7 ms·

There's a phrase for something that people can't stop using -- addictive substance. We (and companies) need to ditch the equivocation and be honest about what

by ethbr0 3y ago

There's a phrase for something that people can't stop using -- addictive substance. We (and companies) need to ditch the equivocation and be honest about what we created. (Edit) > Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging. Someone shouldn't be texting or calling on their cell in an active shooter situation anyway. One phone per teacher/room, with the ability for anyone to dial emergency services, is better.

jtreminio 3y ago
> Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging. We live in Plano, TX, just a few minutes south of the Allen Outlet massacre. Yesterday my son texted me at noon "Shooting threat at school" and "It’s a rumor though but a lot of people are leaving anyway". You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go.
- abraxas 3y ago
  So how in heavens did your country manage to survive the 300 years prior to 2008?
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Muzzle loading firearms? It makes mass shootings a lot harder.
- hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  285 children have died in US school shootings since 1764. In 2021, 50 million students were enrolled in public schools in prekindergarten to grade 12. That's a 0.00057% chance your kid dies in a school shooting. You are being hysterical.
  - jtreminio 3y ago
    We WERE at the Allen Outlets on Saturday. We left 5 minutes before the shooting began. If I had purchased one more item from a store we would have been right there. Tell me again how I am being hysterical. This country is going down in flames and not everyone can see the fire.
    - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
      A traumatic experience for sure. One might almost think that after such an experience, you'd overreact at the slightest hint of anything like that ever happening again. You are being hysterical. (I am sorry for sounding dismissive. I pray for the safety of your family.)
    - giardini 3y ago
      You are hysterical, possibly b/c your interpretation is pessimistic. But most people interpret such an occurrence as a sign they are lucky. I recommend you adopt such an attitude b/c it is healthier and b/c, when your story is retold, people will often want to touch you (so that the "good luck" rubs off on them)!
  - WithinReason 3y ago
    An even better statistic would be: how many children were saved by a smart phone in a school shooting?
  - pupppet 3y ago
    74 have been hurt or killed in a school shooting in just 2023.
    - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... This list says 11 dead and 6 injured in 2023, but I concede that it omits incidents with fewer than 4 dead.
- heartbreak 3y ago
  > You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. There are multiple layers of “bad” with this. If there is a threat, you’re hindering emergency response. Regardless, you’re putting everyone at risk by “speeding down the street.”
  - jtreminio 3y ago
    I know the general consensus is that I did a bad thing with my reaction. I get it. I don't trust law enforcement to do the right thing. I don't trust that grown adults sworn to serve and protect would act quickly to neutralize a threat that's not against themselves or their loved ones. I see Uvalde playing out more than once in the future.
    - giardini 3y ago
      jtreminio says:"I don't trust law enforcement to do the right thing. I don't trust that grown adults sworn to serve and protect would act quickly to neutralize a threat that's not against themselves or their loved ones." Your decision, were it properly weighed, would have to also assume that you could do better somehow but that is impossible (even if you were John Wick or Jason Bourne). The hubris you display is enormous! Imagine that the American embassy had dropped an Chinese-American citizen into the middle of the square during the Tiananmen Massacre and demanded that he rescue the man under the tank! Emotions got the better of you - you're in denial. There are a few more steps before you'll admit that retrieving your child was a futile and risky act for you, him and everyone else.
    - heartbreak 3y ago
      How would you take down an armed assailant yourself? In this hypothetical scenario where you are rushing to the school, are you carrying a firearm as well?
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    There will be no emergency response. Just a clean up crew. If you get there first you might get in before they Block the entrance and wait for the situation to resolve.
- williamcotton 3y ago
  Here’s why I downvoted: It actually would have been better if neither your son nor you knew about nearby shooting. It had nothing to do with the school your son was attending. That you responded in a panic is due to a common pattern of miscommunication during an emergency. The least effective response to an emergency is everyone panicking and operating independently of each other and ignorant of the ground truth. How did the rumor of the school shooting begin? Probably from another student responding to some quick take on their socials? What if they didn’t have their phone? Would this even have caused a false panic in the first place? Everyone take the time to look up the road death statistics to remind yourself what you really need to worry about. Always use your turn signal, even for your driveway. Slow down, but not too much… drive with the flow of traffic. Don’t change lanes in an intersection. Don’t swerve out of the way of a white-tailed dear, just try and punt the thing with the front of your car and count the hang time. Yield to the right at a 4-way intersection. Again, always use your turn signal, even for your driveway… why the drive way? Force the good habit! I live in Texas. My wife is a public schoolteacher. We are coming for your son’s phone and we will convince enough people to agree with us.
