[larvaetron]

I still don't understand why they were ever allowed in the first place. I went to public school in the 00s and if you got caught with your phone out in class, it would be confiscated until the end of the day. Repeat offenders would need their parents to come up to the school to get the phone back.

[mike_d]

Because phones have become the command center for our lives.

Your FreeStyle Libre pings your phone when you have low blood sugar. When your watch detects a serious fall or a heart abnormality your phone calls emergency services. You use your phone to let the dog walker in, check the camera to see if you turned off the garden hose or left it running, use it to find your lost wallet/keys/bag, etc.

Childhood is where you teach positive behaviors and responsibility. Just chucking phones out the window to avoid the problem teaches nothing.

[kube-system]

> Childhood is where you teach positive behaviors and responsibility. Just chucking phones out the window to avoid the problem teaches nothing.

I think that's the strongest argument against this. The ideal case would be a room full of kids who are taught to have the discipline to not touch their phones when inappropriate. However, I think the real issue is that teachers aren't able to effectively police this... probably partially due to class sizes, and our society's cultural lack of respect for rule-following and self-discipline.

[ethbr1]

> Childhood is where you teach positive behaviors and responsibility. Just chucking phones out the window to avoid the problem teaches nothing.

We specifically engineer acculturation processes to incrementally add responsibility for a reason.

Nobody gives a 2 year old a loaded pistol and then tells them they can't have candy.

IMHO, a smartphone with unregulated addictive apps is too much responsibility for grade-level children during school hours. (Hell, it's too much responsibility for many adults I know)

[the_snooze]

Tech focuses too much on scale and frictionless experiences. That's noise in an educational environment where children are more-or-less mandated to be in. Get rid of smartphones in school. School offices still have voice phones if students and parents need to communicate.

[neal_jones]

Agreed. We’ve pitted developing minds against machine learning - hardly surprising that students are distracted.

(Written on a smart phone while at work)

[mike_d]

I think a much better solution is Apple just geofencing schools in the US and not allowing social media apps to be opened.

[ImJamal]

> Your FreeStyle Libre pings your phone when you have low blood sugar.

Surely this could just be an exemption? If you have a medical device (not just low blood sugar devices) that uses a phone then you can keep your phone.

> When your watch detects a serious fall or a heart abnormality your phone calls emergency services.

I'm curious how far your phone can be away from your watch for this to still work?

Regardless, most kids aren't far away from others so a serious fall probably isn't a big risk since the kids nearby can get a teacher or some other adult.

> You use your phone to let the dog walker in, check the camera to see if you turned off the garden hose or left it running

Are these things that kids need to do?

> use it to find your lost wallet/keys/bag, etc

Seems like a kid could go to the office and the school can provide the phone to them for a while.

Also, kids were able to get by without using a phone to find their wallets for centuries. It might do a kid some good to walk around the school and get exercise.

[dsalfdslfdsa]

Indeed. There are plenty of things that I will teach my kids are not worth the downsides.

As for your medical examples - those devices work fine without a smartphone. Certifying a medical device that includes the user's smartphone as a key part of the therapy is very challenging, and avoided if possible.

[tootie]

If your argument if "that's how it was in my day" then it's not very convincing.

[larvaetron]

I guess I just don't share the sentiment that giving every child in a classroom unfettered access to content designed to distract them while a teacher is trying to teach the class is a good thing. I'm having difficulty understanding why you'd need to be convinced that it isn't.

[tootie]

I have two teenagers and it doesn't sound like it's a huge problem. And attempts to stifle phone usage (yondr pouches) are just creating friction. Maybe having a phone out is very obvious but kids have been doodling, daydreaming, talking and passing paper notes forever. If the downside of phones was so overwhelmingly obvious we wouldn't have such a dearth of measurable evidence.

[slothtrop]

This was my experience. My guess some combination of teachers losing control and being under pressure from helicopter parents led to either policy change or their looking the other way.

[kube-system]

They might not have been allowed before. This is a law that prohibits them. Many schools prohibit phones as a matter of policy.

[SoftTalker]

Same when my kids were in school.

[underseacables]

Because Columbine.

[ethbr1]

Parents.

[pavel_lishin]

And the PTA + Administrators not willing to back teachers when they needed to be backed.

[itake]

On Sept 11, 2001, I remember parents freaking out and pulling kids out of school. After that, parents were giving kids phones earlier for safety reasons.

[ethbr1]

As a parent, I recognize safety impulses.

But I also recognize the usefulness of my being a first responder, even with some training, is negligible to negative.