[arp242]

I don't understand (2); I (and probably you, too) never had a phone going to school, or playing outside, or doing most other things, and this was fine. If you really need to get in touch for the rare emergency that will probably never happen you can just ring the school. I sometimes see parents talk about not being in contact 24/7 is like [1].

On a practical level, "no phones at all" is just so much easier to enforce.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJP4dr_mioA

[andrewla]

Yes, you were fine. But you were also fine meeting up with friends, giving up when people are late, making plans, etc. Society has moved on -- plans are dynamic and people keep each other updated. If you're running late you let them know and they go to the museum without you and you know you can catch up. If you're in the area, you send a quick message to see if they're around.

With kids it's the same -- you want to change pickup or remind them of a dentist appointment, you have that ability now, and why not use it? This is just the way the world is now. When kids make plans with each other they don't have to make a ton of arrangements, they can just fly by the seat of their pants; they can meet up with friends, or ditch them because they're feeling tired without it being a big deal or requiring a game-of-telephone approach to communication.

[pjlegato]

The fact that many people have decided to do something which causes objectively harmful externalities does not somehow make it OK to jump on the bandwagon and do that same thing, too, just because "everyone's doing it."

Perpetual phone connectivity is the "smoking" of our time. The best outcome here will be that in 50 years or so, we all look back on the current brief period of "keep each other updated" at all times the same way that we now look back on "chain smoking" in the 1950s -- a brief social fad, which nobody realized was harmful at the time, because they were exclusively focused on the positive portions and ignored the negatives.

[andrewla]

What are the "objectively harmful externalities" you're referring to?

[pjlegato]

There is a large and growing body of evidence indicating that pervasive phone connectivity has led to large increases in psychiatric issues among all demographics, and particularly among younger people who have now grown up immersed in a phone culture.

More informally, smartphone usage by children promotes a short attention span, a lack of any sense of presence where actually situated in the physical world, as well as less and lower quality interaction with others, leading to poor social skills, anxiety, social isolation, and a focus on superficial social signaling over meaningful human interactions, ultimately producing the mental illnesses referenced above.

See e.g. https://kagi.com/search?q=summary+of+mental+health+outcomes+... -- there are far too many sources to even list here.

[andrewla]

I appreciate that there is a body of research discussing possible implications of large-scale phone connectivity, but this does not meet the bar of "objectively harmful externalities".

I'm not even talking about methodologies or replication or evidence or p-hacking (all of which are huge challenges to this sort of research).

On a much more fundamental level, the statement "unauthorized smartphone use in a classroom setting is objectively harmful" is a defensible statement. I don't need a study to tell me that, nor should anyone. The extraordinary claim in this case would be the opposite, for which I would have to see tremendous evidence, and which even then I would likely not believe.

[arp242]

> With kids it's the same -- you want to change pickup or remind them of a dentist appointment, you have that ability now, and why not use it? This is just the way the world is now.

Because it's fucking up your kid's education. That's why. That's what this thread is about.

I'm so tired of this "it's just the way the world is" technofetishist apologetics. It's a complete non-argument that says nothing, and this type "it's just the way it is" resignation can be applied to every injustice or shortcoming in society every.

[andrewla]

Phones in the classroom are clearly a distraction and should be disallowed. Phones in school seem mostly harmless and provide clear benefits.

I'm not saying "do nothing", I'm just not seeing a case anywhere of why phones in schools but not during class are "fucking up" anything.

You can make a serious case for banning phones in school as the easiest way to enforce banning phones in classrooms, and accepting the tradeoffs that this implies. But you can't just dismiss the fact that many people (myself included) see there being serious benefits of having access to phones outside the classroom setting without first addressing those arguments.

[pjlegato]

Yes.

Formally, saying "that's just the way it is," or "that's what society is now," is an example of a logical fallacy called "begging the question," where the original criticism is simply repeated as if it were a response to itself:

Replying to "society has this problem X" by saying, "Well, X is just the way society is now."

is not responsive to the proposition. It is merely repeating it in different wording.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

[notaustinpowers]

I get where you're coming from, but times have drastically changed. I feel we'd see better results in teaching kids from a young age how to responsibly use smartphones, use them for research, fact-checking, how to protect themselves, and building a healthier relationship with them.

If I know kids, banning something just makes them want it more.

[arp242]

> If I know kids, banning something just makes them want it more.

Then you don't know kids, because this is not how (most) kids work, certainly not at a young (pre-teen) age. And even in teenage years/puberty this kind of reductionist simplistic reasoning doesn't really apply (and is also one of those non-arguments that can be applied to everything).

And no one is argueing against all smartphone usage by kids. Or at least, I wasn't. Just saying people don't need to in touch on the way to and from school.

[notaustinpowers]

>Then you don't know kids

I'm the oldest of 5 siblings and have helped multiple family members, friends, and neighbors with their kids. I feel comfortable enough to say that I do know kids. In total, I'd say I've helped raise 15-20 kids in my life.

I wasn't allowed a phone or internet access by my parents until I was 18 and off to college, by then the iPhone 5 was out. Even when I did go to college, they refused to get me a phone at all, stating that the front desk of my dorm will walk up 5 flights of stairs to my dorm to tell me I had a call. My aunt had to buy me a flip phone.

You know what I (and my siblings) did when we lived with them? We would buy a schoolmates old iPod touch, PSP, or Blackberry Storm and hide it in our pillow cases. We'd ask for a specific e-ink Kindle because it had a button hidden in the settings to access an "experimental" internet browser.

Kids are creative, and if they want something, they will get it.

[omh]

I agree that it would be fine to not have phones - we'd all cope.

But when my daughter hasn't got home on time if I can check her GPS and see that she's in the park then I can relax a little.

If she needs to say she's staying out late, using a group chat to let the whole family know is easier than trying to phone mum, then dad, then grandma.

Or she can include a photo showing how much fun she's having.

My life is richer because of communication on things like family group chats. It would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater and lose that

[DiggyJohnson]

Why would three family members need to know that she's staying out late? I genuinely can't understand your comment because it seems like it has the obvious hallmarks of helicopter parenting. I don't actually know you and you're probably a much more reasonable parent than this comment portrays, and I don't know how old your daughter is, but it seems like you're not comfortable at all with not knowing much she's up to.

[ryandrake]

When I was a kid, my parent would know that I was staying out late... from the fact that I was not home yet. Sometimes he wasn't home yet, either, so no problem at all. If it was really late, as in it turned into a sleepover, the friend's parent would call my parent to let them know to expect me back in the morning. We somehow survived without 24/7 surveillance and GPS tracking.

[pjlegato]

"Surveillance parenting" -- which is "helicopter parenting" magnified through technological tools the Stasi could only dream of -- seems likely to foster long-term dependence and anxiety that far outweigh the positive effects.

Yes, it's OK to not know exactly where a responsible older child is down to centimeter-resolution lat/lon coordinates at all times. Most humans, including most alive today, lived like that for all of history.

[arp242]

Some of that is rather different than "I would like my child to have a phone for the journey to and from school" from your previous comment mentioned though. I'm just saying it's fine to send your kid to school without a phone. I didn't say anything about group chats in general or (3) from your post or anything else.