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I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea. The economic model already exists for games and facebook, and so on. And people have since the beginning of time been amused by trivial entertainment. I guess the fact of the matter, or one way of looking at it is, there will always be people who choose trivial entertainment, and there will always be folks who chase knowledge and self improvement. And now, like always, we can do both of those things. But at least now, we can quantify ourselves better, and know more about the benefits and risks. And in that way, maybe more of us will choose to improve ourselves with these amazing tools.

Danihan 9y ago
I'm not sure why all students should be punished just because because some cannot use a new tool well. Socialism at its worst, in my opinion. The irresponsible drag down those with more potential.
- tabeth 9y ago
  I'm curious to why you think not having a smartphone constitutes a punishment.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    Not OP here, but there are literally thousands of ways that not having a smartphone could be a punishment. The first thing to realize is that times change. People didn't used to have clean shirts either, but they do now. Making someone wear a dirty shirt might not have been a punishment in the past (what else did they know of?) but it could certainly be seen that way now. Give a child access to a smartphone for years. It will change their brain, it will become a part of them (as far as they are concerned) as it will be predictable, reactive, entertaining, etc. Then take it away. That is clearly a punishment: you have adjusted the mind of a child to become accustomed to something and then ripped it away. It would be literally insane to not see how this could be a punishing experience for a child (or even, an adult). Again, I'm not OP and not going to argue the point of phones in schools. But I will say, do not assume that young people today are the same as young people in history. Our society has given smartphones to children at large. We should not be surprised if taking them away has unknown and potentially negative repercussions. Perhaps access to this kind of technology should be done in moderation (but how to do that? I don't know) so as not to shock anyone's system (or our society's system).
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      >Give a child access to a smartphone for years. It will change their brain, it will become a part of them (as far as they are concerned) as it will be predictable, reactive, entertaining, etc. You are describing a drug. Besides, we're not talking about taking them away for good. Just while they are in school. When I was a kid, people were into Gameboys. Yet no one took it as a punishment when schools did not allow them.
      - cryptoz 9y ago
        > You are describing a drug. Yeah, so is the article. > Chris Marcellino, who helped develop the iPhone's push notifications at Apple, told The Guardian last fall that smartphones hook people using the same neural pathways as gambling and drugs. > Besides, we're not talking about taking them away for good. Just while they are in school. I didn't say for good. Even during that length of time, it could be seen as a punishment. I'm not arguing that it's good to take them away or good to keep them - I'm not sure. I'm just saying it's important to recognize that taking away something like a smartphone could be a punishing experience for a person. > When I was a kid, people were into Gameboys. Yet no one took it as a punishment when schools did not allow them. Gameboys have only one purpose: games. Games and games alone are clearly not useful in the school environment. Smartphones have a billion purposes and have limitless potential for learning - not to mention, various other things that are important, like peace of mind in communication, etc. Again, I'm not saying these kids shouldn't be able to do without. I'm just saying it is a thing: people are attached to their smartphones in a new way, as described in the article, and taking it away can cause harm just as keeping it could.
        BeetleB 9y ago
        >I'm just saying it's important to recognize that taking away something like a smartphone could be a punishing experience for a person. So, if my kid is addicted to drugs and I restrict him from having them for a few hours to wean him off, I am punishing him? I don't know what a "punishing experience" means. If it is a punishment, the actor (parent, school, etc) has to have the intent of punishing. Just because the recipient believes something is punishment does not make it so.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Because you could have the answer to nearly any question at your fingertips, and yet it's arbitrarily taken away? How is it not a punishment?
    - tabeth 9y ago
      Do you think kids should have access to anything they desire while in school if they're capable of bringing it into the school?
      - Danihan 9y ago
        Do you think instead of teaching English we should be banning books, because some students read trashy novellas in class and distract themselves?
        rosser 9y ago
        Straw-man.
        anigbrowl 9y ago
        Irrational analogy. The problem is not the answers but the having of thema t fingertips. There is value in the slow process of looking things up in dictionaries or stepping through exercises. The downside of instant fulfillment of curiosity is arguably a shallow approach to knowledge; as soon as something become difficult or obscure, there's the urge to summon the answer from the internet, and if it's not immediately forthcoming either lose interest or expend energy rationalizing the default answer.
    - rosser 9y ago
      By analogy: I used to have incredible direction sense. On one of my cross-country drives, a couple decades ago, I made it to my friend's place, having only vaguely consulted at an atlas a couple of times. I lived in New York; she lived in San Diego. (Edit: And I'm specifically including having navigated the local highways and surface streets in that anecdote, not just which Interstates I used.) Now, I get lost in my own city without using my phone's mapping app. When we outsource our cognitive capabilities to the exocortex, we lose those capabilities. When we give our children a tool that obviates their need ever to develop those capabilities, we rob them of something essential.
  - criddell 9y ago
    I wouldn't consider it to be a punishment, but I do think they are missing a big opportunity here. A blanket ban suggests that maybe the kids can't be taught appropriate use of the technology in a school setting even though other schools do just that.
  - always_good 9y ago
    When I was in school, all I wanted to do was read the Sitepoint forums and learn more about HTML / CSS / PHP. I had one teacher that took me up on my offer to let me use the one class computer when my work was done and that's exactly what I did with it. Then other kids opted into my sweet deal and ended up ruining it by causing too much disturbance around it. Back then, I always resented the fact that it was more acceptable for me to sleep during class than to read material on the computer. So I ended up sneaking on my home computer after my parents slept and getting 4 hours of sleep each night so that I would then sleep during school. I would've KILLED to have a smartphone in my pocket. Now, I'm not sure what the best policy is going to be, here. But I can certainly relate to the injustice of feeling punished for something that doesn't apply to me. I can certainly understand that a smartphone in the hands of a student will only make distraction more likely. But to take it away completely seems to overestimate the value of being attentive 100% of the time in school. For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class. Maybe something like that would offer best of both worlds.
    - craigsmansion 9y ago
      > For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class. Imagine taking out a book on a different subject when you're done and are keeping up, and no teacher complaining about that, ever. Then imagine being the teacher not having to deal with the other kids protesting because a single one of them is allowed to use his phone in class including all the teenage drama that you're definitely not getting paid enough for.
    - jclardy 9y ago
      I think the problem isn't so much the technology, maybe it is just our general teaching methodology. I feel like in US schools we don't allow much room for self-learning inside the school itself, every class has a teacher and lesson plans, and not a lot of self-guidance. Personally I learned a lot on my own through high school that never would have been taught (z80 assembly to build games for the Ti-83.) I did most of that on my own, at home, rather than during class time for other essentially "irrelevant" courses. I think the main issue is what may seem unimportant to a child when they are a child, might end up being an important part of their life in the future. But they just don't know what they like or what they want to do when they are young, which is why we have general education courses. Maybe if there were more opportunities for that it would be useful. But given the infinite amount of distractions a personal smartphone can provide I don't see how you can have 30 kids just doing whatever simultaneously and have a positive outcome for the majority.
- jclardy 9y ago
  But would these supposed kids with "more potential" realize that potential given access to a smartphone during the time when they are being educated? I fail to see the use of a communications/entertainment device in a classroom unless it is part of the instruction. EDIT: Genuinely curious of your opinion, I grew up right before smartphones exploded when I was in college, so for me I see them more as a distraction from what is going on around you. Yes, they can be a tool, but I feel like they typically are not that in a group learning setting.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    > I fail to see the use of a communications/entertainment device in a classroom Then you aren't very creative. They could be searching for more context on the lesson, as an easy example. You wouldn't want to read more about the War of 1812 online if you were in the middle of a fairly tedious and plodding lecture about it?
    - jclardy 9y ago
      Thanks for your generalization, but I'm actually here for constructive discussion and not personal attacks. My question is how many kids are actually going to do that? And what justifies them to be the judge of whether what the teacher is discussing is relevant to them or not, given they are 10 years old.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        Welp, you asked for my opinion. My opinion is that if you literally can't think of a valid use for the entire internet in a classroom setting, then you aren't trying very hard. It's tantamount to having a library at your fingertips. * How about using an app to record the lecture, so a student can verify their notes later? * How about taking a picture of the notes on the board, when they can't copy things down quickly enough? * How about checking up on a sick relative using SMS, so they aren't feeling anxious about it all class? I'm not even trying really -- there are dozens of valid use-cases that respect the preset curriculum. Let alone all of the uses that fall outside of respecting it, if and when the curriculum is too facile for the student. Couldn't I have been learning programming during the time my high school English class was tackling "A Catcher in the Rye" one chapter per week, after I read the entire book within the first few hours we had it? Apparently not, because cell phones aren't allowed, and they can only used for Candy Crush. >My question is how many kids are actually going to do that? Not very many, and that's why most people will justify smartphones being taken away from all students. Which will primarily hurt the ones who were using them for more interesting purposes. Typical crab bucket mentality. >And what justifies them to be the judge of whether what the teacher is discussing is relevant to them or not, given they are 10 years old. I never said anything about whether the lessons were relevant, nor were ages brought up.
- vorotato 9y ago
  This has nothing at all to do with socialism.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    These are government schools, are they not? Paid for by tax dollars?
    - vorotato 9y ago
      Public Schooling is a socialist policy, taking smartphones isn't. Giving every student a smartphone would be socialism in this context. However nobody is talking about that.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        And the curriculum is determined by the government, correct? And the intent of banning smartphones is to force all students to pay more attention to that curriculum, correct?
        vorotato 9y ago
        Government is not socialism. Indoctrination is also not socialism. You seem to be conflating the authoritarian/libertarian axis with socialism/capitalism axis. It is authoritarian, it isn't socialist because there's nothing about it inherent to socialism even though yes it is happening within a socialist structure. I think the more accurate sentence is "This is an obnoxious kind of authoritarianism". For example you can have a very socialist, very libertarian governmental structure. Some individuals view libertarian and socialist as opposites but actually they can completely coexist. It just takes viewing both corporations and governments as structures limiting your individual liberty. This kind of authoritarian policy can happen in either a capitalist or socialist environment.
    - mifoew3 9y ago
      So schools cant set rules? Because of socialism? My nephew can't bring his cat to math class, or play nintendo switch during english. Does that mean he's being oppressed by socialist policies? Because I call it common sense.
- deleted 9y ago
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- dang 9y ago
  This sort of generic ideological flamewar is exactly what we don't want on HN, even in an abysmally politicized thread like the current one. Since you've repeatedly abused HN this way and ignored our requests to stop, we've banned this account. (No, that's not because we're $ideology ourselves, it's because the spirit of this site is intellectual curiosity, it needs protecting, and ideological flamewars destroy it.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.
arkitaip 9y ago
It's easy to forget that thousands of scientists, researchers and experts are working hard on manipulating every aspect of your psyche so you keep using using their sites, apps and services.
- bproven 9y ago
  I also find it interesting (or sad) that all this human intelligence and capital is being used for such ridiculous purposes instead of solving society's real problems and making the world a better place. But then again, its not like this is something new in human history...
