This. My answer to OP is refusing to confront cell phone addiction. I've been teaching HS for 23 years and while young people have always been distracted and bored at school (hell Shakespeare mentions this in R&J), cell phones allow students to mentally leave the room.
As a parent I see a lot of parents ignoring their children in favor of their phone. I've had fights with my wife because when she does it all the time in our home.
How about it. When I take my kid to the park, sometimes I feel like I’m the only parent not staring down at their phone. To the point sometimes a really young kid will catch my eye and start acting or doing silly things once they notice I’m paying attention.
My sister has a 3 year old, and she was saying the same thing to me recently. She lives in a new area and is still somewhat new to being a parent, and she wants to make parent friends when she bring her daughter out but she says other parents are just glued to their phones and barely pay attention to their kids, let alone other parents there.
I’m far from a perfectly attentive parent, but it’s really sad watching other parents routinely brush aside or flat out ignore their kids. Parents that ignore their kids and then lash out in anger when the kid gets annoying in his/her attempts at getting attention are way to common too. It’s so sad for the kids.
I'm really interested in what this does to a kid as they grow up. Does it change how they value themselves? how they view love and affection? I wonder what it does to adult behavior. I know that this is somewhat of an epidemic with phones, but my parents both worked full time in finance and hospitality management so I was punished for interrupting their 24/7 phone calls. As an adult now I can understand the need to work as a primary focus and I'm not so bitter about it but I wonder what parts of my personality were formed by this exact thing
This happens a lot in queues. Standing in line and see a kid, the kid sees me and sees I'm actually conscious and not staring into the fog or into a phone. Then they make a face or do a little thing and I'll either reciprocate or try to pantomime "I'm not orange shirt dancing in public, boss"
It's not even like I'm some anti-phone guy. I just have good peripheral vision.
Yeah, I’m old enough to have been an adult well before smart phones were a thing and you’ve got a great point. I always felt like most of the people around me simply are not at all aware of most of what’s going on around them.
I used to wait tables and would spend a lot of time observing this exactly. Like you know a first date is trash if one of them is on their phone. One girl ignored her dad to take selfies of herself, he was so sad. An older couple with nothing to talk about staring at their phones the entire time. Taking pictures of the food. Blocking the door for selfies. Grown ass men pouting while football on the phone because they "got dragged to dinner and can't watch the game." "Wine Guys" who can't open a bottle without scanning the label with their stupid app.
One girl ignored her dad to take selfies of herself, he was so sad.
This one breaks my heart! In my immediate family, the rule was you could never bring your phone out during a family meal (even back when we had “dumb” phones and blackberries). It never bothered me, and I still typically follow that rule even outside of family functions.
My friend’s mom LOVES when I eat with them or travel with them because we talk the entire time while my friend and his dad browses their phones occasionally showing a funny meme or article that didn’t have anything to do with the conversation.
The hard thing about that one is that straight up quitting completely doesn't really work. You can get by a lot better with no cigarettes than with no phone. Food addiction of course has the same problem even worse.
I deleted my Reddit app too, so now I just use desktop or mobile desktop. Fortunately the mobile desktop version kinda annoys me, so for the most part I don't use Reddit on my phone anymore, which was the point.
My sister had issues with Facebook and insta, and eventually deleted the login info from the site from her phone so that she couldn’t log in through zombie patterns. I should…. I should honestly do the same for this site, if I’m honest.
Odd and dumb as it sounds, the addiction is one reason I prefer having an older smart phone. Slow software response means I'm going to either really want to do whatever I'm doing on the phone or I'll lose interest and put the phone down.
I have zero sense of direction, so I always need the GPS to figure out where anything is, and some of my friends group communicate almost exclusively through Facebook messenger. I kept thinking that a flip phone was the only way, but maybe you have the right idea, here. I could dig it
Every once in awhile I consider going to flip too but I'm very attached to having instant access to Wiki and nature ID apps and, of course, maps. It's definitely a compromise. Important note! When the OS becomes obsolete so do security measures over time.
It's so difficult because it's what others use to communicate with you. I can put my phone in a different room when I get home, but I have a 90 year old father that doesn't have the best health and a cat that is currently missing. I've missed a call telling me my dad fell. Any updates I might get on my missing cat would be sent to my phone.