  - williamcotton 3y ago
    Speak of the devil... I just checked my messages and saw this from my wife an hour ago: "ACC north ridge has an armed person on campus. Don’t go out" I checked the news just now and found this out: "AUSTIN (KXAN) — A shelter-in-place order was lifted for the Austin Community College Northridge Campus. The campus issued the order at 8:50 a.m. amid reports of a possible armed person nearby. Police investigated the reports and issued an all-clear. The shelter-in-place was lifted at 10:20 a.m., and the campus returned to normal operations." So literally by just spending my time being nerd sniped on the internet and tweaking a Dockerfile I missed the entirety of this nothingness.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      To me, this is the "past generations" litmus test I measure any of my personal preferences against. If people were able to handle not-it in 1920, it's probably a "nice to have" rather than a "must have." Which, we can all feel very strongly about things that are nice to have, but people were also doing just fine before constant connectivity was a thing.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  I'm a parent of two school aged kids, one of whom attends school 10 minutes away. In a state that's had multiple school shootings as well. I still accept that if something happens, it's going to play out before I rambo in and fix things. I have firearms in the house and am trained in their use, but I'm not a professional. In a chaotic, lethal situation, even my presence as a transporter is only going to increase confusion and delay professionals doing their job. What's going to save lives (including my kids') in a crisis is their knowing (1) how to handle themselves, (2) stay present and think critically, and (3) follow good directions when they receive them.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    (4) preventing crazy people from acquiring firearms in the first place.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      Never going to happen in the US, because it's antithetical to the current interpretation of the Constitution and because half the country doesn't trust the government to define "crazy" (or uses distrust as an excuse because they actually don't care / NRA). Sadly, I think statistically it would help a lot. Obviously wouldn't completely solve the problem, but you have to have something pretty wrong with you to want to murder a lot of people at your school. And that likely shows up in other behavior. But then, to me, "temporarily take guns away from a small segment of the population who has demonstrated, serious mental health issues" doesn't seem like a slippery slope. So I guess I'm on the "other side" of the issue. :/
      - alistairSH 3y ago
        Of note, the current interpretation of gun rights (the individual right to own) is a relatively new construct largely created by the gun lobby (roughly 1977, when there was an internal rebellion in NRA leadership) and a conservative court (Heller, 2008). https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-... And FWIW, I'm in the camp that we can't define "crazy" adequately. So, I'm all for limiting access to all semi-automatic firearms. Regulate them all similarly to automatics and other "NFA" weapons.
- tcgv 3y ago
  I understand your concern towards the difficult situation and your immediate action to look out for your family. However, your anecdotal experience is still a "false positive" (fortunately), which doesn't allow us to conclude that, in the case of an actual emergency such as a school shooting, children with phones are statistically safer than children without phones. But I'm genuinely interested in such a study, and I believe data is already available for us to compare the differences in these kinds of occurrences before the emergence of smartphones in schools and after. That would provide a north for making decisions that truly improve security for us and our loved ones.
  - jtreminio 3y ago
    I feel like a drama queen, because we (my immediate family) have had two near misses in 3 days. We were at the Allen Outlets and left 5 minutes before the shooting happened. 2 days later there's a school shooting threat at my son's high school. Nothing physical has happened to _us_. I can't stand up and say, "I lost a family member due to gun violence!". I still feel like things are spiraling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it. How do you stop going outside where other people are for fear of a shooting? How do you send your only child to school knowing what's going on? I hope I can cope and hope that everything turns out OK.
    - tcgv 3y ago
      I think the main challenge is that true a solution can only be reached if the society as a whole faces the issue together. Meanwhile families are left on their own to try their (suboptimal) best. I recently saw this youtube piece that shares the Swiss perspective on the topic of Gun ownership, and apart from some intended sarcasm in it that can bother viewers with distinct political views, the content has been worth watching: - https://youtu.be/EkuMLId8SqE https://youtu.be/EkuMLId8SqE
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  > The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go. You have badly misread the statistics on this, if you're that worried about it.
- Balero 3y ago