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Fixing society's ills is not profitable. There is no VC money in it, there is no going public. The fixes required are long, unpaid slogs with little reward at the end other than you made someone's life better. "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
    - doubt_me 9y ago
      What if we banned advertisements? How long would google, facebook or amazon last after that? All this tech is great. But we are kidding ourselves if we say we liked advertising or if it benefits anybody except the people putting them up. advertising is a literal cancer on society. If it was gone even in the simplest of forms so you aren't able to legally see advertising until you turn 21 years old. Or have our kids be able to grow up until they turn 18 without seeing a single advertisement. Especially big pharma ads!
      - ashark 9y ago
        I remember one of my professors who'd been behind the iron curtain back when there was an iron curtain saying the one thing the commies definitely got right was banning most advertising. Said when they crossed back to West Germany it was like every surface in every city was yelling at him.
wccrawford 9y ago
>What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? >Playing fucking candy crush. The same could be said for any entertainment that people get via computers, and none of it is really relevant. If they only use wikipedia once a month from their phone in a situation where they wouldn't have used it at all, I count that as a win. Sure, they might spent 99.9% of their time on the device for entertainment purposes... But that other .1% is still enriching them. And I suspect the numbers are quite far from that.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I get your gist, but if someone spends 99% of their time playing Candy Crush and 1% using Wiki, it's not a net win for them vs spending 50% of their time doing nothing and the other 50% reading a book instead.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    But before phones, did those folks read books and do nothing? Or is it more likely that they watched football and soap operas on TV?
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      It's been awhile, but as I recall, people weren't watching football and soap operas everywhere, they couldn't. The modern equivalent is having those to go. That's not even taking into account addictions and misinformation.
      - dragontamer 9y ago
        No. People went to Bars (or horse racing tracks) and didn't go home for that.
        tlarkworthy 9y ago
        Thats a good point, kids today have reduced binge drinking and smoking, the stuff you could do on the go in the old days.
agumonkey 9y ago
> What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? > Playing fucking candy crush. This is my go to rant for the last few years. Not the fact the people do play silly games, but the whole surrounding myth "computing era is paradise of heavens, highway of information to make your life better, only need an better octocore for your digital life !" .. this computer era is problem trying to find its solutions.
- IpV8 9y ago
  I mean, the massive progress in science, medical, renewable energy, etc. are pretty good problems to be solving. The silly games and facebooks are only a problem for those who choose to participate in them.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I stopped believing in progress personally. Progress doesn't help you in many important part of life. We're spending too much time on science, and often to fix economic / political errors of the past.
    - IpV8 9y ago
      Interesting. Personally, I enjoy living in a world where my friends have overcome cancer, where I can spend < 1 hour a day focusing in food, and I am able to travel halfway around the world to experience machu picchu and be back by then next monday. At what point do you think we stopped productively progressing? Have you considered joining an Amish community?
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        I do think about amish lifestyle a lot. curing cancer is a worthy endeavor that is not on the same plane as most technology we spend time talking about (believe me I wish I could have saved some family members) experiencing machu picchu and coming back in a week .. feels pointless to me. time is required to experience things fully. there's a middle ground between risking your life on a boat for 6 months before reaching south america and uber fast tourism. And in a way I think that only people that really want to go the distance should travel. The old agricultural system was too demanding it's true, but it's not removing it that makes life better. See how people eat shitty things, waste meat etc .. Also with proper education, one can go really far if he knows how to use energy, even without heavy industry behind. It's a shifting plane, new ideas create new societies, they don't make the previous one better.
cortesoft 9y ago
> Playing fucking candy crush. Well, that and replying to HN posts about digital distractions...
- deleted 9y ago
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- craftyguy 9y ago
  I have a sneaking suspicion that HN users are far, far from being the majority of folks using smartphones.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    Well, that seems pretty obvious, since there are hundreds of millions of smartphone users, and probably only tens of thousands of HN users.
deleted 9y ago
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vorotato 9y ago
Socrates felt the same way about books actually a lot of big thinkers in that era felt that writing and reading would lead to the degradation of the human memory. However the argument that kids shouldn't have books in school seems laughable. I would say they aren't wrong. Humans really can't remember entire books any more, but then they also don't need to.
- vorotato 9y ago
  Also just going to say, if you had taken away my smartphone/internet in highschool I would have just dropped out, moved out, and probably would have been better for it. Most of the profitable skills I know are self-taught, from the internet. It's very bizarre to me that we're having this discussion on hnews.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > Also just going to say, if you had taken away my smartphone/internet in highschool "Smartphone" and "internet" are two separate categories, and the former is strongly associated variously low-value, deliberately-addicting behaviors. The internet still has valuable corners, but the action is now where the monitization's at. High school (and younger!) kids (generally) using their smartphones for stuff like getting streaks on Snapchat, not turning themselves into autodidacts.
    - vorotato 9y ago
      Do you have evidence for that claim? You know your parents said the same about you with your computer games. In reality, yes you played games, you also learned more. The truth is you used more of your time than they did and some of it was productive, and some of it wasn't. VSauce has a good episode about how every generation thinks this about the next, and there has never been any evidence for it being true about any of them.
cwyers 9y ago
Is the infrastructure in place to support this? I feel like the removal of payphones in public places makes me hesitant to support a smartphone ban of any sort. Yes, they shouldn't be in the classroom, but if students have them in their locker... I remember in junior high, my sister and I had a rather busy extracurricular schedule, and my mother couldn't always be counted upon to remember when events let out. Payphones were a good way to arrange transportation from various events. All those payphones are gone now.
- pivotal 9y ago
  Banning smartphones doesn't preclude having dumb cell phones. My smartphone died last week and I thought long and hard about getting another one. Ultimately I don't have the willpower to totally resist, but these last few days without one have been enlightening.
- aynsof 9y ago
  "Children will be allowed to bring their phones to school, but not allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/11/france-to-ban-mobile-phones-in-schools-from-september https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/11/france-to-ban-...
gshakir 9y ago
Forget about Smartphones, Binge watching in kids is what I am afraid of. There is more than enough content on Netflix to not get out of the house for years.
- TheBeardKing 9y ago
  I used to watch 3-4 hours of Saturday morning cartoons without on-demand. At least now there's no commercials.
matchagaucho 9y ago
Banning smartphones because of distracting apps is equivalent to banning guitars because of heavy metal music. It's the content, not the tool. Schools should be teaching kids how to use these tools to create content; not just passively consume.
- techman9 9y ago
  This to me smacks of fear and really some perverse form of protectionism. The whole idea of "schooling" is built upon the premise that there is some fundamental set of knowledge that it's important for students to master before they can function in the world. However, with the advent of computers, the internet, and their miniaturization in the form of smart phones, any piece of human knowledge is instantly retrievable and usable. What's the point of a semester long instruction in algebra or geometry still filled (mostly) with rote memorization of methods and formulas when those methods and formulas are available ubiquitously at the touch of a button. Schools see smartphones as an existential threat and rather than try to adapt their model of instruction to the tools that we all now have, they're attempting to ban them outright. I only see this leading to resentment and anger from students who are accustomed to instant, easy access to information.
  - audaxion 9y ago
    It's context. The purpose of memorization, etc. is so that when you look at more complex ideas and concepts, you're not wasting cognitive load on foundational concepts like basic arithmetic.
    - chainsaw10 9y ago
      Very well said. To directly answer GP's question: I took a differential equations class last semester, where the easy part of quite a few problems was to solve a quadratic equation. And it was easy, because my algebra classes had correctly required me to practice that skill (and memorize the quadratic formula). So, you say, I'm never going to take differential equations. And you very well might not. I have two responses to that: 1) That's true, you might not, but the guy sitting next to you will, and he doesn't even know it yet. If you were allowed to opt out of that subject, you both would, and he wouldn't even have a chance to make up for it later. 2) There are plenty of other subjects where the easy part is an algebra concept, and it's only easy because you practiced it years before.
djaychela 9y ago
I don't know what age your kids are, but it'll be a difficult struggle when the time does come. I've got 4 step kids, who are 11, 13, 16 and 18. All aside from the eldest have smartphones, (they have each had them when they have gone to secondary school), and it's a constant problem - probably the thing where I have the biggest disagreements with them (I have an excellent relationship with all four of them, and they're all good, intelligent kids). It's like a disease, and it's insidious. They are completely unaware that they are being manipulated by the software that they use every day, and are addicted to their phones, being connected and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). I have spent many an hour trying to tell them that nearly everything they use isn't agnostic about its behaviour, but that it tries to manipulate them into spending as much time as possible in the app/site and so on. I've really cut down on the amount I use my phone over the last year or so, and it has paid huge dividends. About 18 months ago I stopped using Facebook, and any other social media. I feel massively better for doing so, but it took me a long time to break the habits; and I'm a 46 year old with a brain that developed without such patterns as the norm, and I'm told I have 'immense self control'. So how on earth is a kid who doesn't know any different supposed to be able to do anything different? I'm sure I'll get shot down by some (or downvoted), but I think there's a huge difference between technology itself and the way that it's being used to manipulate. There are always the arguements that 'you don't understand the modern way' - that being connected and always on is the norm... or that I'm a hypocrite as I use computers at work.... or that it's OK, and it means throwing away the ability to look at Wikipedia... but the truth of the matter is that most of the time spent isn't enriching yourself, it's flicking through instagram posts like a cat pawing at a washing machine. I'm particularly concerned about the 13 year old, as she appears to be going backwards in terms of reading age and ability, and her attention span is dismal. She used to like reading, and now she complains that any book we suggest is 'too difficult' and the stories are 'too long and complicated'. And we're not talking 'A Deepness in the Sky' here. Particularly tragic as she was extremely creative (far more so than the other three), but seems to be getting less so as time goes on. Don't get me wrong, she's not stupid, but she seems to be diverging from the path she could be on as time goes on, but spends hours looking at junk on her phone. Meal times are always device free, which works well. There's (now) one place in the house to charge your phone, and if it's on charge, you stop using it until it is charged. For about the last 6 months we have had Sunday nights as completely 'device free' - from 5pm, every computer, ipad, phone, etc., gets turned in, and no-one goes on anything (yes, me included) - no TV or anything. And it works brilliantly well; there is nearly always some resistance at first (and the first month or so was difficult), and some moaning, but everyone acknowledges that we've had some of the best times as a family when we've been completely without any distractions; sometimes we will play games, sometimes we will have discussions, sometimes we will read, or do something individually or in small groups, but it's a complete change from the usual time where most of the people in the household are disconnected in some way, or distracted. The eldest is at University, and is obviously an adult, but when she's home she plays by the same rules, and has also (in the last discussion had on the subject) admitted that when she got a phone (6 years ago), it was a completely different landscape; it wasn't weaponised against the user as it seems to be now. She said in no uncertain terms that it's not suitable for her youngest brother in the way it used to be, which was interesting, but she still doesn't agree that being device free an evening a week is a good idea. Anyway, one of my biggest worries as a (step-)parent is that I will not have done enough to protect my kids' minds against the tobacco of our age, particularly when I've been reading about how bad the problem potentially could be. I sincerely hope I'm exaggerating the risks, but I doubt it.
