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Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
- nottorp 3y agoHow about teaching kids self control and concentration?
- kwanbix 3y agoBecause these things are addictive? You can say the same for drugs, alcohol, and most people that consume those are adults, how can you expect kids to do what adults can't? You see 90% of people in the buses, trains looking their phones like idiots (including me). It is very difficult because it creates addiction.
- mentos 3y agoReminds me of looking at old photos of people in bars or planes all smoking.
- nottorp 3y agoHave those adults been taught about self control and concentration in school?
- randomdata 3y ago> You see 90% of people in the buses, trains looking their phones like idiots (including me). Isn't that just making the best of a bad situation? I am guilty myself, but at the same time I forget that I even have a device when not subject to such drudgery. Addiction usually implies a greater compulsion. Which, too, explains why this ban is only targeted at schools and not in general like drugs. While there are some skillful teachers, most aren't worth your time. As such, the phones come out as a distraction. In my pre-smartphone youth we were doodling in our notebooks, or what have you, instead but the motivation was the same.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoYou werent doodling in your book while walking in public or mid pee in the urinal. You weren’t doodling to the point you have chronic neck pain and a screwed up posture. You weren’t getting mad or depressed at what you were doodling either.
- gonzo41 3y agoYeah, that fits. Leave the phone at home, or in a locker and go to class. How is that not also helping with self control?
- nottorp 3y agoThat's eliminating the temptation forcefully, not training to ignore it.
- gonzo41 3y agoYou enforce discipline from an extrinsic source until the expectations are understood and self discipline takes over. Works with dogs, soldiers and kids the same. Doesn't work with cats sadly. And the best thing you can do is model the behavior of putting your phone away and out of sight for things like meals and family time.
- tankfox 3y agoThis is exactly how we fought the war on drugs! I'm sure it will go great!
- vacuity 3y agoIt's sad how addiction implies "be more tolerating because it'll happen anyways and be worse if you aren't", though. I'm not saying that addicted people should just be thrown aside. At the same time, since addiction implies an altered mental state like insanity, addicted people are clearly a burden to society that can't be reasoned with. In general, people have their circumstances that lead them to do what they do, but addicted people may stay addicted even if their circumstances are somehow resolved. Addiction is a costly affair to individuals, their friends and families, and the state. We should try to rehabilitate addicted people and we should try to tackle the root causes (much easier spoken than done), but it's a lousy situation in the first place.
- pantalaimon 3y ago
- jackmott 3y agook, how?
- BitwiseFool 3y agoSuch a thing is easier said than done. While self control and concentration can be taught, it is probably the case that schoolchildren just aren't up to the challenge of resisting smartphones at such a young age. Especially when it seems like most adults aren't capable of exercising restraint when it comes to smartphone usage.
- throwaway71271 3y agosure, we can also teach them to not eat junk food while living inside mcdonalds, how hard can it be, its just self control.
- swayvil 3y agoYes. Forget the free internet. We win the moral battle. That's what really matters.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- awelxtr 3y agoIt doesn't work this way. How resisting the temptation of using a phone AT SCHOOL, a place where most kids don't want to be, will be rewarded so they can learn the benefits of self control? It makes no sense! It is already hard for most kinds understand that school is good for them to make it more difficult already and force them ignore the temptation of the phone. Really, most people who talk about exercising self control or improving it have never had to had self control in the firt place.
- bamfly 3y agoExactly. That's why I made my kids chain-smoke cigarettes for a month, then told them they couldn't have any more, but kept a pack in the open on the kitchen table. Gotta teach self-control.
- tachudja 3y agoI assume the logical conclusion to this is to allow kids access to all things we find addictive but have put behind an age gate, like cigarettes, booze, and car rentals
- shortrounddev2 3y agoWe've come full circle. When I was in high school (2013), smartphones had just started to become the default (i had a galaxy s2) and cell phones had been banned in-class since they became common for every teenager to have one (as early as 2007 for me, probably earlier than that for older millennials) I guess at some point teachers gave up trying to enforce the rules. Or the idea of being away from your phone for hours at a time became strange to everyone. Or maybe teachers thought they could incorporate phones into lesson plans. Anyway, I think we were better off not being allowed to use our phones in class.
