[Aerroon]

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things?

For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change?

Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"?

You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements.

[npunt]

The ubiquitous availability of smartphones also limits kids freedom. It creates a very particular style of interaction with peers where quitting means you are left out. That means kids are subject to apps that prey on insecurities, have extremely addictive properties, force feed constant doomerism messaging on them, etc just to stay connected. Another way to look at it is it’s a tax on the joy and freedom of being a kid.

This is a freedom-from / freedom-to distinction. Once you look at kids as a social group rather than as a single individual I think you can come to very different conclusions about what is on balance healthier.

[hamper653]

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms

Children’s freedoms ought to be limited, yes.

[Aerroon]

Any actual reasons or are we limiting them just because? Vibe based governance?

My parents were sure that sitting too close to a TV ruined your eyesight. Should we get a law that forces people to sit at least X meters from the TV? Personally I'd like to see some evidence first, instead of "but we must limit freedoms".

[inigyou]

It does ruin your eyesight, actually, just in a way that's easily correctable with corrective lenses now. But that wasn't always the case.

[hamper653]

> Any actual reasons or are we limiting them just because?

Just because they aren’t ready to make informed decisions, yes. If they were ready, they’d be called adults.

> My parents were sure that sitting too close to a TV ruined your eyesight. Should we get a law that forces people to sit at least X meters from the TV?

It is children’s freedoms that ought to be restricted. Not their parents’. If you don’t understand the difference, that’s a problem.

[cael450]

"This law might force kids into doing something other than whatever they want, whenever they want, with zero consequences. What happened to freedom?"

So many people have wacky ideas on how to raise kids these days. I question the effectiveness of laws like these, but they are worth trying out. And I think a lot of parents in my generation (millenials) need some serious assistance with teaching kids boundaries.

[hamper653]

> So many people have wacky ideas on how to raise kids these days.

Keep in mind that, while you feel like they’re millenials because you are one yourself, many of these people might be kids themselves. That’s the problem with children having access with the internet: there cannot be no boundaries anymore, everyone is an equal being their anonymous account.

[armchairhacker]

They’re limiting freedom of children in school, who already don’t have the freedom to ignore other school policies.

Studies show phone bans help school performance, albeit not by much immediately, but there’s not much upside.

[Aerroon]

Can any of these studies actually show measurable results in something like PISA? Because "studies show" during the replication crisis is not convincing when the effect doesn't seem to show up in actual test scores.

You can easily see the effect of COVID in PISA scores for example.

[simlevesque]

If something is hard to measure, is it automatically bad in your eyes ?

[the__alchemist]

This was my takeaway. I'm imagining arguments against mitigating climate change along the same lines.

[cromka]

There's been several pilots that prove this being very effective. Czechia is not first doing this.

[Aerroon]

Great - let's hear the measurable benefits then.

How much higher will Czechia's score be on the next PISA test based on this?

France:

>Mobile phones have been prohibited for students from 3 to 15 years of age, since September 2018, although they were first banned in classroom time in 2010.

French PISA results for math, science, reading:

* 2022: 474, 487, 474

* 2018: 495, 493, 493

* 2015: 493, 495, 499

* 2012: 495, 499, 505

* 2009: 497, 498, 496

I'm really impressed by the improvements of nothing.

[cromka]

You assume there are no other factors at play and those numbers wouldn't be worse if not for the ban. You also cherry-picked one example only. There are others that show immediate improvements in test results.

This is NOT how an intelligent person draws their conclusions. It's Facebook-level fear mongering, not worthy of HN.

[Markoff]

I think it's more a mental health or social interaction thing rather than expecting improved school results, some studies even show no short term increase in results.

But you don't need study to know kids staring at phones instead of talking and playing together is improvement.

[perfunctory]

Forcing kids to go to school is already limiting their freedom

[Aerroon]

Because we're already limiting their freedom we should limit their freedom some more?

What logic is this?

[sajithdilshan]

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements

I think people like you are the reason I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.

Of course the freedom of choice for children is limited because their brains are not mature enough to make an educated decision and quite gullible. That’s why it’s illegal for them to drink alcohol, drive vehicles and smoke cigarettes.

[Aerroon]

My faith in humanity is dropping lower than I thought possible. Do you actually have a reason for why you feel what you feel? Can you give me evidence that doing the things you suggest would actually improve things?

Because to be it looks like you are the gullible ones because you are not making educated decisions. France banned mobile phones in school in 2018. Suddenly some kind of a ban had been in place since 2010. Go look at their PISA scores and see if you can notice any improvement. Because I can't.

How can you even call others gullible when the measures you're talking about don't actually show up in measurements of education systems?

[eesmith]

> I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.

Of course that, like literacy tests for voting, will never be gamed.

[cyberax]

ALL modern electronics should be banned from regular classrooms, up to and including projectors. We now have evidence that at _best_ it does not help. At worst it's actively harming students.

(yes, yes, with obvious exemptions for special needs, computer science classes and so on).