johnchristopher 9y ago
> What is a pen and a piece of paper in your pocket, with the potential to express creativity and share it with others, communicate, good for, for most people? > Playing fucking tic-tac-toe.
- DougN7 9y ago
  I doubt the bulk of pen and paper is used for playing tic-tac-toe. I find the OP's concern to be valid more or less.
- noxecanexx 9y ago
  At least tic-tac-toe isn't designed to suck all your attention
pishpash 9y ago
Without supercomputers in the pocket, what were most people doing with their lives? The problem isn't supercomputers, it's closed loop addiction hacking. You can give smartphones to people, just take them away periodically and break the feedback loop.
cableshaft 9y ago
I had a TI Calculator in my pocket and I learned first learned how to program on it during classes from 7th grade on. I made all sorts of text-based games: rpgs, text-based tetris, action games, fighting games (which was basically just pick an attack and a different formula with random numbers would happen that said how much hp you hurt the opponent), etc. But 'smartphones' nowadays makes it difficult for you to create on them, especially program code that you can run on the device. I might not have gotten such an early understanding of how to program if I didn't have a programmable device in my pocket to take with me everywhere and play with. I wouldn't have such a problem with smartphones if it was a fun toy to make things with. Even now, the only thing I ever really 'make' on the device are some notes that I then use on 'real' devices later.
- j45 9y ago
  I did the same with my TI85 as well. Part of it I think is we have to focus on productivity and providing value because the hardware couldn't render high end experiences. Creating seems to have fallen by the day wide compared to mindless consuming, interaction and feeding content to social aggregation companies who sell users attention to advertisers. As dreary as this topic is, it's kind of nice to see a healthy exploration about more than the one current way of using tech.
  - TylerE 9y ago
    I think the key thing with programming on the T/Is was that input handling and output was super super simple. Text display addressable by row/column... something like 8x24 if memory serves? No mucking about with event loops, window handlers, setup functions...
    - j45 9y ago
      Yup. ticalc.org was great too. Build your own serial transfer cable... Build external storage..
  - jstarfish 9y ago
    > Part of it I think is we have to focus on productivity and providing value because the hardware couldn't render high end experiences. Constraint drives creativity. Early web development had the same principles...you could only expect the user to wait so long for a page load on a dialup connection before you lost their attention, so the goal was to make each and every one worth the wait.
padobson 9y ago
France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. I agree that some people will use the awesome power of pocket super computers for frivolous things, and some won't, but I don't think banning smartphones in schools is the answer. The folks empowered by smartphones will suddenly have less power, diminishing themselves and their contribution to society. The folks who can't stay off Candy Crush when they have a smartphone are still going to struggle with distraction, it'll just be comics/dating/some other distraction. The second group may learn a bit more, but it seems like a net loss for society as a whole - which completely opposes the stated mission of a mandatory education.
- solitus 9y ago
  I'd love to know the current percentage of school kids doing productive things with smartphones during school hours!
candu 9y ago
There’s a tendency to accept without question, in these sorts of conversations, that “trivial entertainment” is bad, or at least qualifiably inferior to either “good entertainment” (less Skinner-box-ish games, going outside, socializing, etc.) or “self-improvement” (reading, thinking, practicing, etc.) IMHO, most of us in fact choose all of the above; what we should be aiming for is the proper balance, not to replace all of one type of activity with something “better”. “Trivial entertainment“ meets a human need for mental and physical downtime, as well as for the sort of quick gratification that we rarely get from loftier or more productive pursuits. It’s always been that way, from dice in Mohenjo-Daro to graffiti in the Coliseum to, well, fucking Candy Crush. The trick is to engage in the right amount of it - and this is, I think, where the pernicious effect of these sorts of entertainments lies: in encouraging us to make the wrong decisions about that balance. It’s true that we now have opportunities for self-improvement our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of. It’s also true that they had opportunities in this dimension that are increasingly rare in modern society: formal apprenticeship, for instance. Put another way: the sum total of human knowledge is, in the end, next to useless without a social, human context in which to learn and apply it. Even those in this thread who are “self-taught” have undoubtedly learned much from mentors and peers. In this respect, it matters very little that we have that knowledge in our pockets unless we also have the tools and social structures necessary to promote its use.
- cpsempek 9y ago
  a human need for mental and physical downtime, as well as for the sort of quick gratification that we rarely get from loftier or more productive pursuits Could this not be said about drugs and alcohol? And while it may indeed be beneficial to use drugs and alcohol in a balanced, well moderated way, the downside risk seems to great to me to be suggesting this to a society.
  - AFNobody 9y ago
    > Could this not be said about drugs and alcohol? And while it may indeed be beneficial to use drugs and alcohol in a balanced, well moderated way, the downside risk seems to great to me to be suggesting this to a society. Over half of fatalities in cars have nothing to do with DUI-type impairment. Would you ban those as well? But lets say you ban alcohol and re-create the problems of the Prohibition. Banning the way individuals can use their personal freedoms to ruin their lives is generally worse than the disease you are trying to cure. People are very, very resistant to their vices being interfered with. But, also, if you are comparing video games to drugs and alcohol...you are massively distorting the scale because video games are not killing _other_ people. They are just ruining the life of the addict. DUIs actually kill innocent, blameless individuals.
gthtjtkt 9y ago
> I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. I am terrified by the fact that so many other people don't think twice about handing their toddler a smart device. Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. "There's no evidence that it's harmful", people say, but how could the evidence possibly exist? It would take 16+ years to do a thorough study (possibly longer), but smartphones have only been popular for half that time. And people have only been using them as babysitters for the past 3-5 years, at most. We may not know the true extent of their damage until it's far too late for the affected generation. There's always a chance that the damage will be minor and/or reversible, but most people don't seem to grasp the risk they're taking.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  If you need to come armed with facts: https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/american-academy-of-pediatrics-announces-new-recommendations-for-childrens-media-use.aspx https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages... Scroll down to "Among the AAP recommendations" for the tl;dr.
- duderific 9y ago
  > Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. I'm guessing you're not a parent. As the parent of a 3-year-old boy, I'd like to weigh in on this. There are three kinds of parents out there: 1) Those that simply hand their kid a phone/tablet every time they're out and about. This is probably bad. 2) Those that never let their kid use a device at a restaurant. This is pretty rare. 3) Those that use the device in times of true need: their kid has been at the dinner table for a long time and needs some distraction so the parents can get through their meal. This is where I fall, and I think it's ok. Most three year olds are not built to sit quietly and eat a meal at a restaurant. I guess maybe back in the day, people would simply leave their kid with a sitter and go out to eat, but that's not always an option.
  - somtum 9y ago
    > 3) Those that use the device in times of true need: their kid has been at the dinner table for a long time and needs some distraction so the parents can get through their meal. Sounds like us. Either that or my wife and I would take turns carrying our kid around while the other finishes off their meal.
mrisoli 9y ago
How about applying some (survivorship?) bias here? Smartphones and the internet make access to knowledge easier for everyone, but that is a small amount of what is otherwise cluttered with mostly useless(and sometimes damaging content), which naturally, appeal to the larger part of the population. However, if having access to a smartphone can help some kids learn a little bit more, or maybe change someone's life by just making it easier to browse useful content, isn't it worth it? Those who won't find a good use for a phone would just have some other silly pastime if phones didn't exist. I say just let people play candy crush, maybe while they are waiting for a life reload they might learn something on the tiny screen.
- cortic 9y ago
  curious, but what do you mean by 'damaging content'; Or would it hurt me if you told me?
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    Well, we have useless content, which might be entertaining but otherwise provide no real benefits to the user, by damaging I mean content that influences people in a negative way(fake news, hate speech, etc). Maybe the right word here is "harmful", but English is not my first language to be 100% sure.
    - cortic 9y ago
      i see, thanks for explaining that. I suppose 'disinformation' would be the most apt word for what you are meaning.
matt_s 9y ago
Even as an adult I find it hard to get out of the quick feedback loop trivial entertainment (silly games, reddit, HN, etc.) give me. As a parent with two children who are gamers we try to limit their time but it is a struggle for them to sign off the games. I'm going to try and model better behavior.
hindsightbias 9y ago
> no smartphones Half-measure until they take computers out of the classrooms.
lettergram 9y ago
My wife and I are going to have a son in a couple weeks. We literally were discussing today. We came to the conclusion we don't want them to have a cell phone until they are fairly old. We plan on actually installing a landline instead. We subscribe to the theory that, to some extent, we need to struggle to grow. So, I've actually convinced her to pretty much let our son (and additional children) get free access to a computer though. The only catch, is it's going to be an older computer with linux installed. Myself (and many people I know) learned so much from just trying to make our old machines keep working. I remember figuring out how to disable parental controls, figuring out how to remove portions or all of applications I didn't need to free up space, etc. I think it's important, and if my son can figure that out he's earned it (of course I'd help). We both found it scary regarding cell phones, because it doesn't breed this kind of improvement. Children don't even need to learn to be responsible and meet where they say to meet. Parents can keep in contact at all times. I think there's something to be said for letting children learn to fend for themselves, but also be responsible. We did agree on perhaps super old phones, that they can then figure out how to speed up - yet still call us. Too slow for modern games and probably even social media.
- death_syn 9y ago
  When it comes to super old phones, what would you do about security concerns?
- javajosh 9y ago
  I love the idea of giving kids access to the net on an old computer. Even better would be to simulate a 44k modem over wifi. This makes it possible to load anything, but you have to really want it, and you may even have to plan ahead (gasp!) before downloading something. It also inherently biases the kid to learn more about the local machine locally, which I believe is the key to growing a healthy adversarial relationship to computing devices. If you make the usual way of getting entertainment hard (e.g. youtube) my hope is that they will create their own entertainment (hacking the machine).
  - scottmf 9y ago
    You would limit your kids’ internet access to dial-up speeds? That’s a little ridiculous. Would you make them walk to school uphill both ways in the snow too? Kids don’t have to have their parents’ exact childhood experiences to properly grow up.
mmirate 9y ago
> there will always be people who choose trivial entertainment, and there will always be folks who chase knowledge and self improvement That's why the entire thing seems like a non-issue to me. If some people don't want to do anything useful with their lives, then who are we to prohibit them from continuing to do-nothing and thereby starving themselves? (Of course, we already, rightfully, prohibit people from harming&stealing-from each other; that's beside my point.)
- chasd00 9y ago
  I wouldn't have an issue except those who choose to waste their lives still get to take from those around them and society in general. If people who make no meaningful contribution to society have no entitlement to any benefit of society then i wouldn't care.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    Indeed, the scenario you describe would be optimal. Meanwhile, however, trying to make the current society function better under the ubiquitous-welfare thesis is a step in the wrong direction. Better to, instead, make the act of discarding ubiquitous-welfare a more and more serious+obvious+viable solution to more and more of society's problems.
- Wissmania 9y ago
  I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification. The difference now is that the technology that now exists makes this sort of gratification both constantly available, and better than ever at scratching that dopamine itch. The evidence the article presents also points towards something happening after the advent of smartphones, and not before.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    > I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification. Perhaps in the same way as an LED dimmed via pulse-width modulation has, to a varying extent, a proclivity to not produce light? Then just as the human perception of such an LED is on a continuum between "off" and "full brightness", so people's net-worths-at-retirement will stand on a continuum between starvation and Bill Gates.
