[pjlegato]

The fact that many people now develop anxiety if unable to use a phone for even a very short time is a part of the problem.

The phone has become a pseudo-appendage for most people now. Even those who spent most of their lives blissfully phone-free quickly internalized the need for connectivity.

Raising children from a young age to expect and demand access to phone connectivity at all times is making this problem much worse.

No, you do not need to have a phone at all times "for emergencies" that almost never happen. The negative effects of perpetual connectivity are far, far worse.

Almost all humans (including those alive today) managed just fine to live life without a perpetual phone link. Teach children to do the same. The phone is a nice-to-have, not a necessity to merely venture out of the house on a routine trip to school and back.

[calibas]

> many people now develop anxiety if unable to use a phone for even a very short time

That's a very polite way of saying "addiction".

[pjlegato]

Indeed it is. "Phone addiction" is the "smoking" of our time.

In the 1950s, people around the world smoked furiously whenever awake. And why not; it made them feel good! It let them bond with others over shared cigarettes!

Even at that time, there was strong initial evidence of smoking's harmful effects. It was largely ignored in favor of short term feelgood outcomes.

Perhaps in 2080 or so, we will look back upon today's era of always-on connectivity the way people now look at chainsmokers in 1955: "Wow, how could they ever do that? Didn't they know this was so obviously bad for you?"

[globular-toast]

There are many "smoking"s of our time. Food addiction is probably an even bigger one (cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes).

I'm actually starting to question whether smoking really was some huge public health success story. Or did it just go out of fashion? It's odd that we'd be able to tackle one thing like that then just completely drop the ball on it (see vapes) and not even begin to address other things like food/sugar and phones.

[sigmar]

>No, you do not need to have a phone at all times "for emergencies" that almost never happen.

Almost never happen? There have been 464 school shootings in the US since 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...

[tivert]

That's pretty close to "almost never happens" That works out the 33 a year, but there's something like 129,000 schools in the US. And when people talk about school shootings, they're typically talking about mass shootings, and there are even fewer of those (apparently 0.5 per year according to https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/153/4/e20230...).

And then there's the question of how a cell phone is actually supposed to help in such an emergency. If anything, I think it would be a liability.

[fatnoah]

As a parent that experienced such an event, my son having his phone let him message me that he and his class were literally running away into the woods and escaping the situation.

Obviously, knowing his class was ok was a huge relief, but also being able to talk to dad helped him calm down a bit.

Still a niche case

[thegrim33]

Yes, almost never happens.

Your link shows ~600 people injured or killed in school shootings, across every possible education level (from kindergarten to college) in the course of 24 years. (Both injured and killed, the number actually killed is more like a quarter to a third of that).

That's an average of 25 people killed or injured per year.

Taking enrollment numbers from 2021 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...) , it shows that in a given year, ~80 million people are enrolled in those same school levels.

That puts the odd of being injured or killed in a school shooting (if you're currently in school) at 1 in 3,200,000 per year.

So yes, odds of one in three million of your child being involved is "almost never happens".

[sigmar]

deaths being rare != shootings almost never happen

many people shot are not killed. being a victim of a school shooting does not even mean you were shot.

[pjlegato]

ANY school shooting, whether people are shot or injured or killed, or whether the shooter simply misses and nobody is struck, is extremely rare in the United States.

That is to say, it almost never happens.

The few incidents that do happen garner outsized media attention because they are unquestionably tragic. That repeated messaging makes them feel more common than they actually are.

For comparison, fatal car crashes on the way to or from school are FAR more common than school shootings (while still rare.)

[SkyPuncher]

School shootings are bad, but claiming cell phones with kids would change anything is rich.

Teachers and staff have phones. I’d be willing to guess that most schools still have a hardwired phone in most classroom.

[pjlegato]

Yes, that is "almost never" in a country with 340,000,000 people.

Besides which, "having access to a cellphone" did not alter the outcome at all in those tragic incidents.

[sigmar]

It is very useful device, but sure- it doesn't block bullets. In a shooting it's mostly useful for contacting family and 911.

>"having access to a cellphone" did not alter the outcome at all in those tragic incidents

How could you possibly conclude that? Look at any timeline of a school shooting and there's often a lot of information going from 911 calls to inform the police on the number of shooters, the shooter's location, and where students are still alive/hiding. ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting#Timelin...

[accrual]

> Besides which, "having access to a cellphone" did not alter the outcome at all in those tragic incidents.

Disagree. Being able to communicate to your family or emergency services that a shooting is happening and/or that you are safe or not is invaluable.

[fatnoah]

As a parent that experienced this two years ago, I can confirm. Hearing about a threat at school, followed by shota.fired, and receiving a call from my fleeing child are those "life in slow motion" moments burned into my memory. It didn't alter the outcome, but it was very beneficial to everyone's mental state.

[complaintdept]

And probably none of them were hindered because students had their phones.