  > You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. "Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 1–54"[0] I wonder if you speeding in your car increased the likely hood of death for someone more than collecting your son from a rumored school shooting. Not saying you were wrong to do that, obviously this is something that comes to the front of your mind when something is wrong at a school. The disconnect between risks we find acceptable, and those we don't is interesting though. [0]https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html#:~:text=Road%20traffic%20crashes%20are%20a,citizens%20residing%20or%20traveling%20abroad https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index....
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    Some enterprising individual should figure up how many highway miles driven with a kid in the car it takes to exceed the annual risk from school shootings. I bet it's not many, but nobody thinks a thing of driving their kids around.
    - Brusco_RF 3y ago
      USDOT says 1.34 deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven. Assuming 32mph average speed[1] that's 1 death per 2,332,089 hours driven. There were 40 students killed in school shootings in 2022 [2]. Assuming 50M students and 2K hours/year in school that equates to 1 death per 2,500,000,000 hours spent in the classroom. The difference is a factor of 1,072 meaning that if you drive with your kid for 2 hours, you have exposed them to a higher risk of dying in a traffic accident than an entire year of risk from school shootings. Definitely a stat I'll keep in my back pocket. [1] my ass [2] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year...
- otachack 3y ago
  I understand your point of being able to react to situations faster. The key word is "react". It's disappointing and shameful that there's an apparent need for kids to have phones because of prevalent school shootings. If you aren't advocating for gun reform yet I hope you and others jump on board soon so that we can squash that fear and move on to mitigating the damage these computers in our pockets are causing to children and teens. There was a time where school shootings weren't a primary concern and it was in my lifetime. It is possible to get back to that. We need to fight for it because it's not fair to the students that are traversing the school system, their families, and the ever climbing numbers of dead or harmed babies, children, teens, young adults, adults, and elderly and all living relatives affected by gun violence.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  You really don't see how phones made this situation worse for everyone involved? It just seems so obvious to me.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>active shooter situation I feel like active shooters shouldn't be a situation in a school in the first place.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  Sure it shouldn't be but it's the America we have and it's constitutionally difficult to do anything about it with the current interpretation of our second amendment in the Supreme Court.
  - vuln 3y ago
    > constitutionally difficult to do anything about it with the current interpretation of our second amendment in the Supreme Court. Could you explain what’s “difficult” about “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED?” It appears to be pretty clear cut to me. I’m not sure how anyone can conclude the opposite.
    - rtkwe 3y ago
      Does the lack of that language in the other amendments mean they're not really protected? There's similar language in the other amendments in the bill of rights, "Congress shall make no laws" in the First Amendment for example, where we have and accept some limitation on those rights. Does the "well regulated militia" clause imply an individual right to bear arms or only that the Federal government can't make laws to disarm recognized militias? Ultimately in the US system it doesn't really matter what you or I think a particular phrase means the only opinion that matters directly is that of the majority of the Supreme Court. Even the current Court's interpretation of 2A accepts there are reasonable restrictions on gun rights they just need to be similar or comparable to restrictions around the founding.
    - greedo 3y ago
      SCOTUS held quite a different view of the 2nd Amendment for many many years until the efforts of the NRA and gunmakers succeeded in altering this in the last 30 years.
justrealist 3y ago
I think it's more to justify refusing to parent. Kids will refuse to give up their phones, make a big fight about it, so some parents would rather invent an excuse to give up and let the kid win.
reaperman 3y ago
I agree that phones/apps/social media/video games are addictive (the ones that aren't just don't get popular) but I disagree with your proposed framework for identifying "addictive" things for children in schools. Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation and self-agency for young developing human children. Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc. Would be interesting if phones would be "addictive" to children used to playing outdoors in autonomous groups in (semi-nomadic, not city-based) pre-colombian civilizations.
- spacephysics 3y ago
  Reminds me of a rat study that I forget the details on, but essentially they gave cocaine to rats in a sterile basic cage, and they went ham Then years later, a researcher refuted the claim of the original landmark study (regarding addition), by giving the rats a sanctuary with other rats, area to roam, basically a mini park, I believe the rats either didn’t take the cocaine, or did it once and didn’t like it after. Addition isn’t in a vacuum. Anything can be addicting. It’s the environment that matters as well. Soldiers coming back from Vietnam were doing opium like mad, to a point where the US government was preparing for an opioid epidemic (ironic now), then found that rates of opium addiction were FAR below than perceived, most likely cause the soldiers weren’t fighting in a terrifying jungle 1000’s of miles away in a war forced upon them that was a losing battle.
  - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park It was morphine, and failed to replicate.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc. False. If any of that were addictive, the student would continue doing it even when other options exist, and continue doing it despite negative consequences. > Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation Correct but misguided. Schools are artificial environments with imposed constraints. You're supposed to derive stimulation from being interested in the nature of the world around you, but that's boring, so at least derive stimulation from entertaining yourself within the constraints. Everyone here has a story about hacking the school computers to play Doom (a learning experience and achievement, however subversive), but 30 years from now, none of these kids are going to be talking about how awesome it was to mindlessly watch TikTok during math class. None of them will remember what they even watched. The phone has endless "stimulating" content, but it's not stimulating you to actually do anything but repetitively scroll through content you'll quickly forget. It's junk food for the brain, and only "stimulating" in the way stool softeners stimulate a bowel movement-- you shit it out long before you absorb anything of nutritional value.
thefz 3y ago
> Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. Then buy a 30€ dumb phone. 100% of the parents I spoke with justify themselves with "all his/her friends have it, I don't want to create a social pariah".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- LanceH 3y ago
  It has a real social impact if they don't have a phone. They will miss out on things. You might argue "but if they were real friends..", but the issue is they may never get to be real friends if they keep missing out on things. My kids get phones in 9th grade, but it is clear they aren't to be on them during school. What sets me apart from a lot of parents, though, is that I'll believe and support their teacher.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    > What sets me apart from a lot of parents, though, is that I'll believe and support their teacher. Having been abused at three different schools, I hope that there's more nuance to it than simply "I'll listen to the adult".
  - thefz 3y ago
    > They will miss out on things. Like what?
    - LanceH 3y ago
      "everyone's meeting up at the pizza place to hang out" There are obviously ways around that -- a lot just won't bother. And sure, someone that isn't that courteous might not be worth being around, but if it's a loose social group with a common interest there will be others there that might be. Their social lives revolve around their phones. Not having a phone impacts it greatly.
saiya-jin 3y ago
I think this goes a bit deeper on a forum like this. Like it or not, many many many folks here work for companies enabling this addiction. One thing I've noticed over my 20 years in business - many, often very bright folks need to feel they work a moral job, doing good for the world. So far so good. But then we meet reality of gray office jobs with unclear positive/negative rating, ie working in bank is bad? But which type of bank and which job? Classic retail ones don't do crises, they store money for common folks so they don't keep it under mattress, and give loans to start businesses. Or working for google, is it the great-maps-for-free or tracking-the-hell-out-of-ya one? Same for facebook etc. I am fairly strict on this topic and agree with you - we've created unparalleled addiction devices. Don't trust me, random stranger, check almost any kid with phone, which is almost any kid. Check their habits, ask parents, ask at school. Its pretty consistent and dark picture. There are ways to lesser the problem, but problem at its core is seemingly too hard - maybe kids actually shouldn't have their phones, rationing is already dealing with addicted (=fucked up for life) situation. Fucking up entire generation isn't balanced with saving few lives, even as a parent that's a completely stupid approach from any angle. Maybe we shouldn't listen to only most vocal folks in our communities? The loudest ones often have unresolved mental issues that distort otherwise good discussions badly. But then we go even deeper - growing up kids these days is darn hard. State doesn't help much actually, if you are far away from close family and are not one of those few family-only types who can find life fulfillment for 2 decades straight, without any meaningful break, in just parenting. So folks little by little give up on being a perfect parent, and to have some time off they allow it. And then there is peer pressure. Remember a generation ago kids spent their lives in front of TV? And our parents didn't care that much, did they (little yes, but actually going and finding a new cool hobby for their kid? rare)
welshwelsh 3y ago
Students don't spend time on their phones because they are "addictive," but because school is boring and doesn't provide them with anything of value. Schools need to radically overhaul how they operate so that they can compete with TikTok for student's attention. Banning phones is lazy. I want to see: - Gamified learning, using apps like Duolingo. TikTok-style short form videos produced by top content creators instead of boring lectures from mediocre teachers. - Opportunities to earn real money, power and status as a reward for school achievement. Good performance should grant perks like the ability to freely skip class to play videogames, study from home or earn an income during the school day. - Autonomy: give students control over how they learn, holding them accountable only for the results.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
It's a bad habit rather than an addiction since there is no substance.