zxcvvcxz 9y ago
This is exactly why I believe Basic Income would be a Big Joke.
_sdegutis 9y ago
This is the reason I don't see any hope of us making money on the App Store - we refuse to give into the "portable casino" economy of gaming apps, feeding people's micro-idling addictions, just to fill our pockets. We made a simple app (Bubble Maker[1]) which we intentionally made very different from other apps: it's just a bubble simulator and nothing else. No points, no micro-transactions, no social media aspect, just play with bubbles. And it's doing pretty badly in the App Store because none of the major app reviewers will review it on account of how it "looks too simple", not realizing that's the whole point. I guess this is what voting with our downloads has come to. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bubble-maker-relaxing-way-to-pass-the-time/id1246437262?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bubble-maker-relaxing-way-to...
darepublic 9y ago
> So what can we do about it? I have no idea Since you admit to this why are you applauding broad application of draconian law to address the problem? This reminds me of the last episode of this past season of Black Mirror -- the UN mandates that 'containers' for artificial consciousness contain at least five emotes (woefully inadequate) and simultaneously that artificial consciousness cannot be terminated; effectively trapping people in hell. Reacting to every manufactured media panic, running to the bedroom of your parents (government) and asking them to protect you from the monsters under your bed is the true problem here.
DamnInteresting 9y ago
> I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. Hey smartphone makers, if you're listening: Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available. Only pre-approved contacts can be called/texted. In-game purchases require the more secure PIN. Maybe when the phone is in this mode I can track its location easily, and make it emit a noise. The maximum volume is much lower than normal. A lockout timer auto-locks the phone after X minutes. If the battery dips below 20%, only the voice calling, texting, and tracking will work. Bandwidth caps. Et cetera. This would also be nice if I ever have to lend my device to a stranger. Smartphone OS makers should be embarrassed that this feature doesn't already exist.
- Diederich 9y ago
  Our teenage son carries a flip phone. Always has, always will, until he can pay for something else.
  - Mankhool 9y ago
    If I didn't work for a telco, I would still carry a basic phone.
    - Diederich 9y ago
      The thing I really, really love about having a Google Pixel phone is the camera, and its with me all the time. I was riding my bicycle to work on Friday and saw the sunrise...it was quite beautiful: https://www.realms.org/pics/IMG_20180105_072614_1.jpg https://www.realms.org/pics/IMG_20180105_072614_1.jpg Besides that, I have very few apps installed on my phone. I basically use it as a mobile web browser from time to time.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        That's a pretty picture. I wonder though, the beautiful Voronoi-like patterns between the leaves are an intentional effect, or camera quality issues rendering as something nice by accident?
donkeyd 9y ago
My half-sister (13) got a new iPhone 7 for her birthday (which I find ridiculous, because expensive). I really feel like it's messing up her as a person. As soon as she holds it she's oblivious to the outside world. I took it away from her on new-years eve and stuck it in a closet. She said she wanted to get it back at 12 am, I told her 12:15. At 12, she went outside with us, to watch the fireworks. She stayed outside until at least 12:30 and didn't ask for her phone once. Pretty much every time her phone is placed out of sight, she turns into a fun, engaging person. But when it's in sight, she needs to have it, to mindlessly scroll, double tap in instagram, or whatever the latest app fad is. The only way to possibly control this, is to talk about it to others. To spread awareness of what it does to kids and to make it normal for kids not to be stuck to their phones. Because most parents don't want their kid to be left out, so they do the same thing all parents to. Pessimistically, though, I think this isn't going to happen. Too many parents are happy to have something that distracts their kids, so they can indulge in their own addictions. I feel like this will become the smoking of this generation and it will take decades for the real implications to become apparent. I'm just happy that it seems to coincide with autonomous cars, so at least the damage from texting and driving will get reduced.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Pretty much every time her phone is placed out of sight, she turns into a fun, engaging person. But when it's in sight, she needs to have it, to mindlessly scroll, double tap in instagram, or whatever the latest app fad is. Are you absolutely sure they're "mindlessly scrolling", and not just being fun and engaging to their friends on the other end of the social network? I hate this assumption - one sees a person glued into an IM or a social feed and thinks they're just being a drone. They're not - they're engaging in an amazing achievement of humanity that is immediate communication that transcends physical boundaries. And quite often, what's happening on the remote end is more important than what happens next to you.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > Are you absolutely sure they're "mindlessly scrolling", and not just being fun and engaging to their friends on the other end of the social network? Hasn't there been a drastic rise in teenage depression linked to smartphone and social network use?
beached_whale 9y ago
Add to that, all the data collected on people unable to give proper consent. Every app a child would use(except maybe children's only apps) is collective metrics on everything and using that for aggregation and further sales(for them or for others). Then the "trivial entertainment" is designed to never get boring and keep attention at the expense of other activities. Even the brain games are only good at training to play that one specific game and nothing else. So the utility isn't there without the context of how to use a computer/phone as a tool
irrational 9y ago
So, there is no rule that you have to give your kids a smartphone. It won't screw them up no matter what those already addicted to their phones will tell you. Our rule is the kids can have a smart phone when they can buy it and a data plan on their own. So far our first didn't do that until she was 18. The second was a little earlier at 17, but she was heading off to college and really felt that she needed it. Our 16 year old so far shows no interest in trying to save up for one.
- chasd00 9y ago
  a buddy of mine has a good setup. His teens have phones, ipads, and the like but he has every charger. Inevitably they have to hand the device over for power and then he decides on when to hand it back.
  - irrational 9y ago
    I just checked Amazon and even for an apple device the charger and cable will be less than $10 (knock-off brand). Or, they could just use their friends' chargers. That is so easy to get around that I assume your friend's kids turn in their devices on occasion just so he doesn't wise up and put more onerous restrictions in place.
lordnacho 9y ago
You are right to be concerned. My pet prediction is about the current generation of kids growing up. Some kids will use this thing that, as you say, allows them to access the sum total of human knowledge. There will be precocious kids who learn everything to grad school level before they reach 15. There always have been, but there will be more. There will be kids who become addicted to games and entertainment, and they will waste their lives in a way that was not possible just a few years ago. There always have been kids who wasted their lives doing nothing, but there will be more. That depletes the middle ground; in a few decades you will run into more idiots and more geniuses than you had ever imagined possible. I am mightily concerned. My own experience was that I wasted a fair bit of time doing games. Still made it to a world class uni, but that was on 1990s crack. The new stuff is a lot more addictive and comes in more varieties through more media. I did manage to learn some things from the internet, but it could have been much more. Now I have two kids with my genes in them, genes that never evolved to cope with this world.
- RepressedEmu 9y ago
  I think this dovetails well with the idea that salaries are increasingly becoming bifurcated with the top 10-20% in any given skilled profession being paid 2-5x what the bottom 80% are. It also ties in with whether or not you are living your life "above or below the algorithm" AKA are you ordering Ubers or driving Ubers? Are you creating content and building a "personal brand" or are you mindlessly scrolling through a skinner box feed? Its an interesting trend that I'm seeing more and more. Its much more subtle than a Black Mirror episode but its worrying nonetheless.
pelasaco 9y ago
Lol, as the kids would respect it here. I prefer my kid with a mobile. France isn't real safe and the next terror attack is always around the corner
dualogy 9y ago
> What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. "People" have always been driven to play, gamble, game and such. What matters is that the human-knowledge-computer is there and accessible, not that 7 billion people immediately proceed to become Hawking/Feynman/Schopenhauer/etc-whoever clones on a daily fulltime basis. We're playful creatures, as are all well-fed carnivores =)
andrei_says_ 9y ago
A mom I know collects her kids’ smartphones at 6pm. I know because I once heard them in her bag. What I heard was incessant buzz which sounded very urgent to me. She said it was Snapchat notifications. The rate was over 20 notifications per minute. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try and keep up with something like this.
- noobermin 9y ago
  Dumb suggestion, but can't you control the number of notifications you get? I do this for instagram, facebook, etc...
  - steev 9y ago
    I'm guessing the kids want the notifications and the mom doesn't want to go in and modify the setting in all the apps across all the phones (I sure wouldn't). I think an easier approach would be to simply put them into do not disturb mode.
    - andrei_says_ 9y ago
      Correct. She’s not into micromanagement and it’s not only about the notifications. I don’t think she wants to log into the phones. She just puts them on vibrate and into her bag ;)
brownbat 9y ago
We are wired for accomplishments and refining our skills. Games definitely hack that process like a virus. This isn't completely new though, it's why chess is regarded so skeptically in the Hadith. Maybe we are in a newly rapid iteration cycle in humanity's quest for better distraction... But we've always had distraction nipping at the heels of meaningful accomplishment. I'm just not sure how to measure the delta... How much better is distraction today than fifty years ago? How much steeper is that curve than the one measuring our ability to tackle meaningful societal problems? (Does the second curve even have a positive slope, and do they draw from the same pool of human effort?)
newman8r 9y ago
My prediction: not owning a smartphone will one day be seen as a status symbol (like the opposite of the 80s/90s where owning one was a status symbol)
ianai 9y ago
Higher thought and functioning is a scarce resource. The trivialities may seem dumb or unnecessary, but it’s inhumane to expect none of them. The real problem is getting people to balance fun/play and “work”. Open question as to how to get people to balance those. Maybe the freemium/Facebook stuff need to be discussed like cigarettes/sex Ed.
timmm 9y ago
> Playing fucking candy crush. This is not balanced at all. We also use it to connect, relay information, learn, translate in realtime, coordinate events and meetups...
itronitron 9y ago
One of the best things you can do is teach your kids how to read and write at an early age. Then give the kids gaming consoles (wii, 3ds, switch), an ipad for watching youtube, and a laptop or desktop for minecraft or steam. Prepare to be blown away at how quickly they can learn something from watching a video once. If a game isn't interesting enough that there are not multiple youtube channels dedicated to that game then it is likely not a sufficiently engaging activity. Educators are completely failing the current generation and are stressed out about 'digital distractions' because they know they can't compete. People can absorb information much faster now and will lose interest if you can't match the pace. Shorter attention is not the problem, poor communication is the problem. By way of analogy, if I produce a car that accelerates to 60 mph in 2 seconds instead of the usual 8 seconds, does my car have an acceleration deficit disorder?
- chiaro 9y ago
  >Educators are completely failing the current generation and are stressed out about 'digital distractions' because they know they can't compete. This is practically a conspiracy theory. There are definitely old teachers that frown on the value of technology, but this is because they're old, not because they're teachers and somehow have a financial incentive to believe otherwise.
darkmighty 9y ago
I think this question is quite complicated, much more than it appears. Many questions come to mind. Is trivial entertainment completely unjustified? What exactly entails trivial entertainment? What makes acquiring a mechanical skill in a game more or less trivial than reading a novel? And what exactly does self-improvement constitute? Is it about knowing more facts? Having more skills than our predecessors? Having more developed particular skills? What about ethics and morality, are they amenable for self-improvement or mostly a product of one's experiences? How should ethics and morals be weighted against other areas of self-improvement? What is the ultimate goal of self-improvement, or is it a goal in itself? If living a long happy life is a goal, should we give into some simple pleasures that make us happy? Obs: I don't mean to imply that Candy Crush is the pinnacle of human condition, I've never even played it myself to judge. More to emphasize the hazards in analyzing this sort of question.
tnzn 9y ago
France's new rule has yet to actually be applied though. You call it genius, I, as a frenchamn who works in a high school, question the viability of it. It's easy to make a law, but there is no framework for it.

