221–230 of 296 posts
If I were an alcoholic, would it be a good idea to walk around with a bottle of liquor in my pocket?
I think that kids under 18 should only be allowed to get dumb phones (effectively phones with gps/preloaded apps for things like transit)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can literally stare at a wall daydreaming rather than do something. And the contrary is also true - if I'm "stuck" at some fancy place but feel like working (and have means to do so), there's no stopping me. I mean there's a very broad spectrum here, and a slight distraction can be the difference between spending 5 minutes staring at a wall followed by three hours in flow state vs. spending three hours in mindles…
I agree. An adult can ask themselves what they're doing and why and how it aligns with their interests so on (aka have that midlife crisis, haha), a kid probably doesn't yet have enough self-reflection capacity yet. In my perception, distractions are ideally managed through interest management. Make the desired task actually truly desired - and you're guaranteed to not get distracted. And in an ideal environment, the…
The reason primary education is mandatory is because the average kid doesn’t want to sit there learning things. Even some parents barely care. We have collectively decided to force these children to sit through school because we want the population to have at least some basic skills.
Catering to the outliers would not be efficient, sometimes people need to be coerced to set a minimum standard.
It 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…
Nope, even then it was easier for me to stare at walls or daydream. That never worked for me :(
I swapped my high school son’s iPhone for an Apple Watch w/cellular for school days and his grades and social life improved significantly.
Maybe it's a translation issue, but it seems in this article that the effect on school work (i.e. tests, quizzes, reports, homework assignments, etc.) was not studied, as I think the title of the article implies it was. Rather, they studied the phone ban's effect on school culture and bullying. To be clear, I believe a phone ban in schools would have a positive effect on academics, and that that would show up if it w…
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volum...
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2023/12/05/concernin...
Academic performance is somewhat of a burning fire - I'd guess there is less of a translation issue with the article than a cultural and political issue around the topic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use my phone to look up words/concepts/references all the time while reading - I couldn't do without it, flipping through a dictionary or walking up to a computer to read a quick Wikipedia intro to a concept/person/place/etc would just get me far more distracted.
There’s always a reason why we “need” our phone at all times, isn’t there? For the purposes of public policy (where schools are concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be the best recourse?
> For the purposes of public policy (where schools are concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be the best recourse?
teach them to use it. it's a tool. teach them how marketing works. teach them how susceptible to misinformation the human mind is. teach them how companies behave as if they are only beholden to shareholder profit and how said companies sell them fast food, sugar, porn and yes, engagement for profit.
the psychological weaknesses of the human mind have been well documented for over a hundred years, and yet the only people we teach that stuff to is marketing students. why is that?
It 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…
Banning smartphones is such a boomer thing