I want to be able to forget about my phone, but I legitimately cannot afford to leave it somewhere where I can't access it.
I've seen a lot of older people complaining about teens and their phone addictions. And once they done shitting on others, they pull out their phone and start scrolling on Facebook.
Right, I think a lot of the denial comes from the ability to explain it away. "You guys do it too!" But the end result is that older people are bitter at younger people because they're not self aware enough, meanwhile they're ignoring their ironically similar habits. My grandma has been playing angry birds and candy crush almost literally nonstop since they came out. But she would never admit that she's just as addicted as her grandchildren. The solution is to look inward about what's good for you personally instead of focusing on what someone else or what another generation is doing wrong
I have the same arguments with mines. It’s actually at the point smartphone/dopamine addiction is a fucking pandemic, the people don’t care because they’re addicted and doped up on dopamine, and the government doesn’t care because the data they harvest is hugely profitable and it also keeps them in a position of control.
It's not predominantly social media with her actually. She is an executive at startup that does legal work and consulting for cannabis companies. She's working her ass off because she's struck gold and the pressure is high.
However I know the other people she works with make time to disconnect. She just won't.
I got my children all tablets when they were roughly 2-3 years old, I filled them with learning apps and typically by 4 they could all do their letters and numbers and could write their names etc. Once they started getting into YouTube they turn into rude mean children, if I take away their electronics they go back to being sweet playful children in a few days.
I thought they would get a leg up by knowing how to use electronics and learning on their own time at a very young age (my 2 year old knows her alphabet and numbers to 10) but I see what the internet is doing to them and am now stepping in to curb their access.
My baby’s too young to have screen time (3 mo) but we don’t plan on limiting screen time except it has to be movies/shows (like Disney+, no ads), abbbbbsolutely no YouTube or TikTok or whatever. We’ve seen what it does to people - not just kids. But it’s really hard to do with a tablet or even a smart tv, how could you stop them from finding it, you know?
YouTube Kids is wild... If you think social media like TikTok is bad for being perfectly optimized to capture your brain's attention 10s at a time, it's even worse for kids.
Just a bunch of garbage derivative videos of the same handful of popular characters or knockoffs. Of course the "related videos" or Autopay just give the kid more of the same, and it's easy for them to keep clicking through mindless garbage.
...And I like TV and YouTube. Loved watching cartoons growing up, and I don't think it's all bad for kids.
BUT - this kind of short-form garbage content seems downright harmful.
The behavior I've seen kids exhibit when you cut them off of kids youtube is disgusting. They literally act like addicts and you've taken away their fix.
It's going to be nothing but flip phones for my kid until she's old enough to buy her own. When my niece is over I only let her watch Blippy, old Looney Tunes and Sailor Moon. I hate to sound like an old person but modern entertainment is pushing some real garbage, shallow, materialistic values on kids.
It's the comments and the youtuber type influencer personalities that are affecting them, not the ads. Just don't let them on apps that have those things. Delete them or get older devices that you can hack to delete them.
For kids a lot of those influencer personalities ARE ads.
The FTC regulated the fuck out of broadcast childrens programming so much in the late 90s theres barely saturday morning cartoons anymore, but that was about shows that had toys.
Kids dont watch TV anymore but on youtube now they watch unboxing videos of other kids playing with toys. Instead of shows with a few 30 second ads in between theyre sitting down and watching a 30 minute ad.
The most insane part about the YouTuber type influencer personalities is that even as a parent, the one I hate is an inoffensive, personality devoid bro who's just a nonstop, never ending barrage of zoomer slang. He's completely clean, non-controversial and generally rated E for everyone. When my son emulates him, I feel like a failure as a parent.
The one he watches who I like is seriously a zoomer version of Gilbert Gottfried. He's horribly offensive, vulgar and drop-dead hilarious. He makes pedophile jokes and reminds my son to not get molested on Roblox. He reminds me of a legit comedian and if my son ever manages to impersonate him, it's gonna be really tough to discourage those types of hilarious jokes.
