[nextweek2]

I’d like to hammer on this point. The problem isn’t phones, but how they are used.

Too many people leave the default notifications on and assume it’s just how things work. People need to be taught to realise their attention is valuable and that notifications are taking it for free.

People need to be tech literate, banning phones for students won’t help them down the road, it’s only deferring the problem.

[smolder]

You make a good point. To clarify mine, though: The treacherous thing about phones is not so much the phones capabilities, it's that the software deeply (but often subtly) disrespects end users. It's a normalized part of the industry. There's constant pressure from app-makers looking to shove content on you or to exfiltrate data about you, even if it's just recording a simple interaction. There's some of this on mouse-and-keyboard computers too, and increasingly so, but not to the same degree.

For one example, the push notification system is absurdly abused, and it's difficult to get the right balance of awareness versus distraction. Trying to get the notifications settings how I want tends to fail in one of two directions:

1. I miss an important/urgent email or message (terrible), or fail to respond to a dating app message in time. (Not responding quickly to messages is offensive to some...)

2. I'm just constantly annoyed by irrelevant updates or even blatant SPAM.

Ultimately, I disagree that the problem with phones lies with how users choose to use them. It's that the environment provided is overrun with software that's hostile, geared towards unhealthy usage. With new OS updates and new apps come new pitfalls and additional effort needed to get everything behaving how a reasonable, tech literate, self-respecting person would want. Some will jump through the hurdles to get things under control, but most just default to being abused, and I strongly believe it's asking too much of people, especially younger people, to understand what's at stake and to make all the right moves. When I point to phones as a source of problems, that's really what I'm talking about.