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School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

york.ac.uk

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Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#441

Post by n8henrie »

card_zero wrote: post #201
it_citizen wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothesize then experiment

Uh-huh. You have a conjecture, you test it, and then you say "looks like reality didn't match our conjecture, the conjecture must be wrong." Except here they got a negative result and said "reality must be wrong". It's a determined effort to find specific results.

Not at all. Type II error is routinely the result of methodological flaws like insufficient sample size.

It would be asinine to study the effects of parachutes on survivability of jumping from airplanes, hypothesizing that they would help, but conclude that the "conjecture must be wrong" because the sample size was 2 and it failed to reach statistical significance, or because the airplane was on the ground.

Would you feel differently if the study period was only 1 day instead of 25?

Or maybe 1 hour?

Would it then be reasonable for them to speculate that the methodology might contribute to the failure to reject the null hypothesis?

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#442

Post by thrw42A8N »

kelipso wrote: post #436
thrw42A8N wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would my credit card be in their Apple Wallet?

Point is that things happen if you are not super careful. They could use your phone, you could have forgotten about it, etc etc. Not everyone is some carefully planning nerd who remembers everything all the time.

If they use my phone to purchase something, abusing my access code in the process, they are grounded for weeks and many other privileges will be taken away. I myself have never dared to touch my father's wallet or phone, or even look at him typing his password.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#443

Post by ben_hn »

dmd wrote: post #439
ben_hn wrote: post #437

It's not phones or tablets. It's the wrong doing apps / social netwrks / games. Same applies to friends: there are friend circles that bring only bad behaviors. We don't ban friendship because of that. Ban social network apps. Ban addictive games. Ban notifications and any other FOMO-triggering mechanisms. Don't ban phones.

This is the same argument people make for not banning guns, and it's a bad argument there too.

I've never lived in a country where carrying gun is allowed and im not much familiar with the topic, so I won't comment on that. But I lived through the time that there was no phone and then when there were phones with non of these junk apps on them and now. This, I believe, makes it very clear, what the real cause of these problems is.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#444

Post by amalcon »

agile-gift0262 wrote: post #397

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.

One of these things is in the power of the school district, as long as they can convince local parents that it's a good idea (not easy, but studies help). The other is in the power of... who? Possibly nobody. Possibly the American federal government -- but it's not even clear that they have the power to do this.

Either way, the same "they" does not have agency over both things. It makes sense to consider the thing you can actually do.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#445

Post by thrw42A8N »

frde_me wrote: post #440
thrw42A8N wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ads? The ads I blocked with PiHole?

You just went to where 99% of parents don't even know how to get to. Do you think it should be expected of parents to figure out how to use whatever "PiHole" is to protect their kids? I admire your personal dedication to making it as hard as possible to be exploited, but we really can't expect non-tech people to go to the same lengths. And at one point, we might have to admit that parents who spend 99% of their time…

My point is - it's under my control, if I didn't know how to do this I'd either accept the ads, pay, or not allow phone usage. There are options. I don't need the government to do that for me, I can decide myself.

Here in Europe, phone is necessary for daily life - even as a kid. And it makes it so much easier, better - and interesting, if you teach your kids that. My kids use their phone like a Star Trek tricorder, using various apps and tools to learn about the world around them. Something I wished was possible when I was a kid but it was a pure scifi - now it's here and I'm not going to take that away from them just because some bureaucrat thinks parents can't control their kids enough.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#446

Post by huuhee3 »

ben_hn wrote: post #437

It's not phones or tablets. It's the wrong doing apps / social netwrks / games. Same applies to friends: there are friend circles that bring only bad behaviors. We don't ban friendship because of that. Ban social network apps. Ban addictive games. Ban notifications and any other FOMO-triggering mechanisms. Don't ban phones.

Banning phones is simpler, and has no downsides. You are at school to learn, you don't need a phone or tablet for that.

Besides, lots of things can be addictive and distracting. Personally I'm addicted to reading news. Had smartphones existed when I was a kid, simply banning social media and games wouldn't have been enough.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#447

Post by docmars »

jrtageh wrote: post #422
agile-gift0262 wrote: post #397

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.

For increased happiness it is the ban of addictive websites. Likes, dislikes and most importantly, flagging, censoring and cancelling , externalizes your locus of control and makes you think that you live in a dystopian world. The Internet wasn't this bad when people were on Usenet and no one would censor your thoughts. For cognitive abilities it is the phone ban itself.

I think you make a really great point:

Living with the social (organic) consequences of sharing unpopular opinions is much better than being silenced and digitally imprisoned, because the latter takes away one's dignity to think or build community around ideas which disagree with the status quo.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#448

Post by criddell »

thrw42A8N wrote: post #433
kelipso wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting like kids are so easily controlled. You just need the passcode if you credit card is in apple wallet, for example.

Why would my credit card be in their Apple Wallet?

For very small children it probably doesn't make sense, but when they get a bit older it's not that unusual. My kids have my credit card on their phone for when they need it.

They are also joint owners of our bank accounts. We've told them if they ever get the news that we have died, they should go withdraw a bunch of money to carry them over until all the estate stuff settles.

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#449

Post by joenot443 »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #404

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.

I'm an app developer who's spent my career building excellent iOS apps, previously with Google and Snap.

I have every intention of raising my kids as far away from smartphones as possible, ideally until they're at least teenagers. My fiance and I have already discussed keeping the household as de-screened as possible, it's something we consider a lot.

It's interesting you'd suggest that an app developer would have a conflict of interest that other engineers might not. In my experience, engineers who work with mobile apps, especially ones in the social space, are way, _way_ more likely to understand and be wary about the dangers in overexposing kids to a life of feeds. Colloquially, we call this "seeing how the sausage gets made".

Re: School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study

#450

Post by card_zero »

sicariusnoctis wrote: post #365
card_zero wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh-huh. You have a conjecture, you test it, and then you say "looks like reality didn't match our conjecture, the conjecture must be wrong." Except here they got a negative result and said "reality must be wrong". It's a determined effort to find specific results.

They didn't say "reality must be wrong". They said that their initial hypothesis (that significant changes would be observed after 21 days) is probably wrong, so they implicitly proposed a second hypothesis (that significant changes occur after e.g. a few months). None of this is remotely contemptible. Pretend you're an immortal alien conducting a study with the hypothesis, "humans are mortal". You observe that your…

OK, fine, they didn't literally say "reality must be wrong", they just thought it, probably. The attitude stinks. And I say it is remotely contemptible. Perhaps I'd go as far as to say moderately contemptible.

It's a fair point about the aliens. They are presumably mortal themselves, they have expectations about lifespan. Something about the mind not being a blank slate, it's hypotheses all the way down, can't escape preconceived ideas. Sure. Except you can try. You can be more impartial than you otherwise might be, when you're aware that there's something to be partial about.

In the case of smartphone bans, the viewpoint is almost politicized, like whether you're down with the tech bros or think they're evil. Researchers should know that, and thus should be very coldly objective. Here they expect the degradation of mental function, why? That's not something well-understood like mortality. It's probably something there's a great wobbly mass of very questionable psychological research about - low attention in school and degraded working memory due to what they may well call "screentime" - and they've just gone along with it like it's established. Why is known evil thing not acting sufficiently evil to meet our narrative? Must do more research until true.

Another sketchy part of doing this research is the subtext that smartphones lower the mood entails therefore ban smartphones in schools. That isn't a science-based decision, it's a decision to trample on the kids' rights for their own good: science can't guide moral choices. But the only reason to scientifically establish the first part, the fact, is for the purpose of advocating a ban.

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