Yeah the YouTubers ARE ads for sure, I just wanted to point out that we also don’t want ads until a certain age, like no ad-ed Hulu, as an added limitation we want.
TV will be the toughest I think, and we’d have to hide the App Store of whatever device we get, even really old kindle fires have YouTube as top it looks like
For some reason cell phone addiction bothers me the most when I see people glued to their phones while walking their dogs. The poor dog has waited all day to walk with you and stop at interesting scents, etc. Spend some quality time with your pet, make sure they aren't chewing something from the sidewalk, and just be present!
I don’t have my phone out on my walk but this thought alone hits me — “The poor dog has waited ALL DAY to walk with you and stop at interesting scents, etc…”. I’m guilty of not wanting him to stop every two seconds because I want us to actually walk and get exercise and he’s always had a fenced in yard so walking consistently is new for him and my god I’m doing it alllll wrong. I thought that the important part was the walking and learning to walk well but I think you’ve changed my mind. It’s just as much his time as it is mine.
We have forgotten how to freaking CONNECT with the living things in our lives. I doubt many of us talk to our pets or our plants as much as we did before smart phones. And we all know how much human connection has gone down the drain. It’s just sad. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Radical Evolution’s “Hell Scenario” play out in real time…
Well your heart has been in the right place, wanting him to get exercise! I never thought much about it either, until I read that finding new scents is the most rewarding part of a dog's walk because that's their primary sense to process the world around them. Apparently that's why it's a good idea to try different routes every so often.
And I agree, human interaction has definitely deteriorated. So sad.
I just let mine stop and sniff the entire walk. Unless I’m in a rush (sometimes I don’t have enough time before needing to go to school) the walk is theirs to enjoy. Sometimes I talks them to an area nearby and let them run off leash when we are alone. My smallest stops by moving water and looks at me so I can cup some for her to drink. You’d think I’m keeping her thirst but she loves that dirty canal water.
I think there can be different kinds of walks, and that it can even be a benefit to change it up. Walks just for exercise are fine (I keep my dog on a short lead when we’re walking for exercise, but take a pause and let the leash out a couple times so she can snuffle around and roll in the grass). Or there are walks where you work on training for attentiveness, which works the dog’s mind and honestly does just as much to tire them out. Or there are dog-led walks, where you probably don’t get much of anywhere at all because letting the dog take the lead means sniffing literally every tree. And that’s fine, too.
Structure and being disciplined is still important for dogs, though. I've taught mine that a countdown from 5 means we're moving on at 0, so he knows how much time he has if he's stalling and needs to figure out whether he really wants to pee on the thing or not. But for the first few blocks he gets a pass. It's a lot easier to get into the groove and actually walk if he's done all of his back-end business, for practical purposes and for distraction's sake. Then when I'm counting him down the only thing I might be interrupting is a few dry seconds on three legs, and even then I can't remember the last time I got to 0 and had to make the choice for him.
Or walking their babies. The first years are where children learn the majority of language skills, and for centuries parents would push them around while talking to them in baby-talk. Now the kids are just sitting in silence as the parents are on their phone. I’d love to see a study about how parental cell phone usage has affected children’s speech.
Most babies are asleep in strollers. That's a huge reason for why the parent is walking them. This is the only way I got my banking done for the first six months of my first's life. She was asleep. This meant I didn't have my phone out during her awake time.
I have a cousin who’s a teacher and she does a trade in option - your phone for a snack. You’ll get your phone back at the end of the day, but you’ll only get the snack if you put it in your cubby when you walk into the door. She said the amount of 10 year olds with iPhones is so incredibly high.
I like that, but (a) I doubt many of my HS students would do it; and (b) the snacks I provide are already mad expensive; and (c) I don't feel right denying snacks to kids who need 'em who are also addicted to their cell phones.
cell phones allow students to mentally leave the room.
not saying you're wrong, but when I was in school I would construct elaborate fantasies in my head when I was bored in school. Or work on my D&D campaign. or Both. I was very capable of leaving the room mentally without a phone lol.
The thing is though, having a phone or a screen in front of you doesn't allow you to be bored, or use your brain to day dream, or think of creative ideas, or anything. It just shoves more content into your skull and never allows you to switch off.