Danihan 9y ago

I'm not sure why all students should be punished just because because some cannot use a new tool well. Socialism at its worst, in my opinion. The irresponsible drag down those with more potential.

tabeth 9y ago
I'm curious to why you think not having a smartphone constitutes a punishment.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  Not OP here, but there are literally thousands of ways that not having a smartphone could be a punishment. The first thing to realize is that times change. People didn't used to have clean shirts either, but they do now. Making someone wear a dirty shirt might not have been a punishment in the past (what else did they know of?) but it could certainly be seen that way now. Give a child access to a smartphone for years. It will change their brain, it will become a part of them (as far as they are concerned) as it will be predictable, reactive, entertaining, etc. Then take it away. That is clearly a punishment: you have adjusted the mind of a child to become accustomed to something and then ripped it away. It would be literally insane to not see how this could be a punishing experience for a child (or even, an adult). Again, I'm not OP and not going to argue the point of phones in schools. But I will say, do not assume that young people today are the same as young people in history. Our society has given smartphones to children at large. We should not be surprised if taking them away has unknown and potentially negative repercussions. Perhaps access to this kind of technology should be done in moderation (but how to do that? I don't know) so as not to shock anyone's system (or our society's system).
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    >Give a child access to a smartphone for years. It will change their brain, it will become a part of them (as far as they are concerned) as it will be predictable, reactive, entertaining, etc. You are describing a drug. Besides, we're not talking about taking them away for good. Just while they are in school. When I was a kid, people were into Gameboys. Yet no one took it as a punishment when schools did not allow them.
    - cryptoz 9y ago
      > You are describing a drug. Yeah, so is the article. > Chris Marcellino, who helped develop the iPhone's push notifications at Apple, told The Guardian last fall that smartphones hook people using the same neural pathways as gambling and drugs. > Besides, we're not talking about taking them away for good. Just while they are in school. I didn't say for good. Even during that length of time, it could be seen as a punishment. I'm not arguing that it's good to take them away or good to keep them - I'm not sure. I'm just saying it's important to recognize that taking away something like a smartphone could be a punishing experience for a person. > When I was a kid, people were into Gameboys. Yet no one took it as a punishment when schools did not allow them. Gameboys have only one purpose: games. Games and games alone are clearly not useful in the school environment. Smartphones have a billion purposes and have limitless potential for learning - not to mention, various other things that are important, like peace of mind in communication, etc. Again, I'm not saying these kids shouldn't be able to do without. I'm just saying it is a thing: people are attached to their smartphones in a new way, as described in the article, and taking it away can cause harm just as keeping it could.
      - BeetleB 9y ago
        >I'm just saying it's important to recognize that taking away something like a smartphone could be a punishing experience for a person. So, if my kid is addicted to drugs and I restrict him from having them for a few hours to wean him off, I am punishing him? I don't know what a "punishing experience" means. If it is a punishment, the actor (parent, school, etc) has to have the intent of punishing. Just because the recipient believes something is punishment does not make it so.
- Danihan 9y ago
  Because you could have the answer to nearly any question at your fingertips, and yet it's arbitrarily taken away? How is it not a punishment?
  - tabeth 9y ago
    Do you think kids should have access to anything they desire while in school if they're capable of bringing it into the school?
    - Danihan 9y ago
      Do you think instead of teaching English we should be banning books, because some students read trashy novellas in class and distract themselves?
      - rosser 9y ago
        Straw-man.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        Irrational analogy. The problem is not the answers but the having of thema t fingertips. There is value in the slow process of looking things up in dictionaries or stepping through exercises. The downside of instant fulfillment of curiosity is arguably a shallow approach to knowledge; as soon as something become difficult or obscure, there's the urge to summon the answer from the internet, and if it's not immediately forthcoming either lose interest or expend energy rationalizing the default answer.
  - rosser 9y ago
    By analogy: I used to have incredible direction sense. On one of my cross-country drives, a couple decades ago, I made it to my friend's place, having only vaguely consulted at an atlas a couple of times. I lived in New York; she lived in San Diego. (Edit: And I'm specifically including having navigated the local highways and surface streets in that anecdote, not just which Interstates I used.) Now, I get lost in my own city without using my phone's mapping app. When we outsource our cognitive capabilities to the exocortex, we lose those capabilities. When we give our children a tool that obviates their need ever to develop those capabilities, we rob them of something essential.
- criddell 9y ago
  I wouldn't consider it to be a punishment, but I do think they are missing a big opportunity here. A blanket ban suggests that maybe the kids can't be taught appropriate use of the technology in a school setting even though other schools do just that.
- always_good 9y ago
  When I was in school, all I wanted to do was read the Sitepoint forums and learn more about HTML / CSS / PHP. I had one teacher that took me up on my offer to let me use the one class computer when my work was done and that's exactly what I did with it. Then other kids opted into my sweet deal and ended up ruining it by causing too much disturbance around it. Back then, I always resented the fact that it was more acceptable for me to sleep during class than to read material on the computer. So I ended up sneaking on my home computer after my parents slept and getting 4 hours of sleep each night so that I would then sleep during school. I would've KILLED to have a smartphone in my pocket. Now, I'm not sure what the best policy is going to be, here. But I can certainly relate to the injustice of feeling punished for something that doesn't apply to me. I can certainly understand that a smartphone in the hands of a student will only make distraction more likely. But to take it away completely seems to overestimate the value of being attentive 100% of the time in school. For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class. Maybe something like that would offer best of both worlds.
  - craigsmansion 9y ago
    > For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class. Imagine taking out a book on a different subject when you're done and are keeping up, and no teacher complaining about that, ever. Then imagine being the teacher not having to deal with the other kids protesting because a single one of them is allowed to use his phone in class including all the teenage drama that you're definitely not getting paid enough for.
  - jclardy 9y ago
    I think the problem isn't so much the technology, maybe it is just our general teaching methodology. I feel like in US schools we don't allow much room for self-learning inside the school itself, every class has a teacher and lesson plans, and not a lot of self-guidance. Personally I learned a lot on my own through high school that never would have been taught (z80 assembly to build games for the Ti-83.) I did most of that on my own, at home, rather than during class time for other essentially "irrelevant" courses. I think the main issue is what may seem unimportant to a child when they are a child, might end up being an important part of their life in the future. But they just don't know what they like or what they want to do when they are young, which is why we have general education courses. Maybe if there were more opportunities for that it would be useful. But given the infinite amount of distractions a personal smartphone can provide I don't see how you can have 30 kids just doing whatever simultaneously and have a positive outcome for the majority.
jclardy 9y ago
But would these supposed kids with "more potential" realize that potential given access to a smartphone during the time when they are being educated? I fail to see the use of a communications/entertainment device in a classroom unless it is part of the instruction. EDIT: Genuinely curious of your opinion, I grew up right before smartphones exploded when I was in college, so for me I see them more as a distraction from what is going on around you. Yes, they can be a tool, but I feel like they typically are not that in a group learning setting.
- Danihan 9y ago
  > I fail to see the use of a communications/entertainment device in a classroom Then you aren't very creative. They could be searching for more context on the lesson, as an easy example. You wouldn't want to read more about the War of 1812 online if you were in the middle of a fairly tedious and plodding lecture about it?
  - jclardy 9y ago
    Thanks for your generalization, but I'm actually here for constructive discussion and not personal attacks. My question is how many kids are actually going to do that? And what justifies them to be the judge of whether what the teacher is discussing is relevant to them or not, given they are 10 years old.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      Welp, you asked for my opinion. My opinion is that if you literally can't think of a valid use for the entire internet in a classroom setting, then you aren't trying very hard. It's tantamount to having a library at your fingertips. * How about using an app to record the lecture, so a student can verify their notes later? * How about taking a picture of the notes on the board, when they can't copy things down quickly enough? * How about checking up on a sick relative using SMS, so they aren't feeling anxious about it all class? I'm not even trying really -- there are dozens of valid use-cases that respect the preset curriculum. Let alone all of the uses that fall outside of respecting it, if and when the curriculum is too facile for the student. Couldn't I have been learning programming during the time my high school English class was tackling "A Catcher in the Rye" one chapter per week, after I read the entire book within the first few hours we had it? Apparently not, because cell phones aren't allowed, and they can only used for Candy Crush. >My question is how many kids are actually going to do that? Not very many, and that's why most people will justify smartphones being taken away from all students. Which will primarily hurt the ones who were using them for more interesting purposes. Typical crab bucket mentality. >And what justifies them to be the judge of whether what the teacher is discussing is relevant to them or not, given they are 10 years old. I never said anything about whether the lessons were relevant, nor were ages brought up.
vorotato 9y ago
This has nothing at all to do with socialism.
- Danihan 9y ago
  These are government schools, are they not? Paid for by tax dollars?
  - vorotato 9y ago
    Public Schooling is a socialist policy, taking smartphones isn't. Giving every student a smartphone would be socialism in this context. However nobody is talking about that.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      And the curriculum is determined by the government, correct? And the intent of banning smartphones is to force all students to pay more attention to that curriculum, correct?
      - vorotato 9y ago
        Government is not socialism. Indoctrination is also not socialism. You seem to be conflating the authoritarian/libertarian axis with socialism/capitalism axis. It is authoritarian, it isn't socialist because there's nothing about it inherent to socialism even though yes it is happening within a socialist structure. I think the more accurate sentence is "This is an obnoxious kind of authoritarianism". For example you can have a very socialist, very libertarian governmental structure. Some individuals view libertarian and socialist as opposites but actually they can completely coexist. It just takes viewing both corporations and governments as structures limiting your individual liberty. This kind of authoritarian policy can happen in either a capitalist or socialist environment.
  - mifoew3 9y ago
    So schools cant set rules? Because of socialism? My nephew can't bring his cat to math class, or play nintendo switch during english. Does that mean he's being oppressed by socialist policies? Because I call it common sense.
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dang 9y ago
This sort of generic ideological flamewar is exactly what we don't want on HN, even in an abysmally politicized thread like the current one. Since you've repeatedly abused HN this way and ignored our requests to stop, we've banned this account. (No, that's not because we're $ideology ourselves, it's because the spirit of this site is intellectual curiosity, it needs protecting, and ideological flamewars destroy it.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.

arkitaip 9y ago

It's easy to forget that thousands of scientists, researchers and experts are working hard on manipulating every aspect of your psyche so you keep using using their sites, apps and services.

bproven 9y ago
I also find it interesting (or sad) that all this human intelligence and capital is being used for such ridiculous purposes instead of solving society's real problems and making the world a better place. But then again, its not like this is something new in human history...
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Fixing society's ills is not profitable. There is no VC money in it, there is no going public. The fixes required are long, unpaid slogs with little reward at the end other than you made someone's life better. "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
  - doubt_me 9y ago
    What if we banned advertisements? How long would google, facebook or amazon last after that? All this tech is great. But we are kidding ourselves if we say we liked advertising or if it benefits anybody except the people putting them up. advertising is a literal cancer on society. If it was gone even in the simplest of forms so you aren't able to legally see advertising until you turn 21 years old. Or have our kids be able to grow up until they turn 18 without seeing a single advertisement. Especially big pharma ads!
    - ashark 9y ago
      I remember one of my professors who'd been behind the iron curtain back when there was an iron curtain saying the one thing the commies definitely got right was banning most advertising. Said when they crossed back to West Germany it was like every surface in every city was yelling at him.

