France bans smartphone use in schools | Hacker News Reader

France bans smartphone use in schools

theverge.com

232 pointsdeegles155 comments

My thoughts as a High School teacher:

I have tried[1] to allow students to have their phones, teach them to use their phones responsibly, etc. It doesn’t work. They are banned in my class.

I’m just a single teacher with basically no budget. I can’t compete with giant corporations that spend millions on design, UX, UI, etc.

[1] Also, technically trying to teach kids to use their phones responsibly (or even generically teaching them how to be responsible adults) isn’t legal state standard for any of my subjects so I could get yelled at by parents or admin for doing it and I would have no recourse. It’s unlikely to happen out, but it is something admin can use if they don’t like you and want to nail you on something.

It's not only competing with the addictive nature of smartphone apps, but competing with a child's interests too. Personal anecdote, but, going to school and learning stuff was more about discipline than enjoyment, that only came later on subjects in college I actually found interesting.

But I do support that method of education, and I also support a ban on smartphones by extension.

> I also support a ban on smartphones by extension

I support a ban during class. Between classes, however, it seems fine to let students co-ordinate extra-curricular activities on their phones.

Kids standing around checking phones or kids talking to each other. That the basic choice. The trade off of some small convieneice seems worth while.

If hadn't thought about it much, mobile phone didn't exist when I was at school. However I recently visited a school as a prospective parent and they had a strict no phone policy. Locker or lose it. After listening to the principle talk about the problems they had with bullying, distractions, social status, I'm supportive.

I can see that not being able to co-ordinate activities could be a non-trivial inconvenience, though.

In college if i was goofing off on my phone during lecture I would likely pay for it on an exam.

You could try silently writing down which days you saw a student on their phone & which days you taught the specific subject material.

Then when students get it wrong on a test that you grade you can add a comment along the lines of "this was covered on day X when you were on your phone"

You would also then have a nice report for parent student meetings, and the parents can do the enforcing

> Then when students get it wrong on a test that you grade you can add a comment along the lines of "this was covered on day X when you were on your phone"

In my experience, by the time you realized you failed the exam, it's often too late to start learning all the things you didn't think you needed to learn.

Which is also one of the reasons for which I hated exams as a teacher.

I was thinking the first couple would be a learning experience and kids might curve their behavior over time. (Maybe this was a terrible idea lol)

Except the general purpose of school is for the children to be educated, not to make a smart comment when they fail an exam.

It was just a thought. I feel like the teacher should not be tasked with policing phone useage, but teach kids to take personal responsablity for their actions / education.

Maybe this wouldnt be effective, i just thought after one or two of these exams kids might take initiative to not use their phone as much.

I was not imagining a passive agressive one liner to the students, but i understand how it sounded that way lol

This is petty and time-consuming.

It wasnt intended to be petty, i thought of it more as giving students more personal responsability to pay attention.

I was just trying to throw an idea out there lol

Being petty and being effective are often related as a teacher.

Cramming for tests has poor long term retention. So, even if it seems like a final should be enough to demonstrate competency it's generally a poor idea to upgrade a grade based on a final.

this is the same problem with photo radar speeding tickets. We know that for learning immediate correction is super-important, so just like getting a ticket in the mail several weeks after speeding, a note after you fail a test will just piss off the receiver and there's no long term training effect.

also, don't you think teachers have better things to do with their extremely limited instruction time than police and inventory cell phone usage?

They already are policing it. Stopping class to argue with some kid is much more disruptive than writing down a name

I'm not familiar with exactly what teachers do these days, but I feel like it's a stereotypical teacher behavior to notice students who look like they're not paying attention—in whatever way, be it staring into space, reading an unrelated book, etc.—and call on the student and ask them to explain what they were just talking about. I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad practice, but it does fit the bill of "immediate correction" that could straightforwardly be applied to students looking at a phone.

> the parents can do the enforcing

Why should the parents do the enforcing?

If I goof off and get bad grades I would likely pay for it in my future career opportunities.

The point was that the teacher shouldn't have to do it.

I think all of the complaints with your idea that center around "exam time" being too late would be addressed by sensible quiz policies. i.e. classes should have quizzes frequently, which individually aren't a huge component of the grade, but also which repeatedly cover past material so students can get the benefits of spaced-repetition. The notes correlating phone use can be given on the quizzes.

