ChatGPT can only be used for homework now.
The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
191–200 of 296 posts
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#192As essential as smoking ban. I won't be surprised to see this expanded to adult situations
Weddings in particular seem to have evolved "check your phone at the door" policies. Though perhaps mostly to keep folks from ruining the professional photographers shots by constantly diving into the action with cameraphones/flashes blazing...
Don't invite those people.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#193It really can't be underestimated either for children or adults how much we are dependent on ease of access. If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is read a math textbook you are going to do it. If you are stuck in a room and you have a math textbook and a novel you now have a choice. A phone? A phone is everything else. You're putting "the thing we are supposed to be doing" and "everything else" in…
I tried leaving a stack of programming books beside my pc while I'm working and putting my phone in another room. It does work. But I keep forgetting to do it. I was considering trying a month of no I internet browsing unless it is required for my job or learning.
I did something like this for a couple of weeks recently. I call it 'no idle screen time'. Any activity that involved using a screen (phone, computer, or television) had to have a purpose. The purpose could be simple such as messaging friends, finding an answer to something I was curious about, or simply looking at the weather forecast. Usually it would be work related.
Benefits became clear almost immediately. I got more actual work done. I suddenly had way more free time than I imagined. I renewed my library card and started reading again. My focus improved. I actually started actively listening to music again (rather than just having it on in the background). I got more exercise. I took the time to prepare better food. A certain low-level sense of anxiety that had become all too familiar simply disappeared.
I did slowly regress. It started with watching a movie or show in the evening, that sort of thing. Now, here I am writing this comment. Probably time to give it another go.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#194Glad to see phone bans become more popular. Jonathan Haidt had it on his list of suggestions to parents, to avoid the anxiety generation continuing. He had a longer list but the four big ones were: No smartphones before high school No social media before 16 No phones in schools More free, independent play
All very sensible points. I would add no TV at home till 16
While I can understand that some more extreme parents might go for this (I imagine there were some like this even before the internet and smartphones), that seems... well, a bit extreme?
Certainly sitting in front of a TV all day is bad for you, but I think policing TV use for a child to ensure it doesn't become a problem is a lot easier than policing smartphone use.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#195Glad to see phone bans become more popular. Jonathan Haidt had it on his list of suggestions to parents, to avoid the anxiety generation continuing. He had a longer list but the four big ones were: No smartphones before high school No social media before 16 No phones in schools More free, independent play
It’s a little funny that everyone talks about this as a “phone ban” when surely you really only need to ban like 3-4 big tech apps/domains.
Let's see... Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube... and that's just off the top of my head without thinking. There are more, many more than 3-4.
And unless you block the browser (parental controls on mobile are garbage), they're going to get to those sites anyway.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but the quick dopamine fix that you can get from scrolling TikTok or Twitter is way more corrosive than reading long form content in a library.
Yeah still I'm much more drawn to long form content. But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation.
> But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation.
Bold to assume this is what most people on this site are like!
I'd hypothesize you're still an outlier in that group in these regards. And that's great! But lots of the data points to people like HN's general demographic still being pulled away from long form text content and towards synthesized/aggregated content served via mixed media. There's still just such strong cultural elitism in the notion of reading a book to learn something, it's not super sexy to claim on a messageboard.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah still I'm much more drawn to long form content. But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation.
> But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation. Bold to assume this is what most people on this site are like! I'd hypothesize you're still an outlier in that group in these regards. And that's great! But lots of the data points to people like HN's general demographic still being pulled away from long form text content and towards synthesize…
> Bold to assume this is what most people on this site are like!
Really, look at the front page of this site. If you're not interested in dense textual content you would have closed the tab within 1 second. I really love this site but most people won't even see the story titles, their brain just registers "a confusing jumble of text" and doesn't even try to engage.
> But lots of the data points to people like HN's general demographic still being pulled away from long form text content and towards synthesized/aggregated content served via mixed media.
And what data is that?
> There's still just such strong cultural elitism in the notion of reading a book to learn something, it's not super sexy to claim on a messageboard.
I don't think I'm elitist or sexy. Just different. I hate video content because I can't consume it at my own pace (usually much faster than the content offers because video is tailored for the slowest possible denominator). And it's difficult to build context ("where am I within the story") when skipping forward or backwards. In text this is pretty seamless.
I don't tend to consume textual content in a start to end sequential manner. But I jump around. Because some stuff I already know, some i really want to deeper dive on, some I need to refer back to later. This is much harder with video.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid I could phone home from a pay phone. Can’t do that nowadays.
While they're at school, they can use the phone in the school's main office to call home if there's an emergency. Smartphones can be left in a locker (or somewhere else inaccessible during the school day) for use on the way to school and home if something happens.
It can be challenging to make your way to the school’s office once the facility has been taken over by an armed gunman, which is a great reason for kids to have comms at all times, if not one that commonly arises.
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#199As essential as smoking ban. I won't be surprised to see this expanded to adult situations
It should've been expanded into driving a long time ago. There are laws against distracted driving but I still see people weaving around like they're drunk on the roads. When I look into the car they're usually holding a phone (on speakerphone) or holding it up to their ear. People suck at driving enough as it is without driving one handed and distracted.
Do you have proof there have been more car accidents since phones entered the driving arena compared to the before times? I always hear people claiming the roads are more dangerous but I’ve not seen any more accidents than when I was younger. Just a quick perusal on the web shows fatalities per 1 million miles has dropped significantly since the 1990s
Re: The phone ban has had a big impact on school work
#200It has always felt absolutely bonkers to me that smartphone bans weren't put into place instantly across US schools as soon as they started becoming common. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. If I'd brought a handheld game console like a Gameboy or something into class, it would have been confiscated immediately. Sure, I get it, that's not the same thing; obviously phones have other uses. But there is absolutely zero reas…
There’s a lot of reasons where possessing a phone in school is legit. In cities, transit passes are commonly phone bases. Some apartments require smartphones for gate entry. In class, different story of course.
It’s not hard to have a little checkin locker by the teacher’s desk as kids come in. Just make sure they turn the sound off before sliding it into it’s temporary home