6 ms·

It really can't be underestimated either for children or adults how much we are dependent on ease of access. If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you c

• grakker 2y ago
  It's amazing to me that people argue about this, using weak personal anecdotes or just strange self-righteousness.
• consf 2y ago
  Managing distraction in an age where everything is at our fingertips is a hard task
  • wkat4242 2y ago
    It's not only distraction though. The phone is a window to the internet which offers all the knowledge of the world. And in 'my day' I spent a lot of time at the library which was full of thrillers and comics. And spent most of my time learning about computers and electronics. It's not an unprecedented problem and offers new offers new opportunities too.
    • lifty 2y ago
      Sure, but the quick dopamine fix that you can get from scrolling TikTok or Twitter is way more corrosive than reading long form content in a library.
      • exe34 2y ago
        I simply don't use either. never have, never will. they do not serve my purpose, so they are irrelevant to my life.
        • jtbayly 2y ago
          Then it is important for you to recognize that you are a unicorn.
          • dullcrisp 2y ago
            I think that’s only the case if you only meet people through TikTok and Twitter
            • oblio 2y ago
              Your comment is totally irrelevant to the conversation regarding schools, though. Smartphones are massively corroding kids' brains these days, and YES, this is much worse than TV or video games back in the day.
              • wkat4242 2y ago
                That's not a fact, it's a point being debated.
              • exe34 2y ago
                Even before that, it was books! instead of quietly contemplating the lord, they were getting blasphemous ideas all day long!
          • exe34 2y ago
            my friends do say "you're so special".
        • Apocryphon 2y ago
          And yet, you’re still on here posting along with the rest of us.
      • wkat4242 2y ago
        Yeah still I'm much more drawn to long form content. But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation.
        • vertalexgraph 2y ago
          > But I guess I'm an outlier like most people on this site that promotes learning new things though text-heavy presentation. Bold to assume this is what most people on this site are like! I'd hypothesize you're still an outlier in that group in these regards. And that's great! But lots of the data points to people like HN's general demographic still being pulled away from long form text content and towards synthesized/aggregated content served via mixed media. There's still just such strong cultural elitism in the notion of reading a book to learn something, it's not super sexy to claim on a messageboard.
          • wkat4242 2y ago
            > Bold to assume this is what most people on this site are like! Really, look at the front page of this site. If you're not interested in dense textual content you would have closed the tab within 1 second. I really love this site but most people won't even see the story titles, their brain just registers "a confusing jumble of text" and doesn't even try to engage. > But lots of the data points to people like HN's general demographic still being pulled away from long form text content and towards synthesized/aggregated content served via mixed media. And what data is that? > There's still just such strong cultural elitism in the notion of reading a book to learn something, it's not super sexy to claim on a messageboard. I don't think I'm elitist or sexy. Just different. I hate video content because I can't consume it at my own pace (usually much faster than the content offers because video is tailored for the slowest possible denominator). And it's difficult to build context ("where am I within the story") when skipping forward or backwards. In text this is pretty seamless. I don't tend to consume textual content in a start to end sequential manner. But I jump around. Because some stuff I already know, some i really want to deeper dive on, some I need to refer back to later. This is much harder with video.
    • luzojeda 2y ago
      Having instant access from your pocket to an infinite source of entertainment is literally an unprecedented problem.
      • wkat4242 2y ago
        Is it really very entertaining though? I use instagram as a tool to follow certain parties and tattoo shops (for announcements of visiting artists). Since about a year they've spammed their 'reels' on me and make it much harder to avoid them. But every time I look at them it's the same brainless crap as the tiktok-branded videos that people send on to me via whatsapp or telegram. I don't really understand how people are being captivated by this. It's all so hollow, shallow and brainless. Youtube is no better. Only full of corporate marketing drones like marcus brownlee and linus tech tips. All very hollow, sponsor-ridden and glossy. The only one I appreciate is dave from eevblog but he posts pretty rarely these days so I never really watch youtube anymore.
    • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
      It's not all the knowledge. Frequently I have searched for something and not found it
  • Nux 2y ago
    Or we are at the fingertips of everything else..