The only issue I have with your idea in spirit is that it does nothing for the other innocent students who get distracted by the people goofing off on their phones, but this might just be addressed by cracking down on distracting use but if people want to quietly text or browse the web under the desk for the whole period that's their business / responsibility come quiz/exam time.

When I was a student I didn't care about the ban in class - seemed reasonable to me and generally fair.

The rules that bothered me were the ones I thought were unfair or didn't make sense - not being able to use the phone in the hallway or between classes to call a parent/organize something later in the day. We had teachers that would grab it out of your hand and take it from you.

Our school also had an 'upstairway' and a 'downstairway' though where you'd get yelled out for going down the upstair way and have to lap the building to get to the downstairway though so they weren't really about reason.

> Our school also had an 'upstairway' and a 'downstairway' though where you'd get yelled out for going down the upstair way and have to lap the building to get to the downstairway though so they weren't really about reason.

It may seem like no reason to you, but I've witnessed a much higher flow of people when the direction is set and nobody goes "against the current".

This is one mistake I made the first time I went to Japan: I was going "against the current" at the train station and clueless me was wondering why it was taking so much effort for me to make progress...

Even entrances to some public bathrooms now have a divider that splits people entering from people exiting (you can see this at airports sometimes).

Yeah but when you have 3min to get to your next class (or you get detention), you can't run, hallways are crowded, and you have to walk across the building to get to your class that's right downstairs it feels a bit kafkaesque.

We also weren't allowed to talk during lunch for half of it.

> We also weren't allowed to talk during lunch for half of it.

You’re giving me ideas - a child who likes to chat and isn’t particularly interested in food can draw out a meal for an eternity.

> not being able to use the phone in the hallway or between classes

I was confused about some of these, like a teacher literally posted at the bathroom door and would only let X kids in at a time, and time them. Turns out it's because a few bad kids take advantage and do stupid shit, so they have to impose draconian policies.

The 'no phone in hallway' thing was probably half to get kids into class on time, and half to stop drug deals, gang fights and sexting. This goes on in "nice" schools.

I suspect you're right that they had some reason behind it they never discussed with us (and couldn't provide when asked), but it's not very effective (drug deals and sexting still happen anyway) - meanwhile I felt like they had no respect for us and so I had little for them as a result.

I think to some extent people rise to the standard expected of them - if you don't respect kids at all and have draconian rules that prevent them from doing basic things they'll just dismiss you as an obstacle.

I feel the same. Unfortunately, the teachers are told what to do by the principal, and the principal is told what to do by the parents and the school board, and both of those groups are comprised mostly of total jackasses.

No teachers ever taught me as fast as a computer can today. State school are an anachronism.

Out of curiosity, how would you say you "learned how to learn", so to speak? Did it just come naturally to you? Was it a parent who taught you?

Can you cite studies showing that unsupervised online education is more effective than supervised/classroom?

> “In reality, the ban has already been made. I don’t know a single teacher in this country that allows the use of phones in class.”

Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school. Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not.

> Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school

Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working will probably be more valuable to these students, in the long run, than scoring a few extra minutes of Instagram. It isn't like they can't use their phones once off campus.

> Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working

How many years do kids spend in school? And how long do you think it takes to learn how to do that? Surely not more than one year.

Arguments of the form "They need to learn how to behave in later life, therefore they should spend 12 years behaving that way" are wrong. (The conclusion may be correct, but the reasoning is not.) Given that it takes only x years to learn that, the question is whether it's worth having them behave that way in the remaining 12-x years.

So why not use a dumb phone as a cell; They're cheaper too!

Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not.

The generation that invented smartphones did not have smartphones in class

They don’t have to be a big part of your life. Let the battery die on Friday night and don’t pick it up again until Monday morning. You might be surprised how you spend your time and how much more of it you appear to have.

If all their peers are banned from using phones as well, there won't be much happening on social media during school hours - so nothing lost there.

My thought as a University student and only a year ago - high school student:

Phones are a really great learning aid. There are also people who prefer to listen and participate more actively in lessons instead of writing down everything written on the whiteboard, with a smartphone they can just take a picture of the whiteboard.

Smartphones are the smallest thesaurus and translator you can get.

Smartphones can graph or take the derivative of any function you want. Wolfram alpha is a wonderful application.

Smartphones can quickly give you the life background of any author. Which helps immensely when analysing literature.