by ethbr0 3y ago

jtreminio 3y ago

> Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging. We live in Plano, TX, just a few minutes south of the Allen Outlet massacre. Yesterday my son texted me at noon "Shooting threat at school" and "It’s a rumor though but a lot of people are leaving anyway". You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go.

abraxas 3y ago
So how in heavens did your country manage to survive the 300 years prior to 2008?
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Muzzle loading firearms? It makes mass shootings a lot harder.
hypertele-Xii 3y ago
285 children have died in US school shootings since 1764. In 2021, 50 million students were enrolled in public schools in prekindergarten to grade 12. That's a 0.00057% chance your kid dies in a school shooting. You are being hysterical.
- jtreminio 3y ago
  We WERE at the Allen Outlets on Saturday. We left 5 minutes before the shooting began. If I had purchased one more item from a store we would have been right there. Tell me again how I am being hysterical. This country is going down in flames and not everyone can see the fire.
  - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
    A traumatic experience for sure. One might almost think that after such an experience, you'd overreact at the slightest hint of anything like that ever happening again. You are being hysterical. (I am sorry for sounding dismissive. I pray for the safety of your family.)
  - giardini 3y ago
    You are hysterical, possibly b/c your interpretation is pessimistic. But most people interpret such an occurrence as a sign they are lucky. I recommend you adopt such an attitude b/c it is healthier and b/c, when your story is retold, people will often want to touch you (so that the "good luck" rubs off on them)!
- WithinReason 3y ago
  An even better statistic would be: how many children were saved by a smart phone in a school shooting?
- pupppet 3y ago
  74 have been hurt or killed in a school shooting in just 2023.
  - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... This list says 11 dead and 6 injured in 2023, but I concede that it omits incidents with fewer than 4 dead.
heartbreak 3y ago
> You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. There are multiple layers of “bad” with this. If there is a threat, you’re hindering emergency response. Regardless, you’re putting everyone at risk by “speeding down the street.”
- jtreminio 3y ago
  I know the general consensus is that I did a bad thing with my reaction. I get it. I don't trust law enforcement to do the right thing. I don't trust that grown adults sworn to serve and protect would act quickly to neutralize a threat that's not against themselves or their loved ones. I see Uvalde playing out more than once in the future.
  - giardini 3y ago
    jtreminio says:"I don't trust law enforcement to do the right thing. I don't trust that grown adults sworn to serve and protect would act quickly to neutralize a threat that's not against themselves or their loved ones." Your decision, were it properly weighed, would have to also assume that you could do better somehow but that is impossible (even if you were John Wick or Jason Bourne). The hubris you display is enormous! Imagine that the American embassy had dropped an Chinese-American citizen into the middle of the square during the Tiananmen Massacre and demanded that he rescue the man under the tank! Emotions got the better of you - you're in denial. There are a few more steps before you'll admit that retrieving your child was a futile and risky act for you, him and everyone else.
  - heartbreak 3y ago
    How would you take down an armed assailant yourself? In this hypothetical scenario where you are rushing to the school, are you carrying a firearm as well?
- throw9away6 3y ago
  There will be no emergency response. Just a clean up crew. If you get there first you might get in before they Block the entrance and wait for the situation to resolve.
williamcotton 3y ago
Here’s why I downvoted: It actually would have been better if neither your son nor you knew about nearby shooting. It had nothing to do with the school your son was attending. That you responded in a panic is due to a common pattern of miscommunication during an emergency. The least effective response to an emergency is everyone panicking and operating independently of each other and ignorant of the ground truth. How did the rumor of the school shooting begin? Probably from another student responding to some quick take on their socials? What if they didn’t have their phone? Would this even have caused a false panic in the first place? Everyone take the time to look up the road death statistics to remind yourself what you really need to worry about. Always use your turn signal, even for your driveway. Slow down, but not too much… drive with the flow of traffic. Don’t change lanes in an intersection. Don’t swerve out of the way of a white-tailed dear, just try and punt the thing with the front of your car and count the hang time. Yield to the right at a 4-way intersection. Again, always use your turn signal, even for your driveway… why the drive way? Force the good habit! I live in Texas. My wife is a public schoolteacher. We are coming for your son’s phone and we will convince enough people to agree with us.
- williamcotton 3y ago
  Speak of the devil... I just checked my messages and saw this from my wife an hour ago: "ACC north ridge has an armed person on campus. Don’t go out" I checked the news just now and found this out: "AUSTIN (KXAN) — A shelter-in-place order was lifted for the Austin Community College Northridge Campus. The campus issued the order at 8:50 a.m. amid reports of a possible armed person nearby. Police investigated the reports and issued an all-clear. The shelter-in-place was lifted at 10:20 a.m., and the campus returned to normal operations." So literally by just spending my time being nerd sniped on the internet and tweaking a Dockerfile I missed the entirety of this nothingness.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    To me, this is the "past generations" litmus test I measure any of my personal preferences against. If people were able to handle not-it in 1920, it's probably a "nice to have" rather than a "must have." Which, we can all feel very strongly about things that are nice to have, but people were also doing just fine before constant connectivity was a thing.
ethbr0 3y ago
