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This says March 21, 2024 Can that be right? It just feels soooooo OLD, so tired and stuck in a groundhog day of restating the obvious. I was having these conv

This says March 21, 2024 Can that be right? It just feels soooooo OLD, so tired and stuck in a groundhog day of restating the obvious. I was having these conversations in 2014, ten years ago now, and wrote it all up in Digital Vegan by 2019. Same old tobacco/oil industry problem wrapped in layers of denial. I look forward to an EU wide ban on smartphones in all schools, and hopefully a more general prohibition on kids having them at all.

drekipus 3y ago
People are in denial though, which is why we have to keep bringing it up. I kinda wish it was plastered on all billboards. "iPads aren't affecting my kids" kids twitching at the table, meltdown when they can't see the screen "kids will be kids amiright? Every body has issues with kids at restaurants /eyeroll"
mdekkers 3y ago
> I look forward to an EU wide ban on smartphones in all schools, and hopefully a more general prohibition on kids having them at all. Yeah, absolutely!! Prohibition on all manner of vices has such an excellent track record!
- salomonk_mur 3y ago
  It does actually. Prohibition on youth almost universally results in extremely lower rates of use over their lifetimes of whatever was prohibited.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > lower rates of use over their lifetimes of whatever was prohibited. This is a more complicated problem though. Handheld computing devices are a useful and amazing technology. Pragmatically, we don't want to discourage anyone from taking up empowering technologies at an appropriate time in life. The problem stems from a dangerous combination of minds that are too young to understand and process highly addictive usage applications, and a toxic involuted culture driven by predatory commercial appetites. It requires a more delicate programme of digital literacy around why (as a kid) you're not allowed a smartphone, what the dangers are, who the bad guys are, how it can affect you and how to say no. This is slow to happen for the same reasons that sex education is so poorly handled in many countries; it's awkward, full of inconvenient truths and hypocrisy, and many parents and teachers are confused and conflicted themselves. There is also the sinister aspect that a quiet alliance of governments and big-tech who dream of cybernetic governance through effectively mandated smartphone use are willing to throw the mental health of multiple generation under a bus to get it. One can only hope the backlash continues to grow and more people connect the dots and start calling out the deeper causes.
    - chucksta 3y ago
      >in all schools Not a blanket ban for kids
      - ambichook 3y ago
        > and hopefully a more general prohibition on kids having them at all sounds like one to me :)
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Oh, Why the silent hate without articulate response? Seems a bit random tbh? Or is HN fully behind banning cellphones for all adults too? I need to get with the programme huh? :)
- lm28469 3y ago
  It's called education... Do you give weed or crack to your kids? No, is it prohibition? No. I don't get how we arrived to that level of binary thinking where everything has to be fully deregulated otherwise "this is China"

drekipus 3y ago

People are in denial though, which is why we have to keep bringing it up. I kinda wish it was plastered on all billboards. "iPads aren't affecting my kids" kids twitching at the table, meltdown when they can't see the screen "kids will be kids amiright? Every body has issues with kids at restaurants /eyeroll"

mdekkers 3y ago

> I look forward to an EU wide ban on smartphones in all schools, and hopefully a more general prohibition on kids having them at all. Yeah, absolutely!! Prohibition on all manner of vices has such an excellent track record!

salomonk_mur 3y ago
It does actually. Prohibition on youth almost universally results in extremely lower rates of use over their lifetimes of whatever was prohibited.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > lower rates of use over their lifetimes of whatever was prohibited. This is a more complicated problem though. Handheld computing devices are a useful and amazing technology. Pragmatically, we don't want to discourage anyone from taking up empowering technologies at an appropriate time in life. The problem stems from a dangerous combination of minds that are too young to understand and process highly addictive usage applications, and a toxic involuted culture driven by predatory commercial appetites. It requires a more delicate programme of digital literacy around why (as a kid) you're not allowed a smartphone, what the dangers are, who the bad guys are, how it can affect you and how to say no. This is slow to happen for the same reasons that sex education is so poorly handled in many countries; it's awkward, full of inconvenient truths and hypocrisy, and many parents and teachers are confused and conflicted themselves. There is also the sinister aspect that a quiet alliance of governments and big-tech who dream of cybernetic governance through effectively mandated smartphone use are willing to throw the mental health of multiple generation under a bus to get it. One can only hope the backlash continues to grow and more people connect the dots and start calling out the deeper causes.
  - chucksta 3y ago
    >in all schools Not a blanket ban for kids
    - ambichook 3y ago
      > and hopefully a more general prohibition on kids having them at all sounds like one to me :)
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Oh, Why the silent hate without articulate response? Seems a bit random tbh? Or is HN fully behind banning cellphones for all adults too? I need to get with the programme huh? :)
lm28469 3y ago
It's called education... Do you give weed or crack to your kids? No, is it prohibition? No. I don't get how we arrived to that level of binary thinking where everything has to be fully deregulated otherwise "this is China"