I've never experienced any real problems at school in relation to phones, as the teacher could just tell you to put it away. They have all the power to give you an F if you don't abide.

Admittedly, I've been both at a good highschool and a good University, but banning phones seems like not taking the time to show students how to use those effectively, and at the same time tries to hide the issue of people just not being interested in their lessons. And a lack of phone won't help you grab their interest. They'll switch to talking with each other additionally disturbing those who do want to pay attention.

This sounds like a persuasive essay just lists facts without researching the benefit/detriment of each.

Taking a picture of a whiteboard is not the same as writing/typing notes.. and no, teacher's don't have the luxury of failing kids due to ignoring phone rules (unfortunately).

there are few things as useless as taking a picture of the whiteboard

Your mileage may vary. Sometimes I like to write everything down, number by number, symbol by symbol, but oftentimes I prefer to talk to the teacher about what he's writing to understand it better but keep it for future reference.

Writing down aids memory, but not understanding in my experience.

In complex topics like discrete mathematics it's been a lifesaver to me.

Phones weren't allowed in my high school 10 years ago. Everyone still used them. They were huge distractions to students and also to teachers since they spent a lot of time policing. Teachers were not allowed to give you an F for having it, they would just take it and give you in-school suspension. Talking in class was much easier for a teacher to police than being on your phone. We got very good at hiding it. I held my phone by using the back of my knee, bending my leg to pinch the phone in place, then typing a text or Google search until I needed to look.

No one was using them for educational purposes.

In European schools, students are generally not graded by the teacher durectly, but through tests (though the teachers produce reports to parents). Thus, the option for the teacher to dole out an F to phone (ab)users is not available.

Thankfully.

Personally I think the American system whereby your grades are dictated by your teacher is quite vulnerable to all kinds of issues, but maybe I misunderstand that system.

I live in Europe. In Poland specifically.

I do not mean a final note, just a standard one. Like you may get for a test or homework.

AS someone who was a teacher at A-level (age 16-18) in the UK for 17 years until last year.... I think you may be right in the best case scenario, but my experience is that the number of pupils who use smartphones (or the wider internet) as such is vanishingly small. Most people don't have the mental discipline to use it for the amazing academic tool it could be, and the bright, shiny things of social media etc fritter away their attention. I don't think the last argument ('they'll talk anyway') holds much water - it's possible for pupils to look as if they are working but are actually on a phone; other forms of interaction are much more easily detected (two or more kids talking, etc).

I was made redundant from both my (part time) teaching jobs around this time last year (through no fault of my own or performance, I hasten to add!) and I have ZERO intention of ever going back - my (anecdotal, of course) experience of the education landcape and students' interest and behaviour (which I feel is significantly due to the attention-leeching effects of their constant exposure to smartphones) led the last 3/4 years to be a horrible experience that I wouldn't repeat if they paid me double what I was previously earning. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I am greatly concerned about the effect that such technology (and unmonitored use most of the time) is going to have on those who have been exposed to it since a very early age (who will be coming through the education system in the next 10 years or so).

So the smart ones have to suffer for the students that dont want to learn; so lets just force them to not use tools to learn more efficiently. Hammer the nail that sticks out. We shall all be equally ignorant. Viva el socialismo!

Is it really because of political agenda though, or rather an issue of scale?

From a scale perspective you have basically 2 choices.

1) Treat kids like adults, let them do whatever so long as it doesn't impact others around them, and if they flunk, so be it.

2) Assume kids don't know best and impose rules you can enforce at scale, with the end goal hopefully being they learn the subject.

Either option gets you boatloads of complaints and anecdotes, depending on your perspective.

If you don't want efficient but merciless scaling (perhaps it's not working?), then we should explore another (new?) approach that lives within or expands upon (good luck!) the economic constraints. Ultimately we settle on something that seems "good enough", meeting as much of 1) and 2) without going bankrupt.

Something tells me that less than 1 percent use the phone like that. Most of them would text, watching various social media crap with nothing related to the class. To use them effectively the teacher should be able to put all the phones in a "class" mode with restricted apps and content.

None of that is relevant to active classroom learning when the teacher needs the class's attention (except the pictures, but I agree with peer posts about that). Those are fine during study & homework, though.

Oh how the times have changed! I graduated from high school over 18 years ago and ANY cell phone was confiscated and you had to go see the principal to get it back.

