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I deplore the fact that schools need to resort to banning phones. When I was younger I imagined a world in which computing devices would be a boon to (young) p

I deplore the fact that schools need to resort to banning phones. When I was younger I imagined a world in which computing devices would be a boon to (young) people everywhere. But many apps appear to be detrimental to people's mental health, both young and old. Possibly this can be changed. Maybe separate app stores are a solution (think f-droid)? Or maybe we need to start looking a lot harder at apps that might actually be user hostile.

asadotzler 2y ago
Computing devices could have done that except the people making them built hellscapes with black hole level gravity to sell us shit we don't need so now we have to treat computing devices like cigarettes and begin limiting their use in meaningful ways and teaching society to shun them, not because they couldn't be amazing, but because they are not now and probably won't be given Big Tech's stranglehold and inherent evil.
fsloth 2y ago
Apps are the result of darwinian competition for engagement in a user base of billions. It’s a horrible way to optimize technology for addictiveness. Not sure if there is a fix for that.
CivBase 2y ago
Counter point: Materals which are needed/useful for education should be provided by the school and used at the teacher's discretion under their supervision. A personal smartphone shouldn't have any place in classroom activities since it is an obvious distraction and not equally accessible to all students.
shayway 2y ago
Smartphones were just starting to be common right around the time I hit middle and high school. Teachers let us use them whenever we wanted, more or less, but if there was something we were supposed to be doing, we were only allowed to use them for educational purposes. We were often encouraged to use them, in fact. If there was ever a question someone asked that the teachers couldn't answer, or they heard an argument between students about something that could be solved by looking up hard data, they would invite us to take out our phones and look it up. One of the teachers would occasionally make little websites and apps related to whatever we were learning at the time. Sometimes we were shown interesting blog posts, educational youtube videos (before it was an industry), personal sites from people who make things. It was reinforced again and again that they were for discovery first, creation second, and anything else third. I feel very lucky for that to be how I learned to interact with them. The fact that we have magic machines that can answer any question in our pocket, that can take photos and connect us to people and teach us languages, yet we've corrupted them to the point that people are willingly giving them up and banning them from educational settings, is one of the greatest failings of modern society in my view. Or rather, an indication of even deeper and more troubling problems.
- jofzar 2y ago
  A big thing these days are kids have no respect/fear of teachers. Misuse of phones doesn't have a solution where the teachers can't act on it and parents don't back up the teachers. I don't remember anyone "misusing" their smartphones when I was in highschool because the fear of getting it taken away was massive.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
I think what Finland did is the right take because these are devices which kids do not need. They can call their parents if required from the main office. This is fantastic and once again shows why Finland is a pioneer in childhood education and why Americans and other countries are so far behind.
- noisy_boy 2y ago
  > why Americans and other countries are so far behind. Americans sure, but not all other countries e.g. in Singapore, many schools make the students put their smartphones in lockers and don't allow access at all during school hours. In case of emergency, they can call from the Main/General office.
andrepd 2y ago
The internet is great. A kid even in bumfuck nowhere can today, with a 100$ phone or computer, browse the biggest encyclopedia ever written in human history, read every book every published more 100 years ago (or more recently, if willing to pirate), watch lectures from the world's top universities and professors in subjects from physics to art conservation, listen to more concerts that you'll ever be able to in your entire lifetime, etc etc etc, all for FREE. Tell someone even 30 years ago that she would be able to hear the best orchestras in the world, on-demand, from rural Macedonia or whatever, at no charge, and it would be a vision of an utopian future. And yet here it is. Unfortunately when you buy a phone you don't get a link to libgen or a youtube account with DW Classical or Veritasium pre-installed on your phone screen. You get tiktok and instagram and similar slop. If even adults are vulnerable to these turbo-addictive attention harvesters, how can kids hope to escape?
threatofrain 2y ago
I don't think it's the quantity of apps that are the problem. Khan Academy is famous by now. There are world-class education apps, it's just that education apps have never taken off that much. The problem is in the competition for your joy, some apps win and some apps lose.

asadotzler 2y ago

Computing devices could have done that except the people making them built hellscapes with black hole level gravity to sell us shit we don't need so now we have to treat computing devices like cigarettes and begin limiting their use in meaningful ways and teaching society to shun them, not because they couldn't be amazing, but because they are not now and probably won't be given Big Tech's stranglehold and inherent evil.

fsloth 2y ago

Apps are the result of darwinian competition for engagement in a user base of billions. It’s a horrible way to optimize technology for addictiveness. Not sure if there is a fix for that.

CivBase 2y ago

Counter point: Materals which are needed/useful for education should be provided by the school and used at the teacher's discretion under their supervision. A personal smartphone shouldn't have any place in classroom activities since it is an obvious distraction and not equally accessible to all students.

shayway 2y ago

Smartphones were just starting to be common right around the time I hit middle and high school. Teachers let us use them whenever we wanted, more or less, but if there was something we were supposed to be doing, we were only allowed to use them for educational purposes. We were often encouraged to use them, in fact. If there was ever a question someone asked that the teachers couldn't answer, or they heard an argument between students about something that could be solved by looking up hard data, they would invite us to take out our phones and look it up. One of the teachers would occasionally make little websites and apps related to whatever we were learning at the time. Sometimes we were shown interesting blog posts, educational youtube videos (before it was an industry), personal sites from people who make things. It was reinforced again and again that they were for discovery first, creation second, and anything else third. I feel very lucky for that to be how I learned to interact with them. The fact that we have magic machines that can answer any question in our pocket, that can take photos and connect us to people and teach us languages, yet we've corrupted them to the point that people are willingly giving them up and banning them from educational settings, is one of the greatest failings of modern society in my view. Or rather, an indication of even deeper and more troubling problems.

jofzar 2y ago
A big thing these days are kids have no respect/fear of teachers. Misuse of phones doesn't have a solution where the teachers can't act on it and parents don't back up the teachers. I don't remember anyone "misusing" their smartphones when I was in highschool because the fear of getting it taken away was massive.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

I think what Finland did is the right take because these are devices which kids do not need. They can call their parents if required from the main office. This is fantastic and once again shows why Finland is a pioneer in childhood education and why Americans and other countries are so far behind.

noisy_boy 2y ago
> why Americans and other countries are so far behind. Americans sure, but not all other countries e.g. in Singapore, many schools make the students put their smartphones in lockers and don't allow access at all during school hours. In case of emergency, they can call from the Main/General office.

andrepd 2y ago

The internet is great. A kid even in bumfuck nowhere can today, with a 100$ phone or computer, browse the biggest encyclopedia ever written in human history, read every book every published more 100 years ago (or more recently, if willing to pirate), watch lectures from the world's top universities and professors in subjects from physics to art conservation, listen to more concerts that you'll ever be able to in your entire lifetime, etc etc etc, all for FREE. Tell someone even 30 years ago that she would be able to hear the best orchestras in the world, on-demand, from rural Macedonia or whatever, at no charge, and it would be a vision of an utopian future. And yet here it is. Unfortunately when you buy a phone you don't get a link to libgen or a youtube account with DW Classical or Veritasium pre-installed on your phone screen. You get tiktok and instagram and similar slop. If even adults are vulnerable to these turbo-addictive attention harvesters, how can kids hope to escape?

threatofrain 2y ago

I don't think it's the quantity of apps that are the problem. Khan Academy is famous by now. There are world-class education apps, it's just that education apps have never taken off that much. The problem is in the competition for your joy, some apps win and some apps lose.