wccrawford 9y ago

>What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? >Playing fucking candy crush. The same could be said for any entertainment that people get via computers, and none of it is really relevant. If they only use wikipedia once a month from their phone in a situation where they wouldn't have used it at all, I count that as a win. Sure, they might spent 99.9% of their time on the device for entertainment purposes... But that other .1% is still enriching them. And I suspect the numbers are quite far from that.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
I get your gist, but if someone spends 99% of their time playing Candy Crush and 1% using Wiki, it's not a net win for them vs spending 50% of their time doing nothing and the other 50% reading a book instead.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  But before phones, did those folks read books and do nothing? Or is it more likely that they watched football and soap operas on TV?
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    It's been awhile, but as I recall, people weren't watching football and soap operas everywhere, they couldn't. The modern equivalent is having those to go. That's not even taking into account addictions and misinformation.
    - dragontamer 9y ago
      No. People went to Bars (or horse racing tracks) and didn't go home for that.
      - tlarkworthy 9y ago
        Thats a good point, kids today have reduced binge drinking and smoking, the stuff you could do on the go in the old days.

agumonkey 9y ago

> What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? > Playing fucking candy crush. This is my go to rant for the last few years. Not the fact the people do play silly games, but the whole surrounding myth "computing era is paradise of heavens, highway of information to make your life better, only need an better octocore for your digital life !" .. this computer era is problem trying to find its solutions.

IpV8 9y ago
I mean, the massive progress in science, medical, renewable energy, etc. are pretty good problems to be solving. The silly games and facebooks are only a problem for those who choose to participate in them.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I stopped believing in progress personally. Progress doesn't help you in many important part of life. We're spending too much time on science, and often to fix economic / political errors of the past.
  - IpV8 9y ago
    Interesting. Personally, I enjoy living in a world where my friends have overcome cancer, where I can spend < 1 hour a day focusing in food, and I am able to travel halfway around the world to experience machu picchu and be back by then next monday. At what point do you think we stopped productively progressing? Have you considered joining an Amish community?
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I do think about amish lifestyle a lot. curing cancer is a worthy endeavor that is not on the same plane as most technology we spend time talking about (believe me I wish I could have saved some family members) experiencing machu picchu and coming back in a week .. feels pointless to me. time is required to experience things fully. there's a middle ground between risking your life on a boat for 6 months before reaching south america and uber fast tourism. And in a way I think that only people that really want to go the distance should travel. The old agricultural system was too demanding it's true, but it's not removing it that makes life better. See how people eat shitty things, waste meat etc .. Also with proper education, one can go really far if he knows how to use energy, even without heavy industry behind. It's a shifting plane, new ideas create new societies, they don't make the previous one better.

cortesoft 9y ago

> Playing fucking candy crush. Well, that and replying to HN posts about digital distractions...

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craftyguy 9y ago
I have a sneaking suspicion that HN users are far, far from being the majority of folks using smartphones.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Well, that seems pretty obvious, since there are hundreds of millions of smartphone users, and probably only tens of thousands of HN users.

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vorotato 9y ago

Socrates felt the same way about books actually a lot of big thinkers in that era felt that writing and reading would lead to the degradation of the human memory. However the argument that kids shouldn't have books in school seems laughable. I would say they aren't wrong. Humans really can't remember entire books any more, but then they also don't need to.

vorotato 9y ago
Also just going to say, if you had taken away my smartphone/internet in highschool I would have just dropped out, moved out, and probably would have been better for it. Most of the profitable skills I know are self-taught, from the internet. It's very bizarre to me that we're having this discussion on hnews.
- deleted 9y ago
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- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Also just going to say, if you had taken away my smartphone/internet in highschool "Smartphone" and "internet" are two separate categories, and the former is strongly associated variously low-value, deliberately-addicting behaviors. The internet still has valuable corners, but the action is now where the monitization's at. High school (and younger!) kids (generally) using their smartphones for stuff like getting streaks on Snapchat, not turning themselves into autodidacts.
  - vorotato 9y ago
    Do you have evidence for that claim? You know your parents said the same about you with your computer games. In reality, yes you played games, you also learned more. The truth is you used more of your time than they did and some of it was productive, and some of it wasn't. VSauce has a good episode about how every generation thinks this about the next, and there has never been any evidence for it being true about any of them.

cwyers 9y ago

Is the infrastructure in place to support this? I feel like the removal of payphones in public places makes me hesitant to support a smartphone ban of any sort. Yes, they shouldn't be in the classroom, but if students have them in their locker... I remember in junior high, my sister and I had a rather busy extracurricular schedule, and my mother couldn't always be counted upon to remember when events let out. Payphones were a good way to arrange transportation from various events. All those payphones are gone now.

pivotal 9y ago
Banning smartphones doesn't preclude having dumb cell phones. My smartphone died last week and I thought long and hard about getting another one. Ultimately I don't have the willpower to totally resist, but these last few days without one have been enlightening.
aynsof 9y ago
"Children will be allowed to bring their phones to school, but not allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/11/france-to-ban-mobile-phones-in-schools-from-september https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/11/france-to-ban-...

gshakir 9y ago

Forget about Smartphones, Binge watching in kids is what I am afraid of. There is more than enough content on Netflix to not get out of the house for years.

TheBeardKing 9y ago
I used to watch 3-4 hours of Saturday morning cartoons without on-demand. At least now there's no commercials.

matchagaucho 9y ago

Banning smartphones because of distracting apps is equivalent to banning guitars because of heavy metal music. It's the content, not the tool. Schools should be teaching kids how to use these tools to create content; not just passively consume.

techman9 9y ago
This to me smacks of fear and really some perverse form of protectionism. The whole idea of "schooling" is built upon the premise that there is some fundamental set of knowledge that it's important for students to master before they can function in the world. However, with the advent of computers, the internet, and their miniaturization in the form of smart phones, any piece of human knowledge is instantly retrievable and usable. What's the point of a semester long instruction in algebra or geometry still filled (mostly) with rote memorization of methods and formulas when those methods and formulas are available ubiquitously at the touch of a button. Schools see smartphones as an existential threat and rather than try to adapt their model of instruction to the tools that we all now have, they're attempting to ban them outright. I only see this leading to resentment and anger from students who are accustomed to instant, easy access to information.
- audaxion 9y ago
  It's context. The purpose of memorization, etc. is so that when you look at more complex ideas and concepts, you're not wasting cognitive load on foundational concepts like basic arithmetic.
  - chainsaw10 9y ago
    Very well said. To directly answer GP's question: I took a differential equations class last semester, where the easy part of quite a few problems was to solve a quadratic equation. And it was easy, because my algebra classes had correctly required me to practice that skill (and memorize the quadratic formula). So, you say, I'm never going to take differential equations. And you very well might not. I have two responses to that: 1) That's true, you might not, but the guy sitting next to you will, and he doesn't even know it yet. If you were allowed to opt out of that subject, you both would, and he wouldn't even have a chance to make up for it later. 2) There are plenty of other subjects where the easy part is an algebra concept, and it's only easy because you practiced it years before.

djaychela 9y ago

I don't know what age your kids are, but it'll be a difficult struggle when the time does come. I've got 4 step kids, who are 11, 13, 16 and 18. All aside from the eldest have smartphones, (they have each had them when they have gone to secondary school), and it's a constant problem - probably the thing where I have the biggest disagreements with them (I have an excellent relationship with all four of them, and they're all good, intelligent kids). It's like a disease, and it's insidious. They are completely unaware that they are being manipulated by the software that they use every day, and are addicted to their phones, being connected and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). I have spent many an hour trying to tell them that nearly everything they use isn't agnostic about its behaviour, but that it tries to manipulate them into spending as much time as possible in the app/site and so on. I've really cut down on the amount I use my phone over the last year or so, and it has paid huge dividends. About 18 months ago I stopped using Facebook, and any other social media. I feel massively better for doing so, but it took me a long time to break the habits; and I'm a 46 year old with a brain that developed without such patterns as the norm, and I'm told I have 'immense self control'. So how on earth is a kid who doesn't know any different supposed to be able to do anything different? I'm sure I'll get shot down by some (or downvoted), but I think there's a huge difference between technology itself and the way that it's being used to manipulate. There are always the arguements that 'you don't understand the modern way' - that being connected and always on is the norm... or that I'm a hypocrite as I use computers at work.... or that it's OK, and it means throwing away the ability to look at Wikipedia... but the truth of the matter is that most of the time spent isn't enriching yourself, it's flicking through instagram posts like a cat pawing at a washing machine. I'm particularly concerned about the 13 year old, as she appears to be going backwards in terms of reading age and ability, and her attention span is dismal. She used to like reading, and now she complains that any book we suggest is 'too difficult' and the stories are 'too long and complicated'. And we're not talking 'A Deepness in the Sky' here. Particularly tragic as she was extremely creative (far more so than the other three), but seems to be getting less so as time goes on. Don't get me wrong, she's not stupid, but she seems to be diverging from the path she could be on as time goes on, but spends hours looking at junk on her phone. Meal times are always device free, which works well. There's (now) one place in the house to charge your phone, and if it's on charge, you stop using it until it is charged. For about the last 6 months we have had Sunday nights as completely 'device free' - from 5pm, every computer, ipad, phone, etc., gets turned in, and no-one goes on anything (yes, me included) - no TV or anything. And it works brilliantly well; there is nearly always some resistance at first (and the first month or so was difficult), and some moaning, but everyone acknowledges that we've had some of the best times as a family when we've been completely without any distractions; sometimes we will play games, sometimes we will have discussions, sometimes we will read, or do something individually or in small groups, but it's a complete change from the usual time where most of the people in the household are disconnected in some way, or distracted. The eldest is at University, and is obviously an adult, but when she's home she plays by the same rules, and has also (in the last discussion had on the subject) admitted that when she got a phone (6 years ago), it was a completely different landscape; it wasn't weaponised against the user as it seems to be now. She said in no uncertain terms that it's not suitable for her youngest brother in the way it used to be, which was interesting, but she still doesn't agree that being device free an evening a week is a good idea. Anyway, one of my biggest worries as a (step-)parent is that I will not have done enough to protect my kids' minds against the tobacco of our age, particularly when I've been reading about how bad the problem potentially could be. I sincerely hope I'm exaggerating the risks, but I doubt it.

johnchristopher 9y ago

> What is a pen and a piece of paper in your pocket, with the potential to express creativity and share it with others, communicate, good for, for most people? > Playing fucking tic-tac-toe.