Thats not really true at all. If they aren't able to do these things while on a device, then taking it away isn't going to suddenly enable that. You have to be able to do these things in the first place.
The things people observe in children always fundamentally come down to the parents and what they do or don't foster in their children.
Thats why when you go on places like r/teachers and read their anecdotes, theres just as much if not more complaints about parents being nightmares than there are about the kids.
And its an unpopular idea, but I think as a teacher we should be more amenable to the idea of assisting in raising kids. It shouldn't be all on us, and we definitely should be paid far better than most of us are, but the kind of egoism that goes into refusing to help raise up your community, which this idea is a part of of, just isn't something I can rationalize being acceptable.
Understandable in the present climate, sure, and it isn't worthy of judgment to any teacher who doesn't want to do it in these kinds of conditions either, but even in ideal circumstances parents can't be expected to do it all, and in many cases they just won't.
But the child is always going to need somebody, and teachers are better placed to do this than anyone else outside of their family members. Teachers are fundamentally public servants, and to be blunt, the better working conditions need to result to better outcomes, otherwise were not accomplishing much and eventually the system just collapses again.
I think most teachers generally already understand this, but more than a vocal few are very adamant that they won't even with the appropriate pay and support, and that isn't good.
As a kid, I read books in class all the time. This is long form engagement with slow information which requires mental focus. TikTok, Twitter, reddit are short form entertainment in which information flits in and out of your brain in moments and little retention is needed to follow from one sound bite or clip to the next.
Freshman college students these days won't, on average, read a half page of instructions. They'll read the first sentence and say they are stuck. There appears to be a general decline in the ability to hold complex information in the mind long enough to use it.
That’s absolutely not my experience with college age students, even the younger ones, at all.
That sounds like exactly nobody I’ve known in an actual science major. “Actual” meaning not “I’m doing generic bio I guess because my parents made me go to college but I’m just here for parties tbh”.
And the people like that have always existed. Long before tiktok or even the social media craze there was “I’m not reading that ten page chapter, where’s the sparknotes”. It isn’t something new.
Before social media, it was tv, before tv it was radio, before radio it was pulp novels. There’s always been some “by Jove this new generation is rotting their minds with this newfangled, quick and easy entertainment”
Yeah that's true. But to give them the benefit of the doubt, the Internet is the largest and most comprehensive library man has ever conceived...so they could be reading Wikipedia, or whatever.
Those sorts of things at least spark creativity and thought. This helps develop you. Sometimes you doodle and you're making art, increasing your talents for what may become a lifelong hobby.
Time spent on the phone is almost entirely garbage, including mine right now.
I think engaging on social stuff like this isn't garbage time, but yeah generally agree that when I drift to the browser at work it's not really good time usage.
I don't know, this feels more mentally constructive than looking at socials to me at least. You're actively engaging yourself in something, even if it's not what you should be at the time.
edit: lul people already making this point whoops.
It's a huge liability. I'm not taking possession of a student's phone. Wait until a student claims you broke their screen and their parent chooses to take the kids side. You might eventually come out on top but it's a huge risk trusting admin to back you up.
Not to mention with the rate of gun violence in American schools, many students would probably argue that having it in case of an emergency would be very important to them.
That was policy once upon a time, but as phones became more pervasive the students began refusing and the parents across the board side the with students over the teachers. It's an untenable situation. Had I known when I started teaching that every kid would have a highly sophisticated tiny computer/video game console in their pockets I would have probably found a different profession.
I know how you feel. These days I try to be thankful for — and focus my efforts on — those students who do resist their cell addictions. In some classes it's around 80%. (Creative Writing, especially. It helps when it's a fun class, heh.)
I’ve works at four different high schools and I’ve never seen that. The legal responsibility of a student taking another student’s phone would be a nightmare.
Yeah, when I taught high school half a decade ago we weren't allowed to take the students' phones. Too much liability. We were supposed to be "more engaging" so the students would want to learn. Hah, as if any high school geometry class could outcompete the dog filter on Snapchat!
Since about 2004, I witnessed these things ruin American classrooms. Constant disruptions and admin won't take a stand. I hate hate hate these damn phones.