    • l33t7332273 2y ago
      This is why I think managing notifications is so important.
  • bmitc 2y ago
    I personally balk at the idea that everything is at our fingertips. Yes, a lot of information is readily available, but it is mostly very shallow, poorly referenced, and in short form. It is actually very hard to find in-depth, long form content on the Internet these days. You have to look very hard. Almost the only way to find it is by crawling dedicated forums and getting links that way. It's still much easier to find information in books.
• exe34 2y ago
  I use my phone to look up words/concepts/references all the time while reading - I couldn't do without it, flipping through a dictionary or walking up to a computer to read a quick Wikipedia intro to a concept/person/place/etc would just get me far more distracted.
  • lambdasquirrel 2y ago
    There’s always a reason why we “need” our phone at all times, isn’t there? For the purposes of public policy (where schools are concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be the best recourse?
    • fragmede 2y ago
      I find an eink tablet with no browser or a digitizing pen good for taking notes in this tech era.
      • nosianu 2y ago
        Weelll.... I did that, and I use my Remarkable 2 mostly for reading epub novels and even leave the pen at home by now... :( Okay, knowing myself I never thought I would use it much for creative work to begin with (and I was right). I still think I did my best programming and learning about computers when I did not actually own one. East Germany, 1980s, I was in school. All programming happened with my head and paper,
        • fragmede 2y ago
          oh no. do you have a case so it's convenient to have the pen with you?
          • nosianu 2y ago
            I got the cheap standard case of the very first iteration (I was an original pre-order customer for the RM 2), not expecting to carry it around much (I was working from home most of the time anyway). I have to stick the pen somewhere else in the bag. I just looked, they don't even have that cheap model anymore.
• hinkley 2y ago
  I’m now going to a Third Place to get about half of my reading done. It’s silly to go somewhere and sit on my phone. I can sit on my phone anywhere.
• drdaeman 2y ago
  > If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is read a math textbook you are going to do it. I'm not so sure if this is true. No clue about kids, but if I'm (personally) stuck at the office and I'm really not feeling like working, I can literally stare at a wall daydreaming rather than do something. And the contrary is also true - if I'm "stuck" at some fancy place with lots to do (like home, lol) but feel like working (and have means to do so), there's no stopping me. I suspect the problem isn't the phones, the problem is lack of honest, genuine interest. Compliance can be enforced, but I'm not sure about efficiency of learning under duress. Compulsion brings aversion. This, of course, is a purely idealistic view, assuming ideal high-skilled spherical educators in vacuum rather than actual real-world conditions. While there are always ways to captivate interest and steer it into productive learning, it requires some orders of magnitude more resources than what's available.
  • lukeschlather 2y ago
    > I can literally stare at a wall daydreaming rather than do something. And the contrary is also true - if I'm "stuck" at some fancy place but feel like working (and have means to do so), there's no stopping me. I mean there's a very broad spectrum here, and a slight distraction can be the difference between spending 5 minutes staring at a wall followed by three hours in flow state vs. spending three hours in mindless distractions. And children don't have any experience in how to cultivate flow state in the presence of distraction. Removing distractions naturally provides more opportunities to find the flow.
    • drdaeman 2y ago
      I agree. An adult can ask themselves what they're doing and why and how it aligns with their interests so on (aka have that midlife crisis, haha), a kid probably doesn't yet have enough self-reflection capacity yet. In my perception, distractions are ideally managed through interest management. Make the desired task actually truly desired - and you're guaranteed to not get distracted. And in an ideal environment, there should be an educator overseeing a kid and asking what went wrong if kid decides they wanna play with their phone instead of working. When you don't have someone to help with "why am I doing this and not that?", I guess it's true that next best option is to eliminate potential of distraction. It's not great, but is probably better than not doing anything about it. So, as always, there is an ideal approach (that doesn't work because it requires ideal environment), and a working approach that's very contrary to the ideal way of doing things. Hm... Maybe teaching kids (and adults) about the modern attention/spam economy actually works can help to lower the distractions. After you see through attention-grabbing tricks, scrolling through online feed wastewaters (or watching junk on streaming platforms, or playing "games" whose entire raison d'être is to make money on players) becomes much less interesting or rewarding. Just a thought.