DougN7 9y ago
I doubt the bulk of pen and paper is used for playing tic-tac-toe. I find the OP's concern to be valid more or less.
noxecanexx 9y ago
At least tic-tac-toe isn't designed to suck all your attention

pishpash 9y ago

Without supercomputers in the pocket, what were most people doing with their lives? The problem isn't supercomputers, it's closed loop addiction hacking. You can give smartphones to people, just take them away periodically and break the feedback loop.

cableshaft 9y ago

I had a TI Calculator in my pocket and I learned first learned how to program on it during classes from 7th grade on. I made all sorts of text-based games: rpgs, text-based tetris, action games, fighting games (which was basically just pick an attack and a different formula with random numbers would happen that said how much hp you hurt the opponent), etc. But 'smartphones' nowadays makes it difficult for you to create on them, especially program code that you can run on the device. I might not have gotten such an early understanding of how to program if I didn't have a programmable device in my pocket to take with me everywhere and play with. I wouldn't have such a problem with smartphones if it was a fun toy to make things with. Even now, the only thing I ever really 'make' on the device are some notes that I then use on 'real' devices later.

j45 9y ago
I did the same with my TI85 as well. Part of it I think is we have to focus on productivity and providing value because the hardware couldn't render high end experiences. Creating seems to have fallen by the day wide compared to mindless consuming, interaction and feeding content to social aggregation companies who sell users attention to advertisers. As dreary as this topic is, it's kind of nice to see a healthy exploration about more than the one current way of using tech.
- TylerE 9y ago
  I think the key thing with programming on the T/Is was that input handling and output was super super simple. Text display addressable by row/column... something like 8x24 if memory serves? No mucking about with event loops, window handlers, setup functions...
  - j45 9y ago
    Yup. ticalc.org was great too. Build your own serial transfer cable... Build external storage..
- jstarfish 9y ago
  > Part of it I think is we have to focus on productivity and providing value because the hardware couldn't render high end experiences. Constraint drives creativity. Early web development had the same principles...you could only expect the user to wait so long for a page load on a dialup connection before you lost their attention, so the goal was to make each and every one worth the wait.

padobson 9y ago

France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. I agree that some people will use the awesome power of pocket super computers for frivolous things, and some won't, but I don't think banning smartphones in schools is the answer. The folks empowered by smartphones will suddenly have less power, diminishing themselves and their contribution to society. The folks who can't stay off Candy Crush when they have a smartphone are still going to struggle with distraction, it'll just be comics/dating/some other distraction. The second group may learn a bit more, but it seems like a net loss for society as a whole - which completely opposes the stated mission of a mandatory education.

solitus 9y ago
I'd love to know the current percentage of school kids doing productive things with smartphones during school hours!

candu 9y ago

There’s a tendency to accept without question, in these sorts of conversations, that “trivial entertainment” is bad, or at least qualifiably inferior to either “good entertainment” (less Skinner-box-ish games, going outside, socializing, etc.) or “self-improvement” (reading, thinking, practicing, etc.) IMHO, most of us in fact choose all of the above; what we should be aiming for is the proper balance, not to replace all of one type of activity with something “better”. “Trivial entertainment“ meets a human need for mental and physical downtime, as well as for the sort of quick gratification that we rarely get from loftier or more productive pursuits. It’s always been that way, from dice in Mohenjo-Daro to graffiti in the Coliseum to, well, fucking Candy Crush. The trick is to engage in the right amount of it - and this is, I think, where the pernicious effect of these sorts of entertainments lies: in encouraging us to make the wrong decisions about that balance. It’s true that we now have opportunities for self-improvement our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of. It’s also true that they had opportunities in this dimension that are increasingly rare in modern society: formal apprenticeship, for instance. Put another way: the sum total of human knowledge is, in the end, next to useless without a social, human context in which to learn and apply it. Even those in this thread who are “self-taught” have undoubtedly learned much from mentors and peers. In this respect, it matters very little that we have that knowledge in our pockets unless we also have the tools and social structures necessary to promote its use.

cpsempek 9y ago
a human need for mental and physical downtime, as well as for the sort of quick gratification that we rarely get from loftier or more productive pursuits Could this not be said about drugs and alcohol? And while it may indeed be beneficial to use drugs and alcohol in a balanced, well moderated way, the downside risk seems to great to me to be suggesting this to a society.
- AFNobody 9y ago
  > Could this not be said about drugs and alcohol? And while it may indeed be beneficial to use drugs and alcohol in a balanced, well moderated way, the downside risk seems to great to me to be suggesting this to a society. Over half of fatalities in cars have nothing to do with DUI-type impairment. Would you ban those as well? But lets say you ban alcohol and re-create the problems of the Prohibition. Banning the way individuals can use their personal freedoms to ruin their lives is generally worse than the disease you are trying to cure. People are very, very resistant to their vices being interfered with. But, also, if you are comparing video games to drugs and alcohol...you are massively distorting the scale because video games are not killing _other_ people. They are just ruining the life of the addict. DUIs actually kill innocent, blameless individuals.

gthtjtkt 9y ago

> I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. I am terrified by the fact that so many other people don't think twice about handing their toddler a smart device. Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. "There's no evidence that it's harmful", people say, but how could the evidence possibly exist? It would take 16+ years to do a thorough study (possibly longer), but smartphones have only been popular for half that time. And people have only been using them as babysitters for the past 3-5 years, at most. We may not know the true extent of their damage until it's far too late for the affected generation. There's always a chance that the damage will be minor and/or reversible, but most people don't seem to grasp the risk they're taking.

lr4444lr 9y ago
If you need to come armed with facts: https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/american-academy-of-pediatrics-announces-new-recommendations-for-childrens-media-use.aspx https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages... Scroll down to "Among the AAP recommendations" for the tl;dr.
duderific 9y ago
> Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. I'm guessing you're not a parent. As the parent of a 3-year-old boy, I'd like to weigh in on this. There are three kinds of parents out there: 1) Those that simply hand their kid a phone/tablet every time they're out and about. This is probably bad. 2) Those that never let their kid use a device at a restaurant. This is pretty rare. 3) Those that use the device in times of true need: their kid has been at the dinner table for a long time and needs some distraction so the parents can get through their meal. This is where I fall, and I think it's ok. Most three year olds are not built to sit quietly and eat a meal at a restaurant. I guess maybe back in the day, people would simply leave their kid with a sitter and go out to eat, but that's not always an option.
- somtum 9y ago
  > 3) Those that use the device in times of true need: their kid has been at the dinner table for a long time and needs some distraction so the parents can get through their meal. Sounds like us. Either that or my wife and I would take turns carrying our kid around while the other finishes off their meal.

mrisoli 9y ago

How about applying some (survivorship?) bias here? Smartphones and the internet make access to knowledge easier for everyone, but that is a small amount of what is otherwise cluttered with mostly useless(and sometimes damaging content), which naturally, appeal to the larger part of the population. However, if having access to a smartphone can help some kids learn a little bit more, or maybe change someone's life by just making it easier to browse useful content, isn't it worth it? Those who won't find a good use for a phone would just have some other silly pastime if phones didn't exist. I say just let people play candy crush, maybe while they are waiting for a life reload they might learn something on the tiny screen.

cortic 9y ago
curious, but what do you mean by 'damaging content'; Or would it hurt me if you told me?
- mrisoli 9y ago
  Well, we have useless content, which might be entertaining but otherwise provide no real benefits to the user, by damaging I mean content that influences people in a negative way(fake news, hate speech, etc). Maybe the right word here is "harmful", but English is not my first language to be 100% sure.
  - cortic 9y ago
    i see, thanks for explaining that. I suppose 'disinformation' would be the most apt word for what you are meaning.

matt_s 9y ago

Even as an adult I find it hard to get out of the quick feedback loop trivial entertainment (silly games, reddit, HN, etc.) give me. As a parent with two children who are gamers we try to limit their time but it is a struggle for them to sign off the games. I'm going to try and model better behavior.

hindsightbias 9y ago

> no smartphones Half-measure until they take computers out of the classrooms.

lettergram 9y ago

My wife and I are going to have a son in a couple weeks. We literally were discussing today. We came to the conclusion we don't want them to have a cell phone until they are fairly old. We plan on actually installing a landline instead. We subscribe to the theory that, to some extent, we need to struggle to grow. So, I've actually convinced her to pretty much let our son (and additional children) get free access to a computer though. The only catch, is it's going to be an older computer with linux installed. Myself (and many people I know) learned so much from just trying to make our old machines keep working. I remember figuring out how to disable parental controls, figuring out how to remove portions or all of applications I didn't need to free up space, etc. I think it's important, and if my son can figure that out he's earned it (of course I'd help). We both found it scary regarding cell phones, because it doesn't breed this kind of improvement. Children don't even need to learn to be responsible and meet where they say to meet. Parents can keep in contact at all times. I think there's something to be said for letting children learn to fend for themselves, but also be responsible. We did agree on perhaps super old phones, that they can then figure out how to speed up - yet still call us. Too slow for modern games and probably even social media.

death_syn 9y ago
When it comes to super old phones, what would you do about security concerns?
javajosh 9y ago
I love the idea of giving kids access to the net on an old computer. Even better would be to simulate a 44k modem over wifi. This makes it possible to load anything, but you have to really want it, and you may even have to plan ahead (gasp!) before downloading something. It also inherently biases the kid to learn more about the local machine locally, which I believe is the key to growing a healthy adversarial relationship to computing devices. If you make the usual way of getting entertainment hard (e.g. youtube) my hope is that they will create their own entertainment (hacking the machine).
- scottmf 9y ago
  You would limit your kids’ internet access to dial-up speeds? That’s a little ridiculous. Would you make them walk to school uphill both ways in the snow too? Kids don’t have to have their parents’ exact childhood experiences to properly grow up.

mmirate 9y ago

> there will always be people who choose trivial entertainment, and there will always be folks who chase knowledge and self improvement That's why the entire thing seems like a non-issue to me. If some people don't want to do anything useful with their lives, then who are we to prohibit them from continuing to do-nothing and thereby starving themselves? (Of course, we already, rightfully, prohibit people from harming&stealing-from each other; that's beside my point.)

chasd00 9y ago
I wouldn't have an issue except those who choose to waste their lives still get to take from those around them and society in general. If people who make no meaningful contribution to society have no entitlement to any benefit of society then i wouldn't care.
- mmirate 9y ago
  Indeed, the scenario you describe would be optimal. Meanwhile, however, trying to make the current society function better under the ubiquitous-welfare thesis is a step in the wrong direction. Better to, instead, make the act of discarding ubiquitous-welfare a more and more serious+obvious+viable solution to more and more of society's problems.
Wissmania 9y ago
I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification. The difference now is that the technology that now exists makes this sort of gratification both constantly available, and better than ever at scratching that dopamine itch. The evidence the article presents also points towards something happening after the advent of smartphones, and not before.
- mmirate 9y ago
  > I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification. Perhaps in the same way as an LED dimmed via pulse-width modulation has, to a varying extent, a proclivity to not produce light? Then just as the human perception of such an LED is on a continuum between "off" and "full brightness", so people's net-worths-at-retirement will stand on a continuum between starvation and Bill Gates.

zxcvvcxz 9y ago

This is exactly why I believe Basic Income would be a Big Joke.