I remember many trips to the office to get my pager back

To be clear: phones have been banned in most French schools for years, but faculty had no legal authorization to actually touch the phone or look at it to ensure that it was off.

I haven't read the actual text of the law, but I believe that it gives faculty the authorization to do just that.

I've heard the same about a school in my town. Apparently, what is planned is a confiscation by the school of any phones teachers will see in the school.

I guess this is different for private and religious schools. Our son's catholic school had no problem confiscating phones, 3DS's, or card games. To take them home them and the parent would need to pick it up from the headmaster's office.

Hum. Don't tell your kid, but I don't think that's legal :)

In a private school where the policy is clearly stated and the parents signed their agreement, this is a perfectly legal.

Surprised they weren't banned already. How can a teacher droning about valence levels possibly compete with instagram feeds, and much more so for younger kids.

Possibly even, aspects of smartphone use should be treated as a potential health risk, in the same ways as alcohol, tobacco, sugar, etc. (though not all of those are treated appropriately yet)

There was no law about this but school staff sometimes enforced it anyway.

To me, banning smartphones at school is an urgent measure taken to face a fundamental, but misunderstood, change in society. Why not use smartphones to improve education rather than seeing it like a threat?

My guess is that 1) most teachers have no idea how to teach using smartphones, and 2) the new digital economy is threatening the job of teachers.

Actually there was already a law from 2010, which was stricter than the new one and, therefore, not applied in any school.

This one is lighter in the way that now, the phone can be used outside teaching hours (so between lessons) and on certain events (like museum visits or sports event during school time)

And as always in France, it’s a law above a law above another law, etc...

But French president Macron was very proud of it, so bravo...

Well I am curious how much effort will be put into it. In the US local governments cannot even keep cell phones out of prisons, the State of Georgia was confiscating over ten thousand phones per year.

With regards to children in school we need to just start early and teach them that not using one in class is being courteous to their teachers and others while at the same time perhaps offering them more time between classes to check their phones. It is just a matter of showing them how it should be done and rewarding proper behavior.

Re: sugar in schools: I am currently trying to break a sugar addiction and having more trouble than I had coming off several types of addictive drugs.

I've always wondered about this: How much is that a problem with letting go of sugar, and how much is it finding things that don't have sugar in them?

When I quit drinking, (1L vodka/day for years cold turkey), I craved sugar like nothing else in the world. If removing sugar from your diet is anything like getting sober, I feel GP's pain.

This is interesting. I did some quick googling, heavy drinking interferes with insulin, maintenance of blood sugar levels.

> Frequent heavy drinkers can wipe out their energy storage in a few hours.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312918.php

Eggs and cheese are pretty easy to find so that can't be it. Plus if you've done a keto diet (I assume that's what is meant by getting over a "sugar addiction") for a length of time, the cravings are real, and sometimes interesting (e.g. craving things you haven't had or thought about for years even pre-diet).

I think most people who have trouble getting on and sticking with a keto diet are more addicted to easy-access food variety rather than particular foods. They'll succumb to the easy-to-order pizza delivery in larger part due to its easy-to-order and being-something-different properties rather than the craving for pizza/sugar itself being too strong. Keto is easy if you don't mind the monotony of the same easy-access food for almost every meal, or enjoy cooking enough to make a large variety of food. If you do mind, that'll probably have to go first, sugar or no sugar.

Sugar is basically banned in french schools though.

They aren't allowed to bring cookies or anything else that includes sugar, or all school-provided meals (I hear you guys eat warm for lunch) are without sugar, or how is that implemented?

I'm really not sure how I feel about highschoolers having phones.

On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation and practical/logistical problems.

On the other hand, the whole point of most of the smartphone ecosystem is to manipulate people and these people are especially prone to that.

Highschoolers therefore should be only allowed to use completely free (as in freedom) community maintained software/OS/hardware devices.

How about educating kids on the proper use of such powerful tools, including the concepts of FLOSS (and, in general, how to question and think critically)? TV is not the problem, having more kids watching Jersey Shore rather than some good documentaries is.

I agree that we should be educating children on healthy device usage. However, having a computer in your pocket that is connected to the internet 24/7 is an entirely different beast than any other mode of entertainment.