- theshrike79 3y agoWhen I was in school, we broke a teacher's curriculum by me having a digital camera (Agfa CL20) The teacher's process was to put a slide on the projector and have everyone write it down. Repeat until class is over, maybe with minimal discussion. I just snapped a picture of a slide and told the teacher to move to the next one, I already sent it to everyone in class =)
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI bet they hated you lol
- mixmastamyk 3y agoThe process of writing down information is one aspect of learning it.
- theshrike79 3y agoTrue. But very few people can write down a slide, listen to what the teacher is commenting while reading it aloud and ALSO make notes about what the teacher said simultaneously. Some people even resort to recording the audio of lectures to keep up (afaik some note-taking apps on iOS actually support it directly + sync it with the written notes). But this wasn't the case, copying the slides WAS the whole class pretty much.
- 3y ago
- 31337Logic 3y agoThank you. I support this. Want us to teach your kids effectively? Then stop sending them to school with highly addictive distractions. I'll also add that I've yet to see a single use case where a student's phone was a necessity at school (remember that school offices have phones for emergencies!)... yet I have seen dozens (hundreds?) of instances where the phones produced a negative outcome: cyber bullying, playing games, texting each other, sexual harassment, disruptive ringtones and notifications, and the overall shortened attention span from kids who "secretly" need to check their phone every 5 minutes to check the latest tiktok or Reddit reply or upvote or Like or blah blah.
- codedokode 3y agoCannot a phone be used as a motivation then? E.g. take it away for bad grades.
- ParetoOptimal 3y agoI fully support this, especially with WEI being forced upon us which makes smartphones into bigger portable ad machines than they already are.
- Simulacra 3y agoPhones should've never been allowed in school to begin with
- bamfly 3y agoAnyone downvoting: talk to some teachers. Maybe start with junior high teachers and see if you can even stand moving up the grades. Your skin'll be crawling in no time. If you don't share this view, you don't know what's going on. That's all there is to it.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoEven experiencing phones in school 15 years ago, I can say they 100% sapped attention and left me worse off than any benefit having a phone on you would do. It probably went on to lead to poor sleep habits outside school as well. Certainly a few people probably got into car wrecks from cellphone use, texting and driving was routine.
- Beldur 3y agoNot sure about you guys, but I plan to not give my kids a phone until they reach at least the age of 14 (7 and 3 atm) Is this realistic? Any experiences?
- rawbot 3y agoEven if you don't give them a phone, all it takes is one of their friends having one. They'll all huddle around it, or share it.
- DavidPeiffer 3y agoI have had coworkers who wanted to stick with a dumb phone. It sounds great to give junior a dumb phone until they're "old enough", but not much communication happens via sms. It's all done in other apps. Your kids will be excluded from a lot of conversations and events. They will feel ostricized socially and will inevitably be frustrated at you because of it. Having no phone versus a dumb phone would make the resentment worse. No idea what the best answer is beyond all of society collectively realizing it's a bad idea to give smartphones to young kids.
- rationalist 3y agoI think the next logical step would be to find a community of like-minded parents and set those kids up to be friends.
- stathibus 3y agoParents can't just get together and decide that their 14 year olds are going to be friends.
- PakG1 3y agoThey've done that to decide that their babies are going to become a married couple for centuries! I jest, I jest....
- rationalist 3y ago
- mapierce2 3y agoI don't see a more elegant solution than this, but it's a bummer. Smartphones are so useful; the world's information AND a computer in your pocket! The ideal would be to give students and parents an avenue to remove/combat the addictive elements of their smartphones, but most students (and parents) don't see those elements as a problem, but a feature.
- xwdv 3y agoWe did just fine in schools before smartphones. Perhaps even better.
- spicymapotofu 3y agoDo you mean to imply that education outcomes are unrelated to technology or that advancing technology may make them worse? Do you think there's a defensible abstraction of your claim? We also did "just fine, if not better" in my role at the bank (vaguely) before digitization. I assure you, the efficiency upgrades of advancing technology pay for themselves many times over, even if there are hiccups and new learning to match. Phones enable more education than ever before. The limiting factor is now motivation.
- pantalaimon 3y agoNo, if you are online it’s much harder to pay attention to your teacher or the task at hand. There are a million distractions, all more interesting than class.
