411–420 of 706 posts
When I see all these "phone ban" experiments, I always wonder, is the phone that's the issue, or is it the apps/websites tailored for engagement (a.k.a addiction)? Maybe instead of banning kids from using phones, they should consider banning companies from making their apps addictive on purpose.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think so many people, even most here on HN, have forgotten how the scientific method works.
Agree. I propose hypothesis here all the time and people will say "Show me the study that proves what you are saying!". For instance. It maybe that the distracting quality of the phone is not the only thing providing better sleep and mood, but maybe it is the collective power of the EMF radiation that is disturbing the children's catecholamines. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13826...
Can we have smartphone threads where everyone discloses whether they're an app developer or have another conflict of interest? Some of us know these kids are cash cows and are behaving like the anti-gun-regulation lobby of the tech world. I am not an app developer and derive no income from the sale or usage of smartphones or their software.
The problem isn’t the phone per se. It’s the apps, which is why I don’t have that shit on my phone and use screen time and app approval with kids.
Not only do these companies addict and drain peoples’ wallets, but I largely blame them for the sorry state of political discourse. I watched it happen. When the algorithmic timelines hit around 2010-ish and everything started to be engagement-maxxed everyone (IMO across the political spectrum not just one side) lost their mind.
Sane well reasoned ideas and nuance don’t maximize engagement. Trolling, controversy baiting lunacy, tabloid and conspiranoid trash, hate, fear, and lynch mobs maximize engagement.
We’ve kind of known since the dawn of media that trash maximizes engagement and that if you engagement-max you get trash, but at this point it should be considered proven.
When I see all these "phone ban" experiments, I always wonder, is the phone that's the issue, or is it the apps/websites tailored for engagement (a.k.a addiction)? Maybe instead of banning kids from using phones, they should consider banning companies from making their apps addictive on purpose.
Problem is, the regulations regarding all that will take much much longer because the very fact all this engagement driven software is actual poison for the brain hasn't reached the stage where you can just hammer down facts and drown everyone who still thinks this is a good idea. They should show how all that affects overall productivity and all the billions and trillions they throw out of the window, how it pours oil into the fire of more and more people being overly stressed (which is not just work causing this) etc.
> Interestingly, the research didn’t show significant improvements in cognitive ability; the phone ban group showed a modest 3% boost in working memory, and there were no improvements in sustained attention. Researchers suggest that these results might mean that changes in cognitive ability could take longer than the study period of 21 days to materialise. Notice how they had decided beforehand what they were going t…
I’m not a scientist in this field, but I would have been very surprised to have seen a difference in cognitive ability this quickly. I’ve always felt that we wouldn’t recover from the negative impacts of phone addiction very quickly, if ever, after several years of addiction to doom scrolling, social media feeds, and the short bursts of 10-second videos. I wish more real research in this field was being done, so that…
When I see all these "phone ban" experiments, I always wonder, is the phone that's the issue, or is it the apps/websites tailored for engagement (a.k.a addiction)? Maybe instead of banning kids from using phones, they should consider banning companies from making their apps addictive on purpose.
To what end? Why do school kids need a smartphone?
It's difficult to feel a sense of belonging if all your peers have access to something you don't, even worse if that something is your social space itself.
(Full disclosure: I am rampantly anti smartphone. But I understand kids' need to have it.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems clear enough to me: "challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days." I'm not sure how you can read "completely" as "only during school time"
I found it unclear because the title of the article and the title of the TV show imply it's only during school, but it's only the second paragraph that it mentions "completely". It seems to contradict the opening sentences.
It's only because most UK secondary schools already ban phone use in school time that (in context) it obviously means round-the-clock.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should read what Socrates has to say about book addicts. We need to burn more of them to raise awareness of just how pernicious the written word is.
Socrates says that profound knowledge is gained through interaction. He compares the written word to a painting, meaning it can be analysed but it doesn’t respond to questions and is therefore not a substitute for dialog. This mirrors the critique to phones: used primarily to passively watch “paintings” instead of interacting. The viewer’s knowledge and critical thinking is improving only seemingly at best.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should read what Socrates has to say about book addicts. We need to burn more of them to raise awareness of just how pernicious the written word is.
Socrates says that profound knowledge is gained through interaction. He compares the written word to a painting, meaning it can be analysed but it doesn’t respond to questions and is therefore not a substitute for dialog. This mirrors the critique to phones: used primarily to passively watch “paintings” instead of interacting. The viewer’s knowledge and critical thinking is improving only seemingly at best.
I wonder if there is some sort of solipsistic voice within us that recognizes when too much exposure or connectivity to other people becomes overwhelming in a way that we lose ourselves in it. I grew up and remember the times before everyone had easy access to the Internet in their homes, let alone on a high-powered terminal that now fits in our pockets. Those of us of a certain age remember a shift in social interaction that rivaled the previous generations telling mine we consumed too much tv (the 24/7 news cycle was a terrible idea for my generation, in retrospect).
On the one hand, kids don't need their smartphones in schools because mine did just fine without them. On the other hand, the smartphones can be used for a force of good, provided those "paintings" they are looking at are enriching their learning and growth in some way, setting them up to ask better questions when engaged in the Socratic dialogue.
But how do we guide usage toward that aim? That is the real question we should be asking.
> challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days. It was not a ban during school. It was complete phone abstinence. The result was that the kids got an entire additional hour of sleep! Perhaps this could be replicated just by putting phones away at night.
> Perhaps this could be replicated just by putting phones away at night. Sort of like how people addicted to gambling would probably save a lot of money if they had just a little more will power.
Not only could the phones be put away at night, but universally available parental controls could be used to lock the phones at a specified time each night.
We do this. It is just part of parenting, like deciding the time of bedtime.