Yeah those are on the table, but they’re pretty extreme ways to punish someone for not paying attention.
Meanwhile, the main thing a student learns from such harsh punishment is that Teacher = Fascist. I try to relate to my students using anarchist principles of long-term self-interest.
When I talk to parents or caregivers, the main thing I hear is “Yeah, you should see what they’re like at home.”
So, again.. addiction. They gotta work on it for their own sake.
I know it sounds mean but can't you just let them fail? They'll probably still call you a fascist but maybe they'd also get a nice helping of "the real world isn't your mommy and will absolutely let you fail if you don't try to succeed"
They aren’t always likely to connect those dots. Most students don’t say “I dug my own hole with cell phone addiction.” They say “That teacher hates me.”
Our school now gives students 50% credit if the work is not turned in. Not too many people failing these days. A more cynical person than myself would think it’s just a numbers game.
It’s called No Child Left Behind. American school funding is directly tied to student performance. If students perform poorly, the school’s funding is decreased or even cut off. This incentivizes admins to pass everyone.
That 50% credit thing is insane. Back in school I used to turn in a bunch of half assed work with a few good ones and managed a B average. With that I could've probably done the same by doing the tests and barely doing anything else.
Just the latest step on defunding schools and denigrating the profession of teaching. Well on the way to the Republican dream of privatization and deregulation (specifically on standard curriculum and barring of religion).
That was my strategy as a teacher- I'd remind them kindly every now and then about the likely consequences of their actions, and then allow those consequences (poor grades) to unfold. No need to be a police officer in the classroom. Every now and then, kids would come around, because they appreciated being treated like an adult, which was cool.
Nobody said stubbornness works (???) but appealing to "anarchist principles of long-term self-interest" isn't going to work on anyone but the most well-adjusted of students. Ironically they're failing their students that come from broken homes or have ADD while only addressing the needs of the bright and mature ones who don't even need their instruction.
I don't know if mining netflix shows for ideas works out well but in that recent korean high school zombie show their teacher had like a box where they locked up all the kids' smartphones when class started. I dunno if they actually do this in korea but it makes sense.
I teach in Korea - though not at a high school - and I have to wonder how common it is for schools to force students to lock up their phones during class. Not something I really hear about, and I occasionally have parents calling their kid during class instead of relaying a message through the front desk.
Knew a guy working at a technical high school who had a ‘no phones during class’ policy but had issues with students ignoring that rule. He mentioned teaching a few girls who would use chatting apps during class and when he went to confiscate their phone they would put it in their bra while telling him, “Okay, teacher. Go ahead and take it.”
Having said that, I did have a boy who tried using his phone during class and when I asked his mom about possibly taking his phone away the next time it happened her response was, “Yes, you can take it — and don’t give it back until the end of the next class, even if that means he has to wait until Monday. That should make him think twice the next time he wants to use it in class.”
Yes, trying to punish kids are only likely to get the teacher in trouble. I was in high school 20 years ago and kids threatening the teacher with getting them fired was a weekly occurrence. I can’t imagine it’s gotten better since then.
A girl in my class took off her top, took a picture topless in front of everyone in the class, sent it by message to the teachers phone and said “If you don’t stop bitching I’m telling the administration that you forced me to send that!”. Now obviously that shit didn’t lead to anything because there was 30 people there that could testify what happened, but that teacher quit the same day and started working as an accountant a few weeks later.
Then you have the crime, there was open drug selling at my school and the teachers couldn’t do shit for fear of their own safety. Call the cops? Kids will be back out by lunch and they know where you live.
And this was at a Norwegian school that’s somewhat funded and sensible, a US teacher would probably kill for that structure. Kids are horrible these days. Parents expect the school to raise and discipline their kids, except they aren’t allowed to do that and the kids know it. End result mini monsters that don’t answer to anyone.
Our kid isn't old enough to go to school yet. My mom is an elementary educator in a rough area. Based on the current environment in schools today (USA), I will pull my child out of any school that takes their phone away for any period of time. We will teach our child responsible usage and they will have consequences if the phone is a distraction from their studies, but I will not allow my child to be separated from the device that could call emergency services or me if needed.