• lemoncookiechip 2y ago
  > If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is read a math textbook you are going to do it. I would literally doodle, stare out a window, zone out daydreaming, or anything else other than read a textbook I didn't want to read for one reason or another, or pay attention to a teacher for that matter. Yes, it is anecdotal, but I'm sure we've all been children before, and even if you didn't do it, people around you surely did if you paid any attention. For god sake, I remember my classmates just using a lighter on small patches of whiteout ink during one specific class because of how bored they were. Extreme example? Yes. But passing papers, making paper planes, and other crafts, literally anything to pass the time. This isn't exclusive to children either. If an adult doesn't want to do something, they might very well not unless forced to, and even then. Btw, I'm not trying to argue about banning or not banning a phone, this is specifically about the statement above. EDIT: I should probably mention that this isn't a 5min thing, I could easily zone a teacher out for 45min-90min blocks if I didn't care about what they had to say, much less a book I didn't want to read.
  • croes 2y ago
    I think it about probabilities. A smartphone is a guaranteed distraction because of what you can do with it. No smartphone doesn't guarantee you read the book, but the chances are higher.
  • beowulfey 2y ago
    Yes, exactly right. And there are many students less likely than that to zone out, and many more likely to zone out. But if you give them a tool to aid in being distracted, it will encourage all of them to not pay attention. It really is a question of likelihood
    • sheepscreek 2y ago
      This. With a phone handy, it’s tempting them into not paying attention, at the very least. The best of intentions can be undone by poor or misaligned incentives. And a phone (and a computer to a lesser extent) provides us with the incentive (easy access) to procrastinate indefinitely. Those of us with a limited will power stand no chance.
• erebearalte 2y ago
  Reminds me of my time in boarding school, my grades were awesome there and I read alot cause I can't play video games, unfortunately it didn't make me wiser so I struggled a lot with self discipline later on.
• pipes 2y ago
  I tried leaving a stack of programming books beside my pc while I'm working and putting my phone in another room. It does work. But I keep forgetting to do it. I was considering trying a month of no I internet browsing unless it is required for my job or learning.
  • tmnvix 2y ago
    I did something like this for a couple of weeks recently. I call it 'no idle screen time'. Any activity that involved using a screen (phone, computer, or television) had to have a purpose. The purpose could be simple such as messaging friends, finding an answer to something I was curious about, or simply looking at the weather forecast. Usually it would be work related. Benefits became clear almost immediately. I got more actual work done. I suddenly had way more free time than I imagined. I renewed my library card and started reading again. My focus improved. I actually started actively listening to music again (rather than just having it on in the background). I got more exercise. I took the time to prepare better food. A certain low-level sense of anxiety that had become all too familiar simply disappeared. I did slowly regress. It started with watching a movie or show in the evening, that sort of thing. Now, here I am writing this comment. Probably time to give it another go.
• pengaru 2y ago
  > It really can't be underestimated either for children or adults how much we are dependent on ease of access. nit: If you mean to say these groups are so dependent on ease of access it's impossible to estimate correctly to what degree, you mean it can't be overestimated, not underestimated.
• StefanBatory 2y ago
  "If you're stuck in a room and the only thing you can do is read a math textbook you are going to do it. If you are stuck in a room and you have a math textbook and a novel you now have a choice." Nope, even then it was easier for me to stare at walls or daydream. That never worked for me :(
• thiel_is_hitler 2y ago
  [dead]
• BlueTemplar 2y ago
  It's not just smartphones, same thing can happen with any computer connected to the Internet, any computer NOT connected to the Internet (video games), a television, radio or even a Walkman (the last 3 typically not being an issue for the classroom for obvious reasons, but still potentially a tempting distraction to not do whatever you are supposed to be doing). Heck, even books / magazines can become that in some situations.
• UltraSane 2y ago
  I sometimes wish I could be locked in a room until I get a master's degree in Math.