I'm a parent of two school aged kids, one of whom attends school 10 minutes away. In a state that's had multiple school shootings as well. I still accept that if something happens, it's going to play out before I rambo in and fix things. I have firearms in the house and am trained in their use, but I'm not a professional. In a chaotic, lethal situation, even my presence as a transporter is only going to increase confusion and delay professionals doing their job. What's going to save lives (including my kids') in a crisis is their knowing (1) how to handle themselves, (2) stay present and think critically, and (3) follow good directions when they receive them.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  (4) preventing crazy people from acquiring firearms in the first place.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Never going to happen in the US, because it's antithetical to the current interpretation of the Constitution and because half the country doesn't trust the government to define "crazy" (or uses distrust as an excuse because they actually don't care / NRA). Sadly, I think statistically it would help a lot. Obviously wouldn't completely solve the problem, but you have to have something pretty wrong with you to want to murder a lot of people at your school. And that likely shows up in other behavior. But then, to me, "temporarily take guns away from a small segment of the population who has demonstrated, serious mental health issues" doesn't seem like a slippery slope. So I guess I'm on the "other side" of the issue. :/
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      Of note, the current interpretation of gun rights (the individual right to own) is a relatively new construct largely created by the gun lobby (roughly 1977, when there was an internal rebellion in NRA leadership) and a conservative court (Heller, 2008). https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-... And FWIW, I'm in the camp that we can't define "crazy" adequately. So, I'm all for limiting access to all semi-automatic firearms. Regulate them all similarly to automatics and other "NFA" weapons.
tcgv 3y ago
I understand your concern towards the difficult situation and your immediate action to look out for your family. However, your anecdotal experience is still a "false positive" (fortunately), which doesn't allow us to conclude that, in the case of an actual emergency such as a school shooting, children with phones are statistically safer than children without phones. But I'm genuinely interested in such a study, and I believe data is already available for us to compare the differences in these kinds of occurrences before the emergence of smartphones in schools and after. That would provide a north for making decisions that truly improve security for us and our loved ones.
- jtreminio 3y ago
  I feel like a drama queen, because we (my immediate family) have had two near misses in 3 days. We were at the Allen Outlets and left 5 minutes before the shooting happened. 2 days later there's a school shooting threat at my son's high school. Nothing physical has happened to _us_. I can't stand up and say, "I lost a family member due to gun violence!". I still feel like things are spiraling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it. How do you stop going outside where other people are for fear of a shooting? How do you send your only child to school knowing what's going on? I hope I can cope and hope that everything turns out OK.
  - tcgv 3y ago
    I think the main challenge is that true a solution can only be reached if the society as a whole faces the issue together. Meanwhile families are left on their own to try their (suboptimal) best. I recently saw this youtube piece that shares the Swiss perspective on the topic of Gun ownership, and apart from some intended sarcasm in it that can bother viewers with distinct political views, the content has been worth watching: - https://youtu.be/EkuMLId8SqE https://youtu.be/EkuMLId8SqE
yamtaddle 3y ago
> The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go. You have badly misread the statistics on this, if you're that worried about it.
Balero 3y ago
> You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text. "Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 1–54"[0] I wonder if you speeding in your car increased the likely hood of death for someone more than collecting your son from a rumored school shooting. Not saying you were wrong to do that, obviously this is something that comes to the front of your mind when something is wrong at a school. The disconnect between risks we find acceptable, and those we don't is interesting though. [0]https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html#:~:text=Road%20traffic%20crashes%20are%20a,citizens%20residing%20or%20traveling%20abroad https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index....
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  Some enterprising individual should figure up how many highway miles driven with a kid in the car it takes to exceed the annual risk from school shootings. I bet it's not many, but nobody thinks a thing of driving their kids around.
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    USDOT says 1.34 deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven. Assuming 32mph average speed[1] that's 1 death per 2,332,089 hours driven. There were 40 students killed in school shootings in 2022 [2]. Assuming 50M students and 2K hours/year in school that equates to 1 death per 2,500,000,000 hours spent in the classroom. The difference is a factor of 1,072 meaning that if you drive with your kid for 2 hours, you have exposed them to a higher risk of dying in a traffic accident than an entire year of risk from school shootings. Definitely a stat I'll keep in my back pocket. [1] my ass [2] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year...
otachack 3y ago
I understand your point of being able to react to situations faster. The key word is "react". It's disappointing and shameful that there's an apparent need for kids to have phones because of prevalent school shootings. If you aren't advocating for gun reform yet I hope you and others jump on board soon so that we can squash that fear and move on to mitigating the damage these computers in our pockets are causing to children and teens. There was a time where school shootings weren't a primary concern and it was in my lifetime. It is possible to get back to that. We need to fight for it because it's not fair to the students that are traversing the school system, their families, and the ever climbing numbers of dead or harmed babies, children, teens, young adults, adults, and elderly and all living relatives affected by gun violence.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
You really don't see how phones made this situation worse for everyone involved? It just seems so obvious to me.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