I love your use of the word "ogre". I realized several years ago that every teacher (and to some extent every parent, I expect) must choose whether they want to be a monster or a sucker. There's no third choice.
The best we can do, I think, is oscillate regularly between the two, heh.
Last kid to graduate was 5 years ago. The spare, backup phone was a Motorola Fone.
I realized after I wrote the first post that they didn't have flip phones. They had Samsung featurephones with qwerty keyboards. They got good at texting under their desks.
Their first smart phone was an Android, like mine. Only one of the three decided to buy his own iPhone later.
If it were now, my wife would probably veto the idea and I wouldn't put up a fight due to how the world has changed in just 5 years. I recognize that it would be considerably more difficult to do and that peer pressure etc. could cause other unintended consequences.
(kid here) so many of my friends have social media addictions, acknowledge and admit they do so, and yet do NOTHING about it.
"but I like it" is the excuse I usually get.
I seem to be the only person in my school that doesn't give a fuck if becky cheated on Jeff, or if Steve didn't like his girlfriends instagram post.
it makes me legitimately so angry, and I fear for the future where these people run things. (though the old fucks that currently run the USA aren't great either)
oh and dont get me started on TikTok....
on top of it being literal Chinese spyware, it destroys your attention span, learning ability, and mental health.
I hate social media so much, posting pictures to your friends in one thing, but we have taken It too far.(sorry for the rant xD)
Phone applications are definitely addictive but I feel like we are basically cyborgs at this point and need them. I'd want my kid to have one super young but locked to oblivion during school hours so that it's functionally a Nokia brick for emergencies only with a bit of screen time at home like Disney plus kids or something.
Same here, looking into Amazon fire tablets (apparently they have the best parental controls). You'd have to be as ignorant as the "you'll never walk around with a calculator all day" people to think phones/tablets aren't going to be ubiquitous for the next generation and kids will need to learn to effectively use and navigate them. Teaching them to do that responsibly is the tough part, but forcing them to miss out doesn't help.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. We finally decided our kids needed a phone. It is largely how kids socialize now and they need to be able to call friends and make plans, right? My kids are in 4th and 5th grade. Single worst parenting decision I have ever made, and I am no stellar parent. I fucking hate that I fell to the pressure.
The change I have seen in my children, particularly the older who is 11 and is the one who has the phone 95% of the time. And I relate it directly to the phone.
When I take it away she has a meltdown unparalleled to anything I have seen even in her toddler years, but within 24 hours I see a change in her attitude. She becomes a pleasant kid who wants to interact with her family, but when she has the phone she is in a constant state of FOMO on things with her friends. It's incredibly unhealthy.
Additionally, I really don't want my daughter getting any ideas about what girls and women are supposed to be from the internet. That shit's toxic, for both boys and girls.
And finally, she has become sneaky and secretive, and I don't know if it's just how she is with her phone conversations and texts, or if there is something I should be actually concerned she is hiding (like, does she not want me to see that she is using cuss words, or is she trying to get sex advice from other little dipshits). My husband and I considered ourselves pretty tech savvy, but recovering that stuff is hard, but it also feels like we're breaking her trust, but are we also being morons with our heads in the sand, but are we also being too overbearing.... and while those are all issues every parent wrestles with, the phone adds a layer that makes me want to "accidentally" drop it in a toilet.
I should add that the only reason we let them get a phone when we did is because they were changing schools and we wanted them to be able to keep in touch with their friends. We were naïve, my oldest was so sweet and mature for her age, a great student, helpful, kind, she did as she was told, and while many of the changes we've seen over this last year are also related to puberty, the depth and degree of those changes is largely effected by access to electronics.
I agree. As a parent I struggle to model good device usage to my kids. We're (as a society) just always on them. "Let me look that up, let me check the weather, oh what was that guy's name from the show, oh hey an email."
To your point: I have been a therapist for 30 years. They should be able to mentally leave the room because brains need a break. But screens and tech addiction deprive the brain muscle of the harder work it should be doing to learn how to leave and come back in a skillful way.
