NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again • Hacker News Board

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#201

Post by NoPicklez » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:31 AM UTC

Crazy, I went to boarding school 2009-2011 and our dinner hall was always loud with talking and laughter. However sometimes it would slowly get quieter until the room went silent with everyone looking oddly at each other, then a massive wave of laughter would erupt.

Some weird phenomenon.

I also remember downloading Froggy jump on my iPhone and playing it with friends, but you certainly put your phone away more than you do now. You also had it taken off of you if you were on it when you shouldn't have been. If my parents found out they took my phone off of me, they'd probably crack it at me because I wasn't paying attention. I get the feeling many parents might just get angry at the teacher rather than their child.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#202

Post by matthewmacleod » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

mjbale116 wrote: post #198

ForgetItJake wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought. I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought?

> I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought? Indeed you don't; let me help you out then: Arguments must be made in good faith; and when you hear anyone saying anything I mentioned above it is immediately obvious that they are not arguing in good faith. If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and…

Indeed you don't

It seems that they do indeed see what you’re saying…

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#203

Post by DavidPiper » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:44 AM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #150

SchemaLoad wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we have had a long history of overreacting to new things. "D&D is the devil", "Rock music is evil", etc. But we have just encountered one of the rare times where something new actually was harmful. But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. I think chatbots and AR glasses are going to supercharge these social problems at a rate much faster than phones and face…

> But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. This can't be it. I was in high school when smartphones were coming out and there was zero tolerance for them or any other electronic devices (dumbphones, ipods, palm pilots, etc) in the classroom. I don't know when or why it happened but allowing smartphones in school was a conscious choice and a policy change.

Hey, we must have been in high school at the same time. I saw the same thing going through my final years. But when I went back to visit the school a few years after I left... Things were very different.

I'd say there was definitely a grace period (roughly iPhone -> iPhone 4 maybe?) where device addiction wasn't yet normalised, and the real world hadn't ceded control yet. Not sure what happened at the school level after that, but somewhere along the way phones (devices as they were called then) everywhere all the time became very normal.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#204

Post by throwaway290 » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:52 AM UTC

StarGrit wrote: post #129

zkmon wrote: post #122

Why should articles like these always start with some fictional story like a novel? The actual news is buried somewhere half-way after the throw-away story.

It is following a magazine style. This is partly to elicit an emotional reaction and partly I suspect because the copy writer is bored and wishes they were writing novels instead.

if it's a proper news source they (and every other paper) already reported it who knows how many times. "city is about to ban phones in schools" "city is banning phones in schools" "the phones in schools were banned". everybody who needs to know already knows

This is not intended to be a news piece. It's a story. But whoever is in charge of CMS messed up categories. It should not be labeled news

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#205

Post by LtWorf » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:52 AM UTC

squigz wrote: post #121

LtWorf wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, bullying in school has no consequences, but outside it might have some.

Bullying in school absolutely has consequences, and they're mostly going to be much farther-reaching than those suffered as an adult - getting messed up psychologically is more impactful as a kid, not to mention any physical toll it takes, or the impact of it on one's education.

No consequence for the bully I mean.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#206

Post by sznio » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:53 AM UTC

Iulioh wrote: post #95

QuercusMax wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that reading comprehension is an outdated technology?

Look, I had a zoomer colleague of mine ask GPT to solve a moral dilemma in a personality test at work... It's...rough out there.

I mean, if my goal was getting the correct answer that will satisfy the employer, I'd ask GPT too. The employer might not like my honest answer.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#207

Post by LtWorf » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:56 AM UTC

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #105

SR2Z wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asociality is not the same thing as social harmony. It's not better for children if their shithead peers are replaced with smartphones. The unfortunate truth is that cliquey behavior and bullying are some of things that children have to be exposed to - you won't come out of school as a fully-capable human being unless you've spent the last several years being exposed to a ton of different adult emotions.

That high school is necessarily a place of cliquey behavior and bullying, and that kids may even benefit from it, is not a universal thing. In some countries, viewers of imported American TV shows are baffled by that depiction of high school, because in their high schools there aren’t such hard knocks.

I think USA does everything later than in other countries.

So I think by the time I got to high school we were too mature for the kind of bullying you see in USA films, but that did happen earlier.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#208

Post by ForgetItJake » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:56 AM UTC

mjbale116 wrote: post #198

ForgetItJake wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought. I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought?

> I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought? Indeed you don't; let me help you out then: Arguments must be made in good faith; and when you hear anyone saying anything I mentioned above it is immediately obvious that they are not arguing in good faith. If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and…

You can't just declare any opposition to your point of view as being in bad faith. (which is ironically in bad faith)

> If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and fox news and their opinion must be dismissed.

I hope you're trolling, because if not...

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#209

Post by bongodongobob » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 7:03 AM UTC

chis wrote: post #91

It's so insane that they let things go this far. It could have been immediately obvious to those involved that cell phones in class would have immensely negative effects. I mean they talk about a lunch room "quiet enough to hear a pin drop"?? I think I learned half my basic social skills from lunch rooms in school. That time period is probably more important than any of the classes themselves.

It's fear mongering bullshit. "WHAT UF THERE EMERGENCY". Every room has a phone and a teacher with a phone. Absolute bullshit post Columbine 9/11 fear based nonsense.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#210

Post by LtWorf » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 7:04 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #187

supportengineer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There is no need for a phone during the school day I see you don't have kids yourself. You need to sync up with them when after-school plans change.

We got by just fine during the school day for decades (centuries?) before smartphones existed, and we can continue to do so without them.

Everybody else has a phone so the expectation is that they can do change of plans and you're supposed to know where your kid is.