>active shooter situation I feel like active shooters shouldn't be a situation in a school in the first place.

rtkwe 3y ago
Sure it shouldn't be but it's the America we have and it's constitutionally difficult to do anything about it with the current interpretation of our second amendment in the Supreme Court.
- vuln 3y ago
  > constitutionally difficult to do anything about it with the current interpretation of our second amendment in the Supreme Court. Could you explain what’s “difficult” about “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED?” It appears to be pretty clear cut to me. I’m not sure how anyone can conclude the opposite.
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    Does the lack of that language in the other amendments mean they're not really protected? There's similar language in the other amendments in the bill of rights, "Congress shall make no laws" in the First Amendment for example, where we have and accept some limitation on those rights. Does the "well regulated militia" clause imply an individual right to bear arms or only that the Federal government can't make laws to disarm recognized militias? Ultimately in the US system it doesn't really matter what you or I think a particular phrase means the only opinion that matters directly is that of the majority of the Supreme Court. Even the current Court's interpretation of 2A accepts there are reasonable restrictions on gun rights they just need to be similar or comparable to restrictions around the founding.
  - greedo 3y ago
    SCOTUS held quite a different view of the 2nd Amendment for many many years until the efforts of the NRA and gunmakers succeeded in altering this in the last 30 years.

justrealist 3y ago

I think it's more to justify refusing to parent. Kids will refuse to give up their phones, make a big fight about it, so some parents would rather invent an excuse to give up and let the kid win.

reaperman 3y ago

I agree that phones/apps/social media/video games are addictive (the ones that aren't just don't get popular) but I disagree with your proposed framework for identifying "addictive" things for children in schools. Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation and self-agency for young developing human children. Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc. Would be interesting if phones would be "addictive" to children used to playing outdoors in autonomous groups in (semi-nomadic, not city-based) pre-colombian civilizations.