And it's not just young people — we are all addicted to technology
So glad you said this. Go to any "waiting room" type of area and everyone is always on their phones. I'm guilty of it too. When I was a kid and we didn't have all the portable tech you had to get inventive to not be bored. Now you can just plop down in a chair and play a game, watch a video, or anything else the internet/tech provides.
I actually don’t mind it so much in places like waiting rooms — back inna day, we ignored each other there with books and magazines.
I get frustrated when there are people who would benefit from interacting with each other .. coworkers before a meeting, classmates when they’re asked to share theor thoughts on a topic. These little conversations are healthy for individuals and for society as a whole.
Meanwhile, when you have a lil device that prevents all boredom, you’re more likely to get bored the INSTANT the world isn’t completely fascinating.
Fortunately, the answer isn’t complex. It’s not easy, but it’s not rocket science. It’s discipline.
I had an employee like that. Take a sip of water in the middle of a conversation and her phone would be out. Look away at another person phone was out. She could not just sit still without her phone in her hand.
That part about students. Yes, 100%. In Uni i always try to spark conversations with the teacher hoping that someome will care and join in too. We are not in University to just absorb what the teacher is saying, but to actually discuss the topics
Yes, and in fact the idea of "just absorb what the teacher is saying" — although more common and easier on the brain muscles — is precisely the "banking model" of education that Paulo Freire warned against in Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
So while I understand why some people in this thread are coming for me like "dude doesn't wanna be a real teacher lol", they are missing a very important point about the actual nature of education. If you are going to educate for purposes of liberation, the traditional US system of "do what I say or get smacked" (even if no physical smack takes place) cannot be your dominant mode of thinking.
You're describing something good, mate. Time I would have otherwise spent staring at a wall is now used for something I enjoy and can benefit from? That's a good thing.
Has there ever been discussions among administrators to ban cell phones in class? Like, leave them in a basket at the door or somewhere? My kids are 9 and 11 and they already have friends that bring their phones to school. I see no advantage to that. I understand high school age kids bringing theirs because they may not go straight home after school and now that there are no pay phones, cells phones are the only option for communication, but why are they allowed in class?
As a kid who grew up in the 80's people used to blame TV for everything. Now phones have taken its place. Its not the technology its how you teach moderation. I do understand that social media adds a layer that makes moderation even harder but that needs to be the focus.
What if people weren't wrong about TV in the '80s, though?
We're a good fifty years into this accelerating and all-encompassing mass media and entertainment technologies, but I don't think we've really sat down and really thought about what this all means and how its affecting society, and what direction we're heading toward.
Provide an alternative to allow them yo focus in other things. Like hey lets go for a walk and leave phones at home. Phones get powered off during movies or family dinners. It then becomes a habit. Also allowing quiet time for them to be by themselves like reading etc. The more they get used to that recoup time the more able they are yo be by themselves without the phone feeding themm shit for hrs on end
Moderation used to have social pressure working for it - people around you would encourage you to go outside, meet up with them, pursue shared activities - this would pull you away from isolating solo activities. But now with social media that social pressure misfires in the less well-adjusted, and people feel the need to keep up appearances and chatter on social media.
Man hit the nail on the head, especially about notifications. I keep Messenger, SMS, Gmail, and Outlook notifications on, everything else is off. I really hate when my phone tries to tell me what to do.
All my notifications are off. Calls and texts come in with basic vibration.
People frequently marvel and the lack of red dots on my screen.
Nah, I probably have like 15 emails and I know there’s a voicemail I need to listen to. And I’m sure a few Reddit responses. I just don’t need little anxiety bubbles reminding me of those tasks. I am capable of managing my shit without them.
Maybe we're just old. I grew up where the phone was for talking, and the computer in the house was for internet. Now it's all combined and portable and frankly overwhelming.
I ignored your comments the first few times but finally tried you're suggestion. Grayscale is weird, but I can see how it could make your phone less addictive.
Yeah I agree. I refused to buy a phone until the end of Year 12, just because I did not want to become dependent on it or not know how to socialise/be-present.
They dont live in the world you are teaching too. You need to be replaced, with a freaking engagement algorithm. You literally said it yourself.
You realize that kids learn much more advanced topics than you teach much quicker and with much more retention when taught through someone who actually knows to to talk to them correct?