It's hard, these apps are built by a huge amount of people to maximize attention hogging and addiction. Fighting addiction without going cold turkey is nearly impossible. Awareness usually doesn't help. Further more, it is hard teaching people to think critically while their faces are stuck to their phone.

> On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation

That may be true for banning individuals, who might end up excluded from activities everyone else is doing. A blanket ban would have different effects, since it's excluding everyone, who can find other activities (or ways around the ban) to do together.

You're definitely right about practical/logistical problems though.

Like much of education policy, this seems to help some at the expense of harming others.

For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects.

For the lackluster students, this policy will help some pay attention to class, learn lessons, and complete work.

In general, however, I'd have to say I'm against it. Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences.

> For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects.

Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill.

> Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences.

This argument does not really apply completely to children. And it is not ignorance; they're free to use their phones as they please, after class is done.

I agree with many posters here: phones have been designed explicitly to rob you of your attention span. The amount of willpower and self understanding to deal with that healthily is far more than what most children can muster.

absolutely - teaching my kids how to entertain themselves for a couple of hours has been one of the major challenges in raising them. A combination of parents scheduling the entire life of a kid and always-available media has made it very hard for a tween to just "find something to do" for an afternoon.

> Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill.

There is a whole book on that topic:

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06VTZYPTF

I just missed the dawn of smartphones, so my boredom remedy all throughout school was tossing a cheap paperback in my backpack. It was downright comical to get yelled at for pulling out a book and reading when you'd finished your work early though.

School is not about "freedoms". The point is to learn.

The French education system has many problems, but this isn't one of them.

> widespread banning of freedoms

School is compulsory to begin with

That is true.

But good teachers often still try to empower their students to learn on their own.

"ignorance of new technologies"

Smartphone addiction is a major problem. Limiting its destructive grip during school so that kids can be prepared for the real world and life in general is a good thing. It's not ignorance of technology that drives these bans, but a profound understanding of its effects on kids.

I'm honestly very relieved I graduated from high school just before the iPhone was released (+ early FB days). JR HS + HS were anxiety-inducing enough...I can't imagine what it's like now.

Good on France. Now all they need to do is mandate OCaml, the great French programming language and they will own the next 10 years.

This is where the UK blundered in the 80s, the government should have bought a million Archimedes for the entire public sector and jumpstarted the U.K. tech industry. We would be 30 years ahead of where we are today.

I would like to see how this is implemented. As far as I know it's been proved impossible.

This is how it was here in the US when I was a kid in the 90's with pagers and cellphones. I don't see what the big deal is. I'm surprised it's taken this long. I don't know how schools are today, but I would assume they would not have changed the rules and such things would still be banned in all of high school and below. If not, maybe parents should ask their schools why they changed the rules? Assuming of course that they don't want their kids to be on their cellphone 100% of the time in school, something that's inevitable if they are allowed to have them.

If you can have "airplane mode" you can surely come up with some type of "school mode" (apps locked and calls in/out to certain specific numbers). Also nothing in the article re: smartwatches.

There is a "school mode": Off.

That may ask for parents unlock.

I think that could be done today with mobile management device profiles. Of course that would require quite a bit of IT infrastructure, which means money, and that is a tight resource in schools so probaby not feasible.

Phones are a distraction to an institution that refuses to evolve. We don't work the same way, we don't entertain the same way but for some reasons we teach the same way as a 100 years ago...

Who is this "we"? Are you talking for all hundreds of thousands of schools of the world? All schools of France? Who are you speaking for?

I think you should read again my comment, the "we" doesn't refer to anything you mentioned.

"We" as people in developed countries who have the luxury of having kids in high school with smartphone.

Let me rephrase that.

People in developed countries don't work the same way as a 100 years ago. (farming, manufacturing, etc.)

People in developed countries don't entertain the same way s a 100 years ago. (social media, TV, etc.)

Almost everything is different. So, why are we trying to teach the same way as a 100 years ago?

I will be supportive of this when adults decide to ban cellphones in cars when in the driver's seat. Studies show driver's even with handless systems are significantly more likely to get into car crashes.

If you support curtailing young people's cell phone use but don't support curtailing the use by adults which has proven to lead to traffic fatalities I'd have to ask you why.

First regular cell phone use is already banned in a lot of places, and everywhere has a general distracted driving law on the books. It's pretty tough to surf facebook or instagram hands-free.