- xwdv 3y agoIt’s time to have a higher standard of “technology”. Phones aren’t some magical solution to better education. They are just a source of digital candy, digital crack, that pollutes minds with harmful or vapid ideas. If you want an advanced teaching device, build one from scratch and make it nothing like a phone.
- vacuity 3y agoWhat are the concrete uses of phones in enhancing education? I've only seen portable calculator: fair, but why write problems that rely on calculators searching things up: just note it down for later taking pictures of slides: teacher can just post the slides Meanwhile, there's genuine and well-founded concern that smartphones lead to firsthand and secondhand distraction, which undermines the teacher and disrupts learning. The main thing I see phones enabling is rampant social media consumption.
- JohnClark1337 3y ago[dead]
- soligern 3y agoI support this completely. I would go the extra step of not making internet capable phones accessible to under 14 year olds in general.
- jweir 3y agoSmart watches too. Big distraction problem in my son’s grade school and they are used on math tests.
- emidln 3y agoThe path my teachers took in school, a few decades ago, was to design math tests that never required a calculator. All problems used basic arithmetic and calculators would actively slow you down. This works for a large portion of elementary, middle school, and high school math. The only downside is the teacher needs to spend a bit more time crafting the problems.
- dorchadas 3y agoAs a former secondary math teacher, you'd be surprised how many kids can't do basic arithmetic without a calculator. This doesn't even just include kids with learning disabilities or those at the lower end of the grade spectrum. I had many students who couldn't multiply or divide when they got to me (let alone understand negative numbers or such) because of the over reliance on tech and calculators when they're younger.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoI don't know about that one. You have some smart watches for kids. Which are basically a geolocator + phone home + panic button. I have friends who's kids use those to go to school on their own. I feel that is a good compromise between parents anxiety and kids autonomy. Provided you make it clear to them that the watch enables you to track them.
- Pxtl 3y agoThe parental controls on Google devices are pretty darned good. I can't see their raw browser history, but I can see what apps are installed and how much they're used, control screen-time, bed-time, ban/grant app permissions on a per-app basis, etc. Blanket banning smartphones from kids is overkill when there are tools available to enforce responsible use.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoUnesco does not seem to want you to see what they want to show children in schools. Probably subversive material.
- lfconsult 3y agoWell, I'm not supporting this. Our society try to ban everything. I believe education is better than repression. Ok, it takes time but it worth it.
- veave 3y agoSince the cat is out of the bag regarding mandatory education, I don't support this. Allowing kids to use smartphones freely in schools 1) will act as a very good filter and 2) will keep the most annoying kids entertained thus allowing the kids who pass through the former filter to learn without interruptions. The way it works now, we're just going for the lowest common denominator. The results are obvious.
- Digital28 3y agoMajorly oppose this proposal for a bunch of reasons. Also, fun fact: phone confiscation (except during midterms/finals) is a punishable offense at my university.
- dotnet00 3y agoAt a university level that's a pretty reasonable rule to have. Hell, even during exams, why confiscate? If the phone would be a means of cheating, the rule should simply be that using one is an immediate fail. That's how all my university classes did it, if it wasn't an open book exam, all phones were to be placed either screen down on the student's desk or left in their bag. Worked perfectly fine. I only ever had one class (which wasn't an elective) where computers and phones weren't allowed even during lectures, which was ironically an intro class on programming in C. Was a waste of time because the professor sucked and for me doubly so because I had already been using C for many years by then. Attendance was also mandatory so I just sat in the back and mostly slept through it.
- unethical_ban 3y ago"Since the cat is out of the bag regarding functional democracy" Optional education for students is fine if we don't utilize self-government. "Filtering" kids more easily distracted or less motivated leaves behind a lot of decent kids who just need more support than a self-starter. It's a horrible idea.
