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Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

theguardian.com

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Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#181

Post by bitcharmer »

jasonjei wrote: post #93

I think many of the comments in opposition to this are coming from people that do not have children. Many of those in support do. I speak as a parent of a child, and I think “parent brain” will affect your thoughts on this. Having said that, I grew up on dial up and very low tech HTML. Not social media which is an entirely different beast. There is a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Child…

100% agree. My daughter's school in Blackheath has special Faraday cage pouches for each student. Children deposit their phones in their pouches and upon crossing the school gate the pouches get magnetically sealed until the student leaves school for the day. Parents are loving it.

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#182

Post by ben_w »

nonameiguess wrote: post #166
ben_w wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see it going either way. A century ago in the US, a lot of support for Prohibition came from the impact of liquor, yet Prohibition itself also banned beer. I can very easily believe that the backlash against dark patterns, against deliberately addictive apps (games and social media), against advertising getting squeezed into what would otherwise be normal conversations, against the surveillance that currently m…

This doesn't sound particularly analogous to Prohibition. Mobile computers are being banned from schools, not from everywhere. As far as I'm aware, liquor and beer are also banned from schools and presumably always have been, before, during, and after Prohibition.

I was trying to suggest that at least some of these things will be banned everywhere, not that they have already been. Small scale prohibitions happened well before there was enough drive for the 18th Amendment to be proposed.

I'm not even sure the detail — will it look like a Butlerian Jihad on all tech because AI is everywhere and enough people hate that, or "just" a ban on all social media (including this website) — but the vibes have been brewing for a while now, and it could well take the shape of smartphones being wound back to 8310s.

> As far as I'm aware, liquor and beer are also banned from schools and presumably always have been, before, during, and after Prohibition.

So it's fine for the analogy that phones might get banned from schools before some kind of larger social rejection on par with the example I gave, yes?

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#183

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

doublerabbit wrote: post #170
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a father of a 4 year old boy, I plan to remove smart phones and pads from my son for as long as possible. He can watch TV or play console/PC games but absolutely no mobile games for as long as I can. He will get a dumbphone maybe with a snake game when he grows up a bit. In the mean time, I'll try to bring him to hiking, camping and other outdoor activities. If he is very into electronics then I'll introduce gamin…

Educational dos games. You can't beat them. Where they're at an age before knowing FPS, MMOs they will have tons of fun jumping up and collecting words. Word Rescue, Maths Rescue the Fun School series all hold weight to name a few. Just because the old don't have hyper-ai-raytracing graphics doesn't mean they're not playable for the younger generations.

That's something I have in mind. Is 6 years old a good age? My father exposed me to games like Alley cat and Bigtop when I was 6/7. He gave me 30 mins every weekend day. I might do the same to my son when he reaches 6.

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#184

Post by Balgair »

Denver School(s) of Science and Technology (DSST) have been mobile free for a long time. The kids, I am told, love it. These are public schools. Confiscated phones are required to be picked up in person by the guardian. Something that can be quite the trek and traffic fight. I am told repeat offenses are not common.

Denver's public school system (DPS) is a bit unique, just FYI. All public schools are chartered, including the DSSTs. Meaning that all guardians are required to select the school that they want their kids to go to, there are no defaults. All kids get free bus passes on municipal transport. As is usual in Colorado public schooling, things get really law-y as the city and school district lines cross over county lines (cities are not entirely within counties in CO).

https://www.dsstpublicschools.org/dsst-cgms-family-handbook

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#185

Post by PUSH_AX »

rvba wrote: post #180
PUSH_AX wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like someone suggesting murder should be illegal, and the main argument being “but some people will still do it anyway”.

Bringing a phone to school is murder? Before smartphones kids brought (comic) books and read them during lessons, or just looked through the window and daydreamed. Or they would write notes to each other. Is that murder too?

No, that’s not how analogies work.

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#186

Post by diffeomorphism »

giantg2 wrote: post #72
diffeomorphism wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb phone things, apps for blood sugar monitoring, checking public transport delays,.... There are enough stories about children dying because schools locked away medication. I have very little trust that schools will apply any common sense.

All the things you mentioned were normally handled without phones a generation ago. They should be able to get medical exceptions for medical devices. Yeah, schools have a history of issues. However, this policy isn't really new. It was in place when I went to school and there were no issues.

> They should be able to get medical exceptions for medical devices.

Keyword "should".

> The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated.

Yep, the "easy" and extremely irresponsible solution.

> It was in place when I went to school and there were no issues.

Good for you, but

https://www.9news.com.au/health/boy-dies-after-school-confis...

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/20/califor...

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#187

Post by AlexeyBelov »

chippiewill wrote: post #130
leohonexus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That an official government document explicitly mentioning that school staff is allowed to search a device without law enforcement (either being present, or authorized by warrant) is problematic in and of itself.

I disagree. You don't need a warrant to search your child's phone as a parent. Teachers have many of the same powers over children that their parents do. Power to detain, to punish, and yes to search. If you're not happy with that as a parent then you can home educate them instead.

I disagree. Teachers don't have those powers unless parents explicitly opt in.

Also, your argument is pretty much "if you don't like it just leave". Which is one of the worst arguments for pretty much anything.

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#188

Post by giantg2 »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #186
giantg2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the things you mentioned were normally handled without phones a generation ago. They should be able to get medical exceptions for medical devices. Yeah, schools have a history of issues. However, this policy isn't really new. It was in place when I went to school and there were no issues.

> They should be able to get medical exceptions for medical devices. Keyword "should". > The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated. Yep, the "easy" and extremely irresponsible solution. > It was in place when I went to school and there were no issues. Good for you, but https://www.9news.com.au/health/boy-dies-after-school-confis... https://eu.usatoday.c…

We're talking about phones, not lifesaving medication.

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#189

Post by diffeomorphism »

giantg2 wrote: post #188
diffeomorphism wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should be able to get medical exceptions for medical devices. Keyword "should". > The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated. Yep, the "easy" and extremely irresponsible solution. > It was in place when I went to school and there were no issues. Good for you, but https://www.9news.com.au/health/boy-dies-after-school-confis... https://eu.usatoday.c…

We're talking about phones, not lifesaving medication.

Exactly, schools even get things horribly wrong when it is literally life or death. How much more wrong do they get if the stakes are lower?

Leave it to the parents not the schools!

Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free

#190

Post by logtempo »

vel0city wrote: post #42
logtempo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the necessity to have a banning "law" is a sign of failure. We should teach children the why and how, incentive them to put, by themselves, their phone in a lockbox and eventually consider them as growing adult and not irresponsible childs.

You're assuming children (on average) have the same capacity to make reasoned decisions as adults so long as you just "teach" them. There's a reason why we don't let 8-year-olds drive, and its not just that nobody bothered to take the time to teach them. And no, no matter how many times I tell my three-year-old the stove is hot, I'm not going to put them in charge of cooking dinner on the stove. Instead, I'll ban the…

We're talking about childrens that have between 11-18 years old.

I'm also not saying that teachers could ask nicely and then do nothing if the rule is broken. Actually, one could ask students to either put their phones in their bag or in a "safe phone-box", and still seize the phone if it's used.

Bringing awarness is important, when it comes to fighting addiction.

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