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NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

gothamist.com

281–290 of 352 posts

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#281

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…

A big difference with your examples is that basically every adult was already using a smartphone. So adults don't just jump to conclusions that it's evil. It's more like... "Smartphones are useful"

I remember when I first saw little girls with Blackberries. It was quite strange.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#282

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.

The pandemic induced the major change. Schools were forced to put everything online, and so screens became the default learning environment. What's the difference between them being on a laptop/chromebook/tablet and a phone? Not really that much. Plus parents allowed their kids get phones at a younger age to keep track of them. Now we are trying to claw it back, but the big problem is that the parents are the ones preventing it. They need to be constantly attached to their kids. Our son is 16 and while he loves screens, he also is enjoying kids spending less time on them at school so he can chat with people more.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#283

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.

Parents are insane and demand access to their kids at all times.

My son goes to a private school, and I was on the board of trustees when we basically did the same thing the NYS requires three years ago. The drama and insanity was beyond anything I expected. One parent left me a three minute voicemail excoriating me as being no better than a school shooter - in the event of an emergency her son would die alone, because of me. (I introduced the motion and was called out in the minutes)

It’s great that the state passed a pretty sane law on the matter. Crazy people already think the governor is , and the school boards can just nod, point to Albany and get on with their business.

There is leeway as well, our school (and some others that I know of), allow 7th graders and up to email parents via GMail. So little Tommy can keep folks in the loop about scheduling changes or whatever.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids have phones for "safety" reasons. It's pretty irrational, but hard to push back against without help from on high.

The "Safety" excuse is bullshit. What safety problem could exist in a school that a child with a cell phone can solve ? Fire? School administrators will call the fire department. Intruder? School administrators will call the police. School shooter? Same. There's nothing that a child with a cell phone will fix.

It probably is bullshit, but everything you've written is a straw man. A phone is useful for the kid on their journey to or from school, which by secondary level I would hope is on their own. Even just, "I'm going to Steve's, I'll be late for dinner".

But it doesn't need to be a smartphone for that, and it doesn't need to be out during school hours.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#285
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports gambling is astoundingly popular for teen boys. Already the prevalence of zero sum games like crypto and day trading was getting to be too trendy for teenagers, and this shit just supercharges it.

Isn't that actually illegal in most jurisdictions? But the betting companies seem to have effectively bribed legislatures in the past couple of decades.

It’s legal in 39 states, DC and Puerto Rico. The Supreme Court shot down the federal ban circa 2018.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#286
post #267
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just 15 years ago the outlook of social media was much more optimistic. Those who forget Usenet are doomed to repeat it, I suppose. > It was all bullshit of course Or, more likely, what was dreamed of ended up being incorrect. Like we learn every time we try social media, people don't actually want to be social online. That takes work and the vast majority of people don't want to spend their free time doing work. T…

> Like we learn every time we try social media, people don't actually want to be social online. That takes work and the vast majority of people don't want to spend their free time doing work. They want to sit back, relax, and be entertained by the professionals. That's not it at all. Facebook shifted because they wanted you to spend more time on their website and serve you more ads. And once you've seen all your post…

> Facebook shifted because they wanted you to spend more time on their website and serve you more ads.

Right. A service that isn't used is pointless. Usenet didn't serve ads or even try to make money, but also didn't get used, and was also deemed unworthy of attention. I mean technically it is still running out there in some corner of the internet, but when was the last time you used it? I bet 90% of HN users have never used it even once, and that's a technical crowd who are the most likely to use it. Your school crossing guard will have never heard of it.

> Which is why the posts from the friends are now completely gone

That's not exactly true. There is a secondary newsfeed that is limited to just your friends' posts, under the "Friends" tab. But let's be honest: Nobody (other than a few, let say odd, characters) post anything, so it's always empty. This is no doubt why you claim that it doesn't even exist. You're not wrong in practice, even though it is technically there.

This is the problem with social media. They learned pretty quickly that it doesn't work — the same hard lesson Usenet learned decades prior — which is why they had to pivot away from it. If you don't give people exactly what they want, you're not going to go anywhere. Plain and simple.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I learned half my basic social skills from lunch rooms in school What a lot of people learn from lunch rooms is not a happy social lesson. It’s who is allowed to sit where, and who is outcast from a table. It’s the shit teenagers lower on the social hierarchy have to take daily from teenagers who are higher, even if they are allowed to sit at the same table. High school is widely remembered as a brutal rite…

I always hear this from Americans. My experience in Canada is that the bullying and shaming was limited to junior high (grade 7-9 in my province). Maybe my high school was just too large for any of that nonsense? Or maybe the culture is different - I couldn't have told you who was on the football team, and there was no prom. All my friends were nerds, but at the same time I didn't feel like there was some brutal soci…

I had a terrible time in Canadian jr high and great time in American high school. I think it really just depends on the school

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a prerequisite for a book to become required reading in schools to be boring as shit first :)

I couldn't disagree more. And it was the one thing that surprised me every time we cracked open a new book. "All Quiet on the Western Front" sounded terrible to a 14 year old me, but after starting it, I couldn't put it down. Same with Lord of the Flies. Fahrenheit 451. The Giver. I loved Animal Farm. And the Great Gatsby (though I get people not liking this one). The Outsiders was good. The Old man and the Sea was p…

You liked all of those at 14? We lived completely different youths :)

No lasers or dragons -> I skipped the book at that age.

Today-me would agree with you about all those books, teenage me would not.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty simple really, we're basically all [1] addicted to smartphones, so we basically all [1] advocated for this. After all, to admit it was a problem for our kids, we'd have to also admit it could be a problem for ourselves. Even I find myself holding onto my phone during most of the day when not on my computer, I don't even know why. It's an incredibly addictive piece of technology. [1] - to a first order of appro…

What's missing from the initial comparison is the fact that smartphones opened up all sorts of conveniences, which is partly what makes them so addictive. Rock music, D&D, etc, these other things that were crusaded against offered no convenience for all, so a conservative mind saw no value in it and attacked it as something that warps or rots young brains. Smartphones obviously do that and worse, but because they off…

Yeah I used to finish my job on a computer and go use another computer for fun. The smart phone is just a smaller one of tbose.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#290
post #286
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like we learn every time we try social media, people don't actually want to be social online. That takes work and the vast majority of people don't want to spend their free time doing work. They want to sit back, relax, and be entertained by the professionals. That's not it at all. Facebook shifted because they wanted you to spend more time on their website and serve you more ads. And once you've seen all your post…

> Facebook shifted because they wanted you to spend more time on their website and serve you more ads. Right. A service that isn't used is pointless. Usenet didn't serve ads or even try to make money, but also didn't get used, and was also deemed unworthy of attention. I mean technically it is still running out there in some corner of the internet, but when was the last time you used it? I bet 90% of HN users have ne…

So a toilet is only useful if you're 24h a day sitting on it? I'm having trouble understanding you.
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