- bgribble 3y agoMy kid just graduated from a NYC high school that had a complete ban on phones in school. The kids checked in their phones at the front desk on the way in and got them back when leaving. It was by no means watertight -- many (most?) kids had a "burner" phone that was dead or broken or whatever that they turned in (because nobody would believe a highschooler who said they didn't have their phone with them lol) and they kept their real phone. But at least the expectation was set that you can absolutely not ever be seen using a phone in class. Overall I think it was a good policy. I don't think it's workable at large schools. In NYC at least you simply can't tell families that kids have to leave phones at home -- they are an essential tool for safety and travel, especially for younger kids. My 12 year old can take the subway to school by himself, but ONLY if he has a phone in case he ends up in some wackadoodle situation where his train has gone express or is on another train line and he needs to call his lifeline (me!) to figure out how to work it out. But they do not need to have them in the classroom.
- verve_rat 3y agoDid 12 year olds take the subway to school 20, 30 years ago? (Genuinely asking, never lived in a place with a subway, but took the bus all the time at that age.)
- obscurette 3y agoI can't tell about NYC, but they certainly did in Europe and still do. It's probably not too common though, most of kids have school close to their home.
- cubefox 3y agoWhat does close mean? So close that they can walk there instead of using the subway?
- edu 3y agoI can speak of my case in Barcelona, I used to walk to schools since I was around 11-12. A 20 minutes walks in a pretty centric location, also took the seldom bus/metro to go there or visit some friend.
- dotnet00 3y agoGoing against HN's usual anti-smartphone thing, I think this is incredibly dumb. Luckily no one really cares much about what UNESCO calls for. Outright bans on smartphones in schools are no different from the video game, TV screen time, "kids will only play games on computers" and other related superstitions that were in vogue back in the early 2000s. All they did was make parents feel validated (without having to put in the work to understand their child) and make life difficult for most kids while building resentment. As with most things, the decision of smartphone access for kids should come down to having parents actually understand their child, his/her needs and ability to handle the associated responsibility. Especially as a teenager, pursuing my interests in computers was nothing but constant arguing with my parents because they were constantly being supported by outsiders (who had never seen what I was doing) on their anti-computer superstitions of the time (due to which they wholesale refused to understand that I wasn't gaming the vast majority of the time).
- brigadier132 3y ago> Outright bans on smartphones in schools are no different from the video game, TV screen time Back then kids were not watching tv or playing video games in the middle of class. I remember when I was in school people were texting on their flip phones, I can't imagine the extent of distractions in school today. I used to pay attention in class only because there was nothing more entertaining to do. If I had a phone and could play minecraft while my teacher lectured us on US history I would not have learned anything.
- falcolas 3y ago> playing video games in the middle of class. Laughs in GameBoy. Seriously, you have to be elder gen x or older to exist in a time where handheld consoles of some flavor were not available. And there’s always been other forms of entertainment, be it passing notes, talking, or daydreaming.
- gjadi 3y agoLegislation doesn't exist in a vacuum. I imagine there are more smartphones in classroom today that the number of GameBoy ever sold.
- ChatGTP 3y agoSo much for bicycles for the mind I guess :(
- kjkjadksj 3y agoBicycles imply a certain freedom of movement that a smartphone that can’t run arbitrary code can’t achieve.
- fidotron 3y agoI would support this purely on the basis of reducing the privacy invasion of those children by those devices. The confusion is any other devices they use will similarly be phoning home so I would advocate for their removal too. The future seems to involve some sort of macro Tesla aesthetic where more than you thought reasonable has been removed, what is there may not be executed well, and what displays etc there are in one physical region all go through one single point of control/truth attestation with other devices banned. In the case of a school that will be the school IT which they may outsource.
- porcupinepig 3y agoThe smartphone is the greatest education tool in perhaps ever. All the world’s information available immediately on a handheld device. The stuff of magic. Taking this away from anyone, especially children who will benefit the most from this amazing resource, is tantamount to child abuse.
- unethical_ban 3y agoYou don't need all the world's information. You need to listen to the teacher and follow the lesson plan during class. If kids could learn effectively and become educated citizens with zero adult curation or guidance, you'd be right.
- malcolmgreaves 3y agoYou have no idea what child abuse actually is.
- m0llusk 3y agoThere is an ugly trend here. We want to protect children from exploitation, so we make artificial learning environments where kids interact with each other instead of adults and perform often silly exercises instead of actually participating in the creation of value. Now we want to protect kids by removing their capacity to communicate and organize socially. Protecting children is a noble goal, but it may be possible that the best protection for children is to interact with adults to create value and communicate and organize socially. Building cocoons for kids hoping that will help them pupate into successful adults seems misguided.