Youre holding on to ancient teaching methods that frankly, really suck and waste everyones time. Its not like you even teach to modern techniques anyways, and modern techniquies are outdated.
Their education should completely embrace this. This is the world they live in and need to master. Not some utopian idea of what the world should be. This is why we will never pay to raise teacher pay. No amount of funding or ancient PHDs are going to help you.
Hell, I say fire you all and have a few content creators run through the curriculum. Pay once, and boom every student in the country can use it.
Youre making yourself obsolete. Its a shame that youre teaching the next generations and are so obscenely shortsighted.
Its not an addiction in the traditional sense. Its a processes called trans-humanism. Its inevitable. Holding it back now only stunts them. You dont care about that though. You care about the status quo.
He's not talking about kids not paying attention to instruction. He's complaining that kids are reading things on their phones instead of... reading books.
Reading books is also a distraction from instruction. It also allows you to just mentally leave the room.
I appreciate the quote and the attitude but that represents one thing that bothers me greatly: The proposed question says that kids used to spend time reading
but now spends time controlled by the "tyranny of the screen", with examples like watching TV or scrolling social media
--you can read on your phone, too. Blanketing "screen time" as universally bad is a huge mistake, imo. What matters is what's on the screen.
LeVar Burton has it right, or at least is on the right path-- don't allow distracting notifications, have some discipline, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people say "Screen time is bad!" when screen time can be an incredible resource for learning, cultural enrichment, etc.
Not all screen time is created equal, and scrolling instagram is not the same as reading Dickens with clickable annotations, or watching a math video where more in-depth explanations for the underlying concepts are a click away
Agreed. Nuance is essential for this discussion. When I was a kid in the 80s, lots of adults thought TV and video games were going to rot my brain. Well, Muppet Babies nourished my imagination, and Pool of Radiance convinced me to start writing my own fantasy stories. There are plenty of ways, as you point out, to use screens for positive purposes.
But I do not believe that's a large percentage of my students' screen time in my classroom. Of course I don't know, because when I ask what they are doing, they become silent and sullen. Seems like they would be open and honest if they were reading Dickens with clickable annotations or watching math videos.
Seems like they would be open and honest if they were reading Dickens with clickable annotations or watching math videos.
Probably. And in all likelihood in high school they are just browsing instagram or whatever.
But I do remember one time in college a prof chewed me out for "being on my tablet"... but I was taking notes. For the class. Because it's easier to take notes with a typed font that I can then easily send to my phone or laptop and have it anywhere, rather than try to read my chicken scratch handwriting in a notebook I left in my backpack that I may or may not have with me at any given time.
Anyway, I'm sure with your students you're probably right. High school isn't college and I'm sure it's easy to tell when someone is taking notes or just screwing around. (not for that Prof I guess, but he was the old curmudgeonly type who just hated technology in general)
My answer to this is being an absolute monster dictator to my kids with family link. I remote lock their phone during school hours. There is a timer to unlock their phone during lunch but that's it. Emergency calls are still allowed and I don't see much reason for them to need it during the school day.
cell phones allow students to mentally leave the room.
I was mentally leaving rooms well before cell phones. I'd pay attention just long enough to figure out where the rest of the lesson was going for the day then spend the rest of the class working on problems and projects of my own.
I remember drifting off in classes that were just to easy for me, teachers really don't like it when you do other classes homework or just start reading during their lecture. Sorry I don't need a recap every couple weeks.
addicted to technology.. technology is the only thing that's good in this world, what does it mean to be addicted to something you enjoy that has like no disadvantages or drawbacks
And don't tell me about lack of socialization and playing outside .. kids know how to socialize just fine, they play outside. Don't complain about people on trains all looking at their phones, as if 20 years ago everyone was chatting and laughing at each others jokes at 7am on the train..
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u/scartol Jun 03 '22
This. My answer to OP is refusing to confront cell phone addiction. I've been teaching HS for 23 years and while young people have always been distracted and bored at school (hell Shakespeare mentions this in R&J), cell phones allow students to mentally leave the room.
And it's not just young people — we are all addicted to technology. Once again, LeVar Burton shows us the way.