7 ms·

I’m still very confused why this has become such a thing recently. I was in senior year a decade ago and we had iPhones back then too. iPods and tamagotchis too

I’m still very confused why this has become such a thing recently. I was in senior year a decade ago and we had iPhones back then too. iPods and tamagotchis too. If the teacher needed to deal with a student on their phone rather than working, they’d confiscate it. Most of us left them in our pockets, and seem to have graduated just fine. Why have kids seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets, and why have teachers seemingly become unable to confiscate them when needed? Is social media these days that addicting? Are teachers exposed to consequences for managing their classrooms? Anyway, as a student I would have been reluctant to leave my phone at home when I’d demonstrated my ability to not fiddle with it in class, so for many ‘normal’ students I can see why they’d push back.

phantomathkg 2y ago
Read this as a general feeling of someone in 40s without kids and consume news from multiple countries. This things happened gradually. At your days the smart phone is still at its infancy where social media are probably text based and at most image based. Nowadays, the social media are a mix of text and videos and probably the quantity of short video the youth consume are far more than the text consume. The phone itself also becoming the extension of our brain (not only youth). And this brings two consequences. - Many feels that there's no need to learn the basic. The wisdom they had, together with the reasoning given by the tools are enough. - The youth also prefer shorter content than long form content. They don't even have the patience to sit through a 30 minute youtube video and prefer a whole story unfolded in a few minutes that fit in tiktok, youtube short or similar. Combining these two means that a lot of the students in this generation will not have the patience to go through a 40 min - 1 hr classroom section/lecture. Also as other have commented in a different thread, the parents of this generation simply does not side with the teacher, and this happens in many countries as well.
- PebblesHD 2y ago
  The shorter attention span idea is an interesting perspective on this. I’d have thought fidget toys like electronic pets etc. might have the same effect of inducing attention diverting behaviours but as you said, my experience of Facebook/Snapchat at the time was mostly static images. There was video on Facebook and to be fair we watched a lot thanks to many Australian phone plans zero rating data for Facebook but we didn’t do that during class. I still think of myself as a ‘digital native’, as in this technology has existed my whole life, but in many ways yeah I agree with your perspective that it was not as pervasive during my formative years and I guess that makes all the difference here.
  - flyingspaceship 2y ago
    Growing up with this stuff in it's infancy, it was like there were two worlds, the digital one and the real one. Most people out in the real world didn't use the internet much and even if you spent tons of time online, they could pull you up to speed with their ways of thinking and behaving. Kids nowadays don't have that, their parents are phone addicts, their neighbors are phone addicts. They can't see themselves out of the maze because there is no one to guide them out.
- rramadass 2y ago
  > This things happened gradually. And is happening continuously over time. It is the deleterious effects of this accretion that is so insidious about the digital/social/internet media. I have experienced/am experiencing this same problem in my own mental functioning in spite being "old" (am in the middle 50s), don't use phones much, don't do social media much and yet with just browsing and consuming all types of content on the Internet; my attention span, focusing ability, time spent on continuous concentrated study all have declined (well beyond what can be attributed to ageing). Add now a sedentary lifestyle entailed by the above activities and you have your physical body deteriorating in all parameters too. This sets up a vicious cycle where the mind degrades the body which in turn degrades the mind and so on. Thankfully since i have memories of my mental functioning from before the Internet era i can discipline myself when needed (but getting harder) but i shudder to think what it is doing to the developing and growing brains/minds of kids/teens growing up in this environment. It is really important that Society as a whole wakes up to this insidious problem and involves Neuroscientists/Biologists/Psychologists/Scientists and Political Policy makers to focus on and find a solution to this epidemic.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
Zenzero 2y ago
Teachers are no longer respected in their decisions by parents. Before, a teacher could take away a phone and the criticism came at the student for not paying attention. Now the teacher comes under criticism in protection of the student. The whole culture around teaching needs a hard reset.
- defrost 2y ago
  A hard reset back to the days when teachers could get away with anything and their word was believed over that of students? eg: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/historical-abuse-allegations-at-st-cecilias-in-port-hedland-wa/103845122 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/historical-abuse-alle... Perhaps not.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    That was a hell of a leap, and we both know that has absolutely nothing to do with what was being suggested by the person to whom you replied.
    - defrost 2y ago
      Hardly. Sufficiently large schools will have at least one staff member doing something inappropriate with at least one student, there are literal Royal Commisions on that kind of thing. Particular specific institutes of the past have gone further with large numbers of the staff abusing large numbers of the students. There's a middle ground between always deferring to teachers as absolute authorities and not.
      - fractallyte 2y ago
        No, the parent poster was right: teachers are absolute authorities in matters of discipline on school grounds. Parents have a duty to support school discipline, and this is completely orthogonal to your point.
  - Zenzero 2y ago
brnt 2y ago
> Why have kids seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets, Social media.
- blitzar 2y ago
  Why have adults seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets?
  - cafard 2y ago
    A fair question. I see men my age (pushing 70) looking at their phones as they walk their dogs, and adults who are at least approaching middle age doing the same as they walk their dogs, push strollers and so on.
  - watwut 2y ago
    > Why have adults seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets? Social media.
brnt 2y ago
> and why have teachers seemingly become unable to confiscate them when needed? Parents threatened, possibly assaulted, teachers over this just yesterday in my area: https://www.l1nieuws.nl/nieuws/2661710/grescollege-in-reuver-dicht-na-geweld-tegen-medewerkers https://www.l1nieuws.nl/nieuws/2661710/grescollege-in-reuver...
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Thousands of six figure engineers are directed by Wall Street to develop systems to help prevent people from putting down their devices. The kids never had a chance.