spacephysics 3y ago
Reminds me of a rat study that I forget the details on, but essentially they gave cocaine to rats in a sterile basic cage, and they went ham Then years later, a researcher refuted the claim of the original landmark study (regarding addition), by giving the rats a sanctuary with other rats, area to roam, basically a mini park, I believe the rats either didn’t take the cocaine, or did it once and didn’t like it after. Addition isn’t in a vacuum. Anything can be addicting. It’s the environment that matters as well. Soldiers coming back from Vietnam were doing opium like mad, to a point where the US government was preparing for an opioid epidemic (ironic now), then found that rates of opium addiction were FAR below than perceived, most likely cause the soldiers weren’t fighting in a terrifying jungle 1000’s of miles away in a war forced upon them that was a losing battle.
- hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park It was morphine, and failed to replicate.
jstarfish 3y ago
> Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc. False. If any of that were addictive, the student would continue doing it even when other options exist, and continue doing it despite negative consequences. > Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation Correct but misguided. Schools are artificial environments with imposed constraints. You're supposed to derive stimulation from being interested in the nature of the world around you, but that's boring, so at least derive stimulation from entertaining yourself within the constraints. Everyone here has a story about hacking the school computers to play Doom (a learning experience and achievement, however subversive), but 30 years from now, none of these kids are going to be talking about how awesome it was to mindlessly watch TikTok during math class. None of them will remember what they even watched. The phone has endless "stimulating" content, but it's not stimulating you to actually do anything but repetitively scroll through content you'll quickly forget. It's junk food for the brain, and only "stimulating" in the way stool softeners stimulate a bowel movement-- you shit it out long before you absorb anything of nutritional value.

thefz 3y ago

> Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. Then buy a 30€ dumb phone. 100% of the parents I spoke with justify themselves with "all his/her friends have it, I don't want to create a social pariah".

deleted 3y ago
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LanceH 3y ago
It has a real social impact if they don't have a phone. They will miss out on things. You might argue "but if they were real friends..", but the issue is they may never get to be real friends if they keep missing out on things. My kids get phones in 9th grade, but it is clear they aren't to be on them during school. What sets me apart from a lot of parents, though, is that I'll believe and support their teacher.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  > What sets me apart from a lot of parents, though, is that I'll believe and support their teacher. Having been abused at three different schools, I hope that there's more nuance to it than simply "I'll listen to the adult".
- thefz 3y ago
  > They will miss out on things. Like what?
  - LanceH 3y ago
    "everyone's meeting up at the pizza place to hang out" There are obviously ways around that -- a lot just won't bother. And sure, someone that isn't that courteous might not be worth being around, but if it's a loose social group with a common interest there will be others there that might be. Their social lives revolve around their phones. Not having a phone impacts it greatly.

saiya-jin 3y ago

I think this goes a bit deeper on a forum like this. Like it or not, many many many folks here work for companies enabling this addiction. One thing I've noticed over my 20 years in business - many, often very bright folks need to feel they work a moral job, doing good for the world. So far so good. But then we meet reality of gray office jobs with unclear positive/negative rating, ie working in bank is bad? But which type of bank and which job? Classic retail ones don't do crises, they store money for common folks so they don't keep it under mattress, and give loans to start businesses. Or working for google, is it the great-maps-for-free or tracking-the-hell-out-of-ya one? Same for facebook etc. I am fairly strict on this topic and agree with you - we've created unparalleled addiction devices. Don't trust me, random stranger, check almost any kid with phone, which is almost any kid. Check their habits, ask parents, ask at school. Its pretty consistent and dark picture. There are ways to lesser the problem, but problem at its core is seemingly too hard - maybe kids actually shouldn't have their phones, rationing is already dealing with addicted (=fucked up for life) situation. Fucking up entire generation isn't balanced with saving few lives, even as a parent that's a completely stupid approach from any angle. Maybe we shouldn't listen to only most vocal folks in our communities? The loudest ones often have unresolved mental issues that distort otherwise good discussions badly. But then we go even deeper - growing up kids these days is darn hard. State doesn't help much actually, if you are far away from close family and are not one of those few family-only types who can find life fulfillment for 2 decades straight, without any meaningful break, in just parenting. So folks little by little give up on being a perfect parent, and to have some time off they allow it. And then there is peer pressure. Remember a generation ago kids spent their lives in front of TV? And our parents didn't care that much, did they (little yes, but actually going and finding a new cool hobby for their kid? rare)

welshwelsh 3y ago

Students don't spend time on their phones because they are "addictive," but because school is boring and doesn't provide them with anything of value. Schools need to radically overhaul how they operate so that they can compete with TikTok for student's attention. Banning phones is lazy. I want to see: - Gamified learning, using apps like Duolingo. TikTok-style short form videos produced by top content creators instead of boring lectures from mediocre teachers. - Opportunities to earn real money, power and status as a reward for school achievement. Good performance should grant perks like the ability to freely skip class to play videogames, study from home or earn an income during the school day. - Autonomy: give students control over how they learn, holding them accountable only for the results.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

It's a bad habit rather than an addiction since there is no substance.