #140

I was in Greenwich Public Schools from K-12 and graduated GHS 2016. One kid in my elementary school, Alessandro Espa, brought his first-gen iPod Touch to class in 4th or 5th grade. He was showing off the magic trick apps of the age: the lighter, soda/beer. The only tech hardware we'd used before then was old iMacs with yellowed vinyl keyboard covers and ancient Windows XP desktops. The Touch was like a magic alien ob…

Haha, I'm certainly from your generation and feel the same.

But the tech isn't going away, and it can be pretty useful, empowering, cool and democratisering.

We just need to learn how to deal with the tech in a healthy way, and these bans are progress if you ask me.

I think the smartphone is just too much of a slotmachine, but we are just learning about that, and learning about what to do against it. Smartphones took a whole generation by surprise, the kids, but also their parents. I received rotten.com style videos on the family email address, havging a good conversation about it with my flabbergasted father... then smartphones came. That generation grew up quickly, and differently, and the parents were just slapped in the face with it. But it's changing, we're learning.

Edit: You deleted your comment, anyway, was going to answer this:

Hmm, now that I look more closely indeed I'm probably >10 years older. We had our first dumbphones at around 16-17 (Ericsson GF768 at ~17).

I do remember the thrill of sleeping with it next to my bed and receiving a text during the night. Magic.

You sound like my generation though ;) I bet you had a hard time in between your year mates. The current generation also has people like you btw. Not many though.

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#143

Post by eimrine »

xoa wrote: post #103
WalterBright wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by my assertion. How many times in your 12 years in school was instant 24/7 communication for everyone in the school been of significant benefit, or would have been if they had it? It's zero in my case. Then look at the downsides, which are pervasive - inattention, disruption, distraction. If you still want it, put a landline phone in each classroom on the teacher's desk. The principal can also have a switch…

> I stand by my assertion. How many times in your 12 years in school was instant 24/7 communication for everyone in the school been of significant benefit, or would have been if they had it? It's zero in my case. Yeah, there were no school shootings in my state in the 90s either. But since Columbine objective fact is there have been over 400 affecting almost 400k students [0], and the trend doesn't seem to be going d…

> can you show me some good studies on this with respect to watches, not phones?

This is literally one and the same technology. Just a hardware client for some pre-defined social networks.

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#144

Post by [deleted] »

teekert wrote: post #142
underbooter wrote: post #140

I was in Greenwich Public Schools from K-12 and graduated GHS 2016. One kid in my elementary school, Alessandro Espa, brought his first-gen iPod Touch to class in 4th or 5th grade. He was showing off the magic trick apps of the age: the lighter, soda/beer. The only tech hardware we'd used before then was old iMacs with yellowed vinyl keyboard covers and ancient Windows XP desktops. The Touch was like a magic alien ob…

Haha, I'm certainly from your generation and feel the same. But the tech isn't going away, and it can be pretty useful, empowering, cool and democratisering. We just need to learn how to deal with the tech in a healthy way, and these bans are progress if you ask me. I think the smartphone is just too much of a slotmachine, but we are just learning about that, and learning about what to do against it. Smartphones took…

[deleted]

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#145

Post by McDyver »

jhoechtl wrote: post #136

These bans will come worldwide. Soon we will also understand the realtionship between mental disorders in teens and "always on". Not to mention the distraction these devices generate in schools.

In some countries (namely Portugal and France) you are not allowed to be contacted by your employer out of office hours, so that you can get that disconnect.

At the same time, children are targeted to be constantly "on" and "engaged", and we seem to be OK with that.

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#146

Post by crooked-v »

stackskipton wrote: post #69
nytesky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between teachers phones, intercoms, cameras, and hardline phones there should be plenty of communication equipment available for a crisis. If anything having a phone could put someone in jeopardy by making noise and giving away position or distracting owner. What is the scenario that it has helped? Have police coordinated response based upon students phoned in reports and telemetry?

Not really. There have been phone calls to 911 during school shootings but reading a few reports, it's never made a difference since schools tend to be hardwired straight to dispatch which is most important. Big failings like Uvalde has been terrible response by first responders which is "Push forward till threat has ended." Yes, parents have been called by students during incident but that generally makes situation…

> Big failings like Uvalde has been terrible response by first responders which is "Push forward till threat has ended."

Wasn't the problem with Uvalde that a bajillion police piled up outside the school and then never actually pushed forward?

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#147

Post by lordgrenville »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

There is a striking divide between how the rich and FAANG employed treat technology around their kids versus everyone else. The single most potent difference I’ve seen as a result is their kids’ ability to maintain eye contact during conversation.

I wouldn't draw the line at FAANG-employed, but rather at the highly tech-literate (e.g. people reading this thread).

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#148

Post by eimrine »

tsimionescu wrote: post #141
AlbertCory wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 300-word answer isn't 20x more intelligent than a 15-word one. I think Walter said all that needs to be said, and more economically than you did.

Walter's comment could be applied exactly as well to an argument that there shouldn't be electricity in schools (after all, kids survived without electricity just fine for decades).

The talk is about having a client for tiktok but with ability to phone - on your Math lesson. When the phone used to have no tiktok the situation is tolerable even if the phone rings occationally.

Now the tiktok client successfully competes with teacher for kids' attention and some dumbheads are shouting - "Look, the tiktok client still can phone police/firefighters/parents! What else are you going to prohibit, maybe a paper?"

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#149

Post by hparadiz »

teekert wrote: post #138
jimbob45 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same policy here. Seemed like it worked just fine. If you really needed to use it, you had time between periods and during lunch.

Using a phone during class was indeed never an option, but, can I ask you since you went to school with smartphones (I am much older): Is your experience that most students pull their phone out as soon as they exit the classrooms? Do they spend most of their breaks on their screens? If so do you have the feeling you have poorer conversational skills because of this and would you not rather have just enjoyed school en…

Banning cell phones from class hours doesn't actually change the social media rat race in any way. You still have to maintain presence. That's just part of being social.

We had the same distractions before smart phones. We would just hide in the computer lab and browse the Internet while playing games and trying to look busy. A hundred messages sounds like about a half hour of conversation on any chat platform.

We would still play games on our calculators, sign in to IRC, and post on forums. Now it's cell phone games, discord, and twitter but really it's the same shit.

The idea behind banning cell phones is more about attention span and the unfortunate reality of constant dopamine hits.

Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more

#150

Post by shiroiushi »

nytesky wrote: post #60
sweeter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's all good until that thing that happens at American schools, happens... That is my one hang up here. It would be idealistic to believe that the Police would protect kids, but in reality there are far too many cases of them being grossly negligent in this exact circumstance... in many of those cases, having a phone played a pivotal role in security. I don't want to get too far into details on HN for the sake of ke…

Between teachers phones, intercoms, cameras, and hardline phones there should be plenty of communication equipment available for a crisis. If anything having a phone could put someone in jeopardy by making noise and giving away position or distracting owner. What is the scenario that it has helped? Have police coordinated response based upon students phoned in reports and telemetry?

>Between teachers phones, intercoms, cameras, and hardline phones there should be plenty of communication equipment available for a crisis.

How does that stuff help when the kid isn't actually at school, but is between home and school somewhere? If the kid can't bring the phone to school at all, then that means the kid can't have the phone on the way to school either. Allowing the kids to bring phones but lock them up during school hours would solve this problem though.

Also, this is US-specific, but what if there's a school shooting? You don't want someone's kid to be able to call their parents and say some last words to them before they're brutally shot, while the entire town's police force is simply standing outside and preventing anyone from entering?

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