phantomathkg 2y ago

Read this as a general feeling of someone in 40s without kids and consume news from multiple countries. This things happened gradually. At your days the smart phone is still at its infancy where social media are probably text based and at most image based. Nowadays, the social media are a mix of text and videos and probably the quantity of short video the youth consume are far more than the text consume. The phone itself also becoming the extension of our brain (not only youth). And this brings two consequences. - Many feels that there's no need to learn the basic. The wisdom they had, together with the reasoning given by the tools are enough. - The youth also prefer shorter content than long form content. They don't even have the patience to sit through a 30 minute youtube video and prefer a whole story unfolded in a few minutes that fit in tiktok, youtube short or similar. Combining these two means that a lot of the students in this generation will not have the patience to go through a 40 min - 1 hr classroom section/lecture. Also as other have commented in a different thread, the parents of this generation simply does not side with the teacher, and this happens in many countries as well.

PebblesHD 2y ago
The shorter attention span idea is an interesting perspective on this. I’d have thought fidget toys like electronic pets etc. might have the same effect of inducing attention diverting behaviours but as you said, my experience of Facebook/Snapchat at the time was mostly static images. There was video on Facebook and to be fair we watched a lot thanks to many Australian phone plans zero rating data for Facebook but we didn’t do that during class. I still think of myself as a ‘digital native’, as in this technology has existed my whole life, but in many ways yeah I agree with your perspective that it was not as pervasive during my formative years and I guess that makes all the difference here.
- flyingspaceship 2y ago
  Growing up with this stuff in it's infancy, it was like there were two worlds, the digital one and the real one. Most people out in the real world didn't use the internet much and even if you spent tons of time online, they could pull you up to speed with their ways of thinking and behaving. Kids nowadays don't have that, their parents are phone addicts, their neighbors are phone addicts. They can't see themselves out of the maze because there is no one to guide them out.
rramadass 2y ago
> This things happened gradually. And is happening continuously over time. It is the deleterious effects of this accretion that is so insidious about the digital/social/internet media. I have experienced/am experiencing this same problem in my own mental functioning in spite being "old" (am in the middle 50s), don't use phones much, don't do social media much and yet with just browsing and consuming all types of content on the Internet; my attention span, focusing ability, time spent on continuous concentrated study all have declined (well beyond what can be attributed to ageing). Add now a sedentary lifestyle entailed by the above activities and you have your physical body deteriorating in all parameters too. This sets up a vicious cycle where the mind degrades the body which in turn degrades the mind and so on. Thankfully since i have memories of my mental functioning from before the Internet era i can discipline myself when needed (but getting harder) but i shudder to think what it is doing to the developing and growing brains/minds of kids/teens growing up in this environment. It is really important that Society as a whole wakes up to this insidious problem and involves Neuroscientists/Biologists/Psychologists/Scientists and Political Policy makers to focus on and find a solution to this epidemic.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

Zenzero 2y ago

Teachers are no longer respected in their decisions by parents. Before, a teacher could take away a phone and the criticism came at the student for not paying attention. Now the teacher comes under criticism in protection of the student. The whole culture around teaching needs a hard reset.

defrost 2y ago
A hard reset back to the days when teachers could get away with anything and their word was believed over that of students? eg: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/historical-abuse-allegations-at-st-cecilias-in-port-hedland-wa/103845122 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/historical-abuse-alle... Perhaps not.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  That was a hell of a leap, and we both know that has absolutely nothing to do with what was being suggested by the person to whom you replied.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Hardly. Sufficiently large schools will have at least one staff member doing something inappropriate with at least one student, there are literal Royal Commisions on that kind of thing. Particular specific institutes of the past have gone further with large numbers of the staff abusing large numbers of the students. There's a middle ground between always deferring to teachers as absolute authorities and not.
    - fractallyte 2y ago
      No, the parent poster was right: teachers are absolute authorities in matters of discipline on school grounds. Parents have a duty to support school discipline, and this is completely orthogonal to your point.
- Zenzero 2y ago

brnt 2y ago

> Why have kids seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets, Social media.

blitzar 2y ago
Why have adults seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets?
- cafard 2y ago
  A fair question. I see men my age (pushing 70) looking at their phones as they walk their dogs, and adults who are at least approaching middle age doing the same as they walk their dogs, push strollers and so on.
- watwut 2y ago
  > Why have adults seemingly become unable to leave their phones silently in their pockets? Social media.

brnt 2y ago

> and why have teachers seemingly become unable to confiscate them when needed? Parents threatened, possibly assaulted, teachers over this just yesterday in my area: https://www.l1nieuws.nl/nieuws/2661710/grescollege-in-reuver-dicht-na-geweld-tegen-medewerkers https://www.l1nieuws.nl/nieuws/2661710/grescollege-in-reuver...

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Thousands of six figure engineers are directed by Wall Street to develop systems to help prevent people from putting down their devices. The kids never had a chance.