Second, your essentially saying I'll support a ban that students don't like when drivers stop putting everyone a risk on our roads - why the linkage? You could support both today, or either independently. This sort of linear-justification derails a lot of necessary change with artificial preconditions.

It is illegal in a lot of countries if I'm reading this page correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safe...

Smartphones should've been banned from schools 5-6 years ago. It's too late now. These days kids start tapping smartphone/tablet screens at a really young age. Taking away there smart devices now is like sending them to school blindfolded. Doesn't matter if they use smartphones for work or as a distraction, they're hooked!

I find it amusing and not surprising that a country like France would ban it at the national level.

My daughter's (private) middle school in Washington State bans cellphones during school, which must remain in lockers. However, it is a paperless school, so they use laptops during class.

My school had a very simple method in dealing with this. The phone got confiscated until the end of the semester. That was also in the late 90s. It was effective.

Just use one after school. I see zero problems. Allow one to be used at lunch hour if you feel it’s an infringement not to be able to post a selfie for 8h straight?

This seems sensible, when I was at school we had dumb phones and even those were banned.. And all you could do on those was text message each other!

> The measure prohibits the use of tablets, computers, and other internet-connected devices as well.

Ban phones, sure, but no computers? Bring back the typewriter?

The ban only concerns "students under the age of 15", who typically take notes on paper. The teacher can also make an exception for pedagogical purpose.

> There are exceptions in place for students with disabilities and for the educational use of devices in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities

Sure but they also use Google and Wikipedia etc.

Under 15? Not really, can use purely offline sources for that generic material. Good skill as well. Still should have a basic computing class though, perhaps wrapped into a library class.

In my experience all printed material is incomplete, obsolete, or one-sided and frequently all three.

That is not to talk about materials that can't be encoded as text, such as instructions and how-tos for whatever the French version of shop-class is.

You would propose that students be taught such subjects as the French revolution, based on what materials are available in the school library? How can you even ethically do that, when the kids probably can't even get the complete text of the Tennis court oath?

I very much doubt the historical consensus about French revolution changed in last 1-4 years since last high school history books were updated and printed.

> In my experience all printed material is incomplete, obsolete, or one-sided and frequently all three.

Maybe you should stop reading exclusively tabloids...

On a serious note, a middle schooler writing a report on the founding fathers will have plenty of resources available to them in the school library.

There are no computers in class in French schools AFAIK; there are computer classes but in normal class everyone takes notes on paper. I sure hope it stays this way for as long as possible.

an article that I read about this claimed that turned off phones were allowed... It is still a step in the right direction though...

tl;dr psa for everyone: configure your phone for grayscale, least animation, vibrate-only and turn off most notifications.

Smartphones are mental cocaine. Look around a city almost anywhere and most people are hunched over, staring at glowing glass and oblivious to almost everything... so much so the Dutch are putting crosswalk lights on the ground to keep people from walking into traffic while they’re getting their fix. It’s clearly unhealthy as focus, socialization and personal safety suffer.

What's the difference between that and a book? Lots of people reading books on the subway, oblivious to almost everything around them...

Yes.

This is going to be very pop-pshychology, but I feel like smartphones are almost gambling-adjacent. Flashing lights and constant, small hits of dopamine.

Gotta ask, what kind of apps do you have on your phone? Flashing lights??

Now if only we could do this in America...

Or maybe you should move to France.

Typical statist mindset.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

There's more to life than homework, even when you're in school. If I have my work done and want to read Slashdot or Ars Technica, or if I'm between classes and want to check the news, that's really not something that should be banned at the national level.

You don't need to read the news every day, let alone every hour of the day.

It's an addiction to the way news is currently produced.

It's entirely reasonable to spend an evening a week reading up on tech news. It's not reasonable to have a compulsion to check the news whenever you have a down minute.

I'm guilty of that myself, I'm currently writing this while a program compiles but I wouldn't wish this on a developing mind.

Besides, there are other places where news and the internet is available, why shouldn't places legislate away having that 24/7 on smartphones during school.

The older I get the more I realize that just because something is good for the average person doesn't mean it should be the law for everyone. There are billions of ways to go through life, and sometimes the freedom to make and learn from mistakes is just as important as a formal education.

I’m arriving at the opposite conclusion as I age. Exceptional people are so rare that it seems to make more logistical sense to ignore them and let them bend the rules themselves. Kind of like a browser leaving advanced features to power users.

