4 ms·

Two thoughts - wtf really, is this happening? are there no privacy laws in the USA? - a big OH RLY on doing more harm than good

OldHand2018 5y ago
Children have very few rights in a school setting. It's a serious constitutional problem. These are devices handed out by the school. They shouldn't be using them for anything other than school. We have a rule in my house - all school-issued devices must stay closed and in the backpack unless they are being used for school work. But we are "rich". Low income households don't have alternate devices for non-school work. And these devices "work" like real laptops and tablets, so it's very tempting to use them for non-school activities. If you want to help, make more of your web sites work well on low-spec smartphones. In the US, the primary device for a low-income household is a smartphone. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-div...
- retrac 5y ago
  > If you want to help, make more of your web sites work well on low-spec smartphones. Oh my, this. If a web app entry form is a little laggy on that brand new iPhone, then it's going to take like half a minute to render on a five year old discount smartphone. Most developers have snazzy machines and many rarely stop and think about how it's going to run on the lowest end devices likely to use the software.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    It's so annoying. It's not like we don't have tools to test this stuff either. Heck, most devs have an old phone hanging out in a drawer somewhere. Most just don't take the effort.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Yes but web devs have an apparent need to load a bazillion of the latest js scripts to display a wall of text on their site. Its atrocious and a massive waste of energy, bandwidth, and computational power
dragonwriter 5y ago
> wtf really, is this happening? are there no privacy laws in the USA? There are privacy laws in the US (both federally and in the states), they aren't, however, optimally adapted to the circumstances at issue (moreover, the actual practices may not align with the law; having a law does not itself automatically cause behavior to conform.)

OldHand2018 5y ago

Children have very few rights in a school setting. It's a serious constitutional problem. These are devices handed out by the school. They shouldn't be using them for anything other than school. We have a rule in my house - all school-issued devices must stay closed and in the backpack unless they are being used for school work. But we are "rich". Low income households don't have alternate devices for non-school work. And these devices "work" like real laptops and tablets, so it's very tempting to use them for non-school activities. If you want to help, make more of your web sites work well on low-spec smartphones. In the US, the primary device for a low-income household is a smartphone. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-div...

retrac 5y ago
> If you want to help, make more of your web sites work well on low-spec smartphones. Oh my, this. If a web app entry form is a little laggy on that brand new iPhone, then it's going to take like half a minute to render on a five year old discount smartphone. Most developers have snazzy machines and many rarely stop and think about how it's going to run on the lowest end devices likely to use the software.
- spicybright 5y ago
  It's so annoying. It's not like we don't have tools to test this stuff either. Heck, most devs have an old phone hanging out in a drawer somewhere. Most just don't take the effort.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Yes but web devs have an apparent need to load a bazillion of the latest js scripts to display a wall of text on their site. Its atrocious and a massive waste of energy, bandwidth, and computational power

dragonwriter 5y ago

> wtf really, is this happening? are there no privacy laws in the USA? There are privacy laws in the US (both federally and in the states), they aren't, however, optimally adapted to the circumstances at issue (moreover, the actual practices may not align with the law; having a law does not itself automatically cause behavior to conform.)