I'm guessing that teachers never wanted smartphones in class in the first place and that this was just about pushing back against the helicopter parents.
NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
51–60 of 352 posts
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#52Hopefully society continues to develop healthy norms with regard to this sort of technology. Collectively it's taken us a while, but I think people generally are starting to get the picture. Smartphones are bad in a wide variety of ways, but even when people miss some of the nuance I think we can make progress regarding the minimization of their usage.
Here in MA there is a 'bell to bell' phone ban bill in the works. I'm very happy we're letting kids be kids again. There is no need for a phone during the school day.
I'm expecting a kiddo this winter and my use of devices+my likely future kid's relationship with tech has really been on my mind. The fact that people are thinking through this and actually working on it puts me slightly more at ease.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#53I don't think smartphones should be allowed in schools but as someone who was dumbfounded by the lunchtime cacophony of my peers, I wouldn't lead with that as a triumph.
The problem, when it comes to smartphone bans, isn't the kids, believe it or not.
My experience (consulting with multiple k-12 institutions) is that it's the parents. If the parents can't be in CONSTANT contact with their kids, it's a problem. People are scared of everything all the time. It's not great.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#54It is interesting to see how rapidly social fabrics deteriorated when smartphones came around. I was in highschool from 2014-2018, and for most of the years, I could remember everyone socializing during lunch, break times, and even in the classroom. Which is odd because we had access to smartphones, airpods, and laptops. Perhaps it was because we spent the majority of our lives without them still? Seems to have gotten a lot worse since then.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#55So I have eye witness accounts of this lunchroom saying that's not true. The lunchroom was deafeningly loud before the ban. This school is also a magnet school with only high-performing kids who did not suffer from distraction problems and who actively made use of phones during class for classwork.
All my teacher friends (before this article) had joyously reported on lunch rooms being loud again (and even fights and lol, sex) happening.... But in a good way. If kids aren't getting into some trouble then they're not interacting and learning about society and human nature enough
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#56Smartphones are this century's cigarrettes.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#57Hopefully society continues to develop healthy norms with regard to this sort of technology. Collectively it's taken us a while, but I think people generally are starting to get the picture. Smartphones are bad in a wide variety of ways, but even when people miss some of the nuance I think we can make progress regarding the minimization of their usage.
Hopefully as a society we can also learn the lesson that tech companies cannot be trusted to deliver what's best for us.
This is the same logic that has parents buying games like GTA for their prepubescent children and being dumbfounded that the kids are exposed to violent images.
While we can definitely point the blame at tech companies that manipulate algorithms, engage in dark patterns, etc, it's ultimately up to the consumer to consume judiciously and moderate their own well being. Nobody ever asked Apple or Google to "deliver what's best" for society. What's best for society is a collection of rational, intelligent, and accountable adults.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
For my generation (just post-Boomer), it was the TV. For my parents, it was the radio. For their parents, reading out loud for everyone to enjoy ("Mr. Dickens has published another episode of The Pickwick Papers !"), or playing instruments.
Music is medicine. I’ve been taking guitar for a few years now and it’s pure joy.
Problem is for the first month of lessons it is not joy, it is hard frustrating work where you sound bad and know it. Even when you are good lessons often are pushing you to do hard things and so they are not pure joy.
My son has been taking violin for years, is really good, and loves it - but most of his practice time is still really hard pieces that need a lot of practice of the hard parts (stitching between 5th and 2nd position...) and he would prefer to sit down at the piano (he stopped lessons years ago) and play an easy piece.
Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#59The school president is 17?
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Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even then, individual screens is isolating. Collapsing in front of the TV with the family was still quality time enjoying something together.
For a lot of young people the screen is social - the equivalent of the long after-school phonecalls from the before times. Be it games or just Discord, it's still comms.
Most of the social of screens is when you get to a place without them you have something common to talk about. "how about [local sports team]", "what did you think about [whatever happened on latest soap opera]", "lets pretend I'm [some character on cartoon]". It is all shorthand for we have something in common and can skip getting to know each other.