_sdegutis 9y ago

This is the reason I don't see any hope of us making money on the App Store - we refuse to give into the "portable casino" economy of gaming apps, feeding people's micro-idling addictions, just to fill our pockets. We made a simple app (Bubble Maker[1]) which we intentionally made very different from other apps: it's just a bubble simulator and nothing else. No points, no micro-transactions, no social media aspect, just play with bubbles. And it's doing pretty badly in the App Store because none of the major app reviewers will review it on account of how it "looks too simple", not realizing that's the whole point. I guess this is what voting with our downloads has come to. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bubble-maker-relaxing-way-to-pass-the-time/id1246437262?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bubble-maker-relaxing-way-to...

darepublic 9y ago

> So what can we do about it? I have no idea Since you admit to this why are you applauding broad application of draconian law to address the problem? This reminds me of the last episode of this past season of Black Mirror -- the UN mandates that 'containers' for artificial consciousness contain at least five emotes (woefully inadequate) and simultaneously that artificial consciousness cannot be terminated; effectively trapping people in hell. Reacting to every manufactured media panic, running to the bedroom of your parents (government) and asking them to protect you from the monsters under your bed is the true problem here.

DamnInteresting 9y ago

> I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. Hey smartphone makers, if you're listening: Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available. Only pre-approved contacts can be called/texted. In-game purchases require the more secure PIN. Maybe when the phone is in this mode I can track its location easily, and make it emit a noise. The maximum volume is much lower than normal. A lockout timer auto-locks the phone after X minutes. If the battery dips below 20%, only the voice calling, texting, and tracking will work. Bandwidth caps. Et cetera. This would also be nice if I ever have to lend my device to a stranger. Smartphone OS makers should be embarrassed that this feature doesn't already exist.

Diederich 9y ago
Our teenage son carries a flip phone. Always has, always will, until he can pay for something else.
- Mankhool 9y ago
  If I didn't work for a telco, I would still carry a basic phone.
  - Diederich 9y ago
    The thing I really, really love about having a Google Pixel phone is the camera, and its with me all the time. I was riding my bicycle to work on Friday and saw the sunrise...it was quite beautiful: https://www.realms.org/pics/IMG_20180105_072614_1.jpg https://www.realms.org/pics/IMG_20180105_072614_1.jpg Besides that, I have very few apps installed on my phone. I basically use it as a mobile web browser from time to time.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      That's a pretty picture. I wonder though, the beautiful Voronoi-like patterns between the leaves are an intentional effect, or camera quality issues rendering as something nice by accident?

donkeyd 9y ago

My half-sister (13) got a new iPhone 7 for her birthday (which I find ridiculous, because expensive). I really feel like it's messing up her as a person. As soon as she holds it she's oblivious to the outside world. I took it away from her on new-years eve and stuck it in a closet. She said she wanted to get it back at 12 am, I told her 12:15. At 12, she went outside with us, to watch the fireworks. She stayed outside until at least 12:30 and didn't ask for her phone once. Pretty much every time her phone is placed out of sight, she turns into a fun, engaging person. But when it's in sight, she needs to have it, to mindlessly scroll, double tap in instagram, or whatever the latest app fad is. The only way to possibly control this, is to talk about it to others. To spread awareness of what it does to kids and to make it normal for kids not to be stuck to their phones. Because most parents don't want their kid to be left out, so they do the same thing all parents to. Pessimistically, though, I think this isn't going to happen. Too many parents are happy to have something that distracts their kids, so they can indulge in their own addictions. I feel like this will become the smoking of this generation and it will take decades for the real implications to become apparent. I'm just happy that it seems to coincide with autonomous cars, so at least the damage from texting and driving will get reduced.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Pretty much every time her phone is placed out of sight, she turns into a fun, engaging person. But when it's in sight, she needs to have it, to mindlessly scroll, double tap in instagram, or whatever the latest app fad is. Are you absolutely sure they're "mindlessly scrolling", and not just being fun and engaging to their friends on the other end of the social network? I hate this assumption - one sees a person glued into an IM or a social feed and thinks they're just being a drone. They're not - they're engaging in an amazing achievement of humanity that is immediate communication that transcends physical boundaries. And quite often, what's happening on the remote end is more important than what happens next to you.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Are you absolutely sure they're "mindlessly scrolling", and not just being fun and engaging to their friends on the other end of the social network? Hasn't there been a drastic rise in teenage depression linked to smartphone and social network use?

beached_whale 9y ago

Add to that, all the data collected on people unable to give proper consent. Every app a child would use(except maybe children's only apps) is collective metrics on everything and using that for aggregation and further sales(for them or for others). Then the "trivial entertainment" is designed to never get boring and keep attention at the expense of other activities. Even the brain games are only good at training to play that one specific game and nothing else. So the utility isn't there without the context of how to use a computer/phone as a tool

irrational 9y ago

So, there is no rule that you have to give your kids a smartphone. It won't screw them up no matter what those already addicted to their phones will tell you. Our rule is the kids can have a smart phone when they can buy it and a data plan on their own. So far our first didn't do that until she was 18. The second was a little earlier at 17, but she was heading off to college and really felt that she needed it. Our 16 year old so far shows no interest in trying to save up for one.

chasd00 9y ago
a buddy of mine has a good setup. His teens have phones, ipads, and the like but he has every charger. Inevitably they have to hand the device over for power and then he decides on when to hand it back.
- irrational 9y ago
  I just checked Amazon and even for an apple device the charger and cable will be less than $10 (knock-off brand). Or, they could just use their friends' chargers. That is so easy to get around that I assume your friend's kids turn in their devices on occasion just so he doesn't wise up and put more onerous restrictions in place.

lordnacho 9y ago

You are right to be concerned. My pet prediction is about the current generation of kids growing up. Some kids will use this thing that, as you say, allows them to access the sum total of human knowledge. There will be precocious kids who learn everything to grad school level before they reach 15. There always have been, but there will be more. There will be kids who become addicted to games and entertainment, and they will waste their lives in a way that was not possible just a few years ago. There always have been kids who wasted their lives doing nothing, but there will be more. That depletes the middle ground; in a few decades you will run into more idiots and more geniuses than you had ever imagined possible. I am mightily concerned. My own experience was that I wasted a fair bit of time doing games. Still made it to a world class uni, but that was on 1990s crack. The new stuff is a lot more addictive and comes in more varieties through more media. I did manage to learn some things from the internet, but it could have been much more. Now I have two kids with my genes in them, genes that never evolved to cope with this world.

RepressedEmu 9y ago
I think this dovetails well with the idea that salaries are increasingly becoming bifurcated with the top 10-20% in any given skilled profession being paid 2-5x what the bottom 80% are. It also ties in with whether or not you are living your life "above or below the algorithm" AKA are you ordering Ubers or driving Ubers? Are you creating content and building a "personal brand" or are you mindlessly scrolling through a skinner box feed? Its an interesting trend that I'm seeing more and more. Its much more subtle than a Black Mirror episode but its worrying nonetheless.

pelasaco 9y ago

Lol, as the kids would respect it here. I prefer my kid with a mobile. France isn't real safe and the next terror attack is always around the corner

dualogy 9y ago

> What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. "People" have always been driven to play, gamble, game and such. What matters is that the human-knowledge-computer is there and accessible, not that 7 billion people immediately proceed to become Hawking/Feynman/Schopenhauer/etc-whoever clones on a daily fulltime basis. We're playful creatures, as are all well-fed carnivores =)

andrei_says_ 9y ago

A mom I know collects her kids’ smartphones at 6pm. I know because I once heard them in her bag. What I heard was incessant buzz which sounded very urgent to me. She said it was Snapchat notifications. The rate was over 20 notifications per minute. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try and keep up with something like this.

noobermin 9y ago
Dumb suggestion, but can't you control the number of notifications you get? I do this for instagram, facebook, etc...
- steev 9y ago
  I'm guessing the kids want the notifications and the mom doesn't want to go in and modify the setting in all the apps across all the phones (I sure wouldn't). I think an easier approach would be to simply put them into do not disturb mode.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago
    Correct. She’s not into micromanagement and it’s not only about the notifications. I don’t think she wants to log into the phones. She just puts them on vibrate and into her bag ;)

brownbat 9y ago

We are wired for accomplishments and refining our skills. Games definitely hack that process like a virus. This isn't completely new though, it's why chess is regarded so skeptically in the Hadith. Maybe we are in a newly rapid iteration cycle in humanity's quest for better distraction... But we've always had distraction nipping at the heels of meaningful accomplishment. I'm just not sure how to measure the delta... How much better is distraction today than fifty years ago? How much steeper is that curve than the one measuring our ability to tackle meaningful societal problems? (Does the second curve even have a positive slope, and do they draw from the same pool of human effort?)

newman8r 9y ago

My prediction: not owning a smartphone will one day be seen as a status symbol (like the opposite of the 80s/90s where owning one was a status symbol)

ianai 9y ago

Higher thought and functioning is a scarce resource. The trivialities may seem dumb or unnecessary, but it’s inhumane to expect none of them. The real problem is getting people to balance fun/play and “work”. Open question as to how to get people to balance those. Maybe the freemium/Facebook stuff need to be discussed like cigarettes/sex Ed.

timmm 9y ago

> Playing fucking candy crush. This is not balanced at all. We also use it to connect, relay information, learn, translate in realtime, coordinate events and meetups...

itronitron 9y ago

One of the best things you can do is teach your kids how to read and write at an early age. Then give the kids gaming consoles (wii, 3ds, switch), an ipad for watching youtube, and a laptop or desktop for minecraft or steam. Prepare to be blown away at how quickly they can learn something from watching a video once. If a game isn't interesting enough that there are not multiple youtube channels dedicated to that game then it is likely not a sufficiently engaging activity. Educators are completely failing the current generation and are stressed out about 'digital distractions' because they know they can't compete. People can absorb information much faster now and will lose interest if you can't match the pace. Shorter attention is not the problem, poor communication is the problem. By way of analogy, if I produce a car that accelerates to 60 mph in 2 seconds instead of the usual 8 seconds, does my car have an acceleration deficit disorder?

chiaro 9y ago
>Educators are completely failing the current generation and are stressed out about 'digital distractions' because they know they can't compete. This is practically a conspiracy theory. There are definitely old teachers that frown on the value of technology, but this is because they're old, not because they're teachers and somehow have a financial incentive to believe otherwise.

darkmighty 9y ago

I think this question is quite complicated, much more than it appears. Many questions come to mind. Is trivial entertainment completely unjustified? What exactly entails trivial entertainment? What makes acquiring a mechanical skill in a game more or less trivial than reading a novel? And what exactly does self-improvement constitute? Is it about knowing more facts? Having more skills than our predecessors? Having more developed particular skills? What about ethics and morality, are they amenable for self-improvement or mostly a product of one's experiences? How should ethics and morals be weighted against other areas of self-improvement? What is the ultimate goal of self-improvement, or is it a goal in itself? If living a long happy life is a goal, should we give into some simple pleasures that make us happy? Obs: I don't mean to imply that Candy Crush is the pinnacle of human condition, I've never even played it myself to judge. More to emphasize the hazards in analyzing this sort of question.

tnzn 9y ago

France's new rule has yet to actually be applied though. You call it genius, I, as a frenchamn who works in a high school, question the viability of it. It's easy to make a law, but there is no framework for it.