- avgcorrection 3y agoAdults have been fine with the Lord of the Flies tendencies of adolescent education. But now smartphones are ruining everything? I don’t have children let alone teenage ones so maybe I shouldn’t have an opinion on this, but it seems that we adults complain way too much about teenagers and almost never consider that maybe we have structured their lives in a way that isn’t great for them. Singling out smartphones or binge drinking won’t fix anything at the root.
- vacuity 3y agoI agree that the education system (at least in the US) is chafing at times. I had an idea about more freeform education paths with plenty of time for sports or whatever. I seriously doubt someone interested in a subject needs the better part of an hour for five days a week to learn it well. Not for high school topics, at least. Maybe boarding schools? Don't ask me about the logistics. Smartphone (social media, really) addiction is still a problem, though.
- pierat 3y agoExactly. We put children into a 12 year long institutional dictatorial meat grinder with absolutely no say about anything (well, maybe a few electives in high school). It stems from "children" (aka under 18) having absolutely no rights, and the parents having all. And the schools are in loco parentis, so they can do mostly anything they want. And I find hilarious that this country extols republics and democracies as the best forms of governance, yet 2 places we humans spend most of our time in (school, work) are dictatorships. And we usually are powerless in choosing schools, and only have some power to choose which company to work at.
- fnord77 3y agoI feel like this thread is being spammed by tiktok shills
- mongol 3y agoIn the workplace you have BYOD, bring your own device. But in order to access the services needed at your workplace, you need to install MS Intune and similar, which basically give your workplace limited admin access, they can remotely wipe your device, set stronger pin requirements etc. Perhaps something similar should be made available for schools. So the school can limit use of the phone without putting the phone in a drawer
- vacuity 3y ago> they can remotely wipe your device That seems like a no-go. What are they wiping, exactly?
- mongol 3y agoEverything, as far as I know. But I have not heard it being used where I work. But it comes with the permissions you grant.
- yourusername 3y agoDepends on the enrollment type. If they are using app protection policies they're just wiping the corporate data from apps. If they're making you completely enroll your phone they could wipe everything but that's a no go for most people.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoI wish education went the other way, focusing on integrating educational tools to adapt to a world where everyone has access to the world's full repertoire of knowledge at all times. Teach kids to integrate these powerful tools as part of their learning and problem solving skills. By the time a kid is out of high school they should have a powerful index of knowledge accessible from all devices to help them tackle complex problems. I was always resentful in high school when teachers said you wouldn't have access to informational charts or calculators in the real world. At that time I considered my integration with some electronic devices an extension of myself and an external index, it was like having a bunch of additional limbs for problem solving. Not having access to my tech devices was equivalent to being artificially lobotomized. And kids growing up will have access to even more powerful tools thanks to LLMs. Societies that adapt and integrate tech devices as part of the educational experience will have a competitive advantage in the long run.
- unethical_ban 3y agoHow do you integrate Instagram into a lesson plan, and why? Banning personal smartphones and forcing kids to focus on the class is the objective, not to be arbitrarily Luddite.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoThere are more uses for smartphones than just Instagram and TikTok. My point is that we should be developing tools to help students organize and index everything they learn so it can be put to use when they need to solve problems in the real world. Education as it's currently done mostly focuses on getting students to be able to pass some exam, after which they will quickly forget everything learned because it's no longer needed. Taking away a student's most powerful tool is crippling their development capabilities. Education should focus on integrating and leveraging existing modern tools to empower student capabilities and problem solving skills. A trite example: imagine a student has to solve a word search. For an older person the only way to solve this would've been to perform the task manually. But younger students could learn how to scan the grid with OCR tools, and then write a simple script to search for the words. Ideally students would be familiarized with a full set of advanced capabilities and programming tools to be able to outperform someone doing a manual search. This example is basic, but it can be extrapolated to far more practical real world problems. Instead of giving students basic problems, unleash them on more complex domains without instructions and get them to engage with LLMs and other tools to try and solve the problem. Then if they get stuck, help walk them through arriving at the solution. This is what education should be about. I want students to learn to leverage all of their tools to maximum efficiency. The goal isn't to get students to pass some stupid exam, it's for them to be able to solve complex problems in the real world. An analogy. If we had a tree-climbing competition, where some students are allowed to use their hands and feet while others are only allowed to use their feet, I bet you that the ones that are allowed to use both hands and feet will be far more effectively at climbing. And the ones forced to just use their feet will be left wondering why they weren't allowed to use their hands.