For example, the vast majority of kids in school are using their smartphones to do stuff like watch Ninja play Fortnite on Twitch, not whatever self-enriching bullshit we can point out they could be doing.

Also, when I was a kid, there was no greater injustice than my parents kicking me off the computer to go outside. Ugh, don’t they know how productive I’m being?! But boy do I understand as an adult. What better time to learn how to entertain yourself without a computer screen than in school?

> You don't need to read the news every day

As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings.

Children don't get the vote either.

Probably why this law passed.

> As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings.

Why? To poison your mind with lies and misrepresentations of reality? To get distracted from important issues and spend lots of time following irrelevant dramas?

Mainstream news has negative informational value these days.

Obviously you have the special truth from the only true source, and all news media is fake except for the ones who hawk gold pills and testosterone boosters - they know how it really is.

The news can do better, I'm sure we can all agree, but let's not go over the top on either side. I doubt GP is QAnon and doubt all news media makes brain juice drip out of your ears.

I don't have any special truth from a true source; I just believe that a typical news story is mostly misinformation intended to drive pageviews instead of presenting accurate picture of reality. I don't think adding more false information helps get a more true picture. I mean, you could try to tease out some true information by "averaging" news from multiple distinct sources, but that's pretty much a full-time job, and most news are just a waste of time.

(I mean, seriously. Doesn't everyone here know of Gell-Mann amnesia? Or are people just afraid to follow it to its logical conclusion?)

Under the age of 15?

That's halfway through highschool. I picked actual examples of sites I visited in highschool. I also played video games and learned how to hack the terminal server (a bit). But generally not in the middle of a lecture.

Typical prohibitionist mindset. Lots of people use X, we don't like X, we ban X instead of understanding how to properly and moderately integrate X into our lives. Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices. If we keep blaming the ineptitude of teachers on devices the quality of education will never progress.

EDIT: part of the education process is to teach kids how to use and not abuse these devices and when it's appropriate to use them for entertainment. Telling them "you can play Fortnite for an hour after you finish this math challenge" is way better than "you can't play Fornite at school!". I remember having the same policy applied for when I was in school and we would play Pokemon TCG. When it was banned we would play in secrecy during class, when they gave up and allowed us to play during recess we stopped playing during class. It's just common sense.

Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices.

My experience is certainly the opposite. I do all my best learning without smartphones and without tablets.

You prefer other devices, not everyone does. Most people nowadays own a smartphone but not a laptop. And books are arguably less engaging than apps for a generation that grew up not reading them (hard to swallow, since I'm an avid reader, but it's true).

You said they were GREAT learning devices.

I agree that some people may prefer them, but they're still awful learning devices compared to more conventional learning devices, and especially so in a classroom.

In Netherlands they've been using all kinds of IT devices for 10+ years (depending on the school, etc). Recently a study was published which made clear that it doesn't benefit at all plus that books + notepad might be more beneficial. Cannot find the article about it.

The idea that you think smartphones are an apt replacement for books and laptops indicates a failure to evaluate both.

Kind of funny that you say this when smartphones and tablets are fundamentally designed to consume whereas a laptop is designed to create - but somehow a laptop is not included as a "great learning device" - what kind of "learning" are we even talking about?

Laptops can be good for typing I guess, but for audio, video, or just drawing I'd rather have a tablet.

You can consume and produce good content with smartphones as well. Just not the same kind you would with a laptop. Are you saying that "playing" Duolingo on my phone isn't teaching me anything?

> Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices.

I believe studies have shown that gadgets do more harm than good in school environments.

> If we keep blaming the ineptitude of teachers on devices the quality of education will never progress.

Even if smartphones really are a hindrance?

Tools are never a hindrance. Their misuse is. And I don't need a citation since those are just tools for consuming content and the "learning" part depends on the content, not on the tool. Try playing Math workout and tell me if you're not learning arithmetic a lot faster than with any other traditional "exercise".

Except if you leave a teen with a smartphone, he won't play Math Workout, but rather browse Instagram. Not all classes can be "gamefied" like this too. And I don't think our current education board has the knowledge to use the tool, so I think it's a better solution.

If it's about properly using the tools, then surely books win. All you have to do is use them properly.

"guns don't kill people; people kill people"

"Hey kids what are you going to do with your screen time today? daily endless-runner challenge? collect gems