- halhod 3y agoThis headline appears to be bullshit. The report does not recommend banning smartphones. This is what it actually says: "Banning technology from schools can be legitimate if technology integration does not improve learning or if it worsens student well-being. Yet, working with technology in schools, and the accompanying risks, may require something more than banning. First, policies should be clear on what is and is not permitted in schools. Students cannot be punished if there is no clarity or transparency on their required behaviour. Decisions in these areas need conversations supported by sound evidence and involve all those with a stake in students’ learning. Second, there should be clarity on the role these new technologies play in learning and on their responsible use by and within schools. Third, students need to learn the risks and opportunities that come with technology, develop critical skills, and understand to live with and without technology. Shielding students from new and innovative technology can put them at a disadvantage. It is important to look at these issues with an eye on the future and be ready to adjust and adapt as the world changes."
- cubefox 3y agoThere is a massive increase in teen depression since around 2012: https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/teen-depression.jpg https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/teen-d... This is totally unprecedented. It is likely that the addictive quality of smartphones and social media are the cause. They are replacing physical contacts with virtual ones. There is a serious argument to be made to outright ban teenagers from owning smartphones until the age of 16, similar to laws on smoking and alcohol.
- callalex 3y agoClimate change and the anxiety it causes is another factor to be considered here.
- cubefox 3y agoClimate change didn't became known just 10 years ago, so I don't think this had an impact.
- callalex 3y agoHaving grown up one generation previous, in the era of Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” etc. there used to be a real sense of hope and optimism that we would collectively be able to put the work in to solve the issue before it became untenable. A generation later this optimism is much less common because the evidence has mounted that we are not capable of making the changes necessary.
- jacquesm 3y agoCOVID, Climate Change, War, reduced job prospects. Social media and smartphones certainly don't help but they're a side show compared to the rest. There is a serious argument to be made outright ban smartphones not just for teenagers but for everybody that can't handle having a non-stop distraction device in their pocket. But that argument will fail because we tend to allow people to do stupid stuff as long as it doesn't affect others.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- benguild 3y agoI worry that times have changed, and adults proposing these rules may not “get it.”
- nsxwolf 3y agoA family friend is a teacher and she talks about how the kids just play with their phones the whole time. They don't pay attention and she's not allowed to do anything about it. I don't understand how we got to the point where teachers have zero authority. I don't understand why phones can't be put in lockers. If you really need to use the phone for an emergency, you could get a pass. And in the past isn't that what the office was for?
- ryandrake 3y agoI don't know how we've managed to so severely nerf teachers' authority to conduct their class and deal with troublemakers. I've got a daughter now, and the classroom is like Lord Of The Flies now vs. how it was when I was her age in the '80s. My kid reports that one or two kids act out basically all day (maybe trauma from growing up in a broken home?) and the rest of the class barely gets through classwork. So they all get tons of homework to make up for basically chaos during school hours.
- dorchadas 3y agoFrom my perspective as a former secondary teacher, it's parents. At the least sign of their kids being in trouble (or failing), many parents will come up to the school (that they often never visit otherwise) and proclaim that the teacher is wrong and shouldn't be punishing little Johnny. And schools give in because they're worried about lawsuits and having to deal with parents, so the teachers get thrown under the bus and can't punish the kids. Thankfully the last school I worked at did back the teachers - at least to some extent - but it was so annoying having to deal with parents who never showed up to parent-teacher conferences, never contacted me (or answered my emails/calls!) come up as soon as their kids got sent to in-school suspension for misbehaving or for having too many missing assignments or getting a bad grade. There's also an anti-punishment trend prevalent in education research. Which I truly get, but sometimes kids need to know the limits and you have to do something with the bad ones so the others can actually learn. It's a lose-lose situation (and part of the reason why I left, though I really do miss it and am considering returning, though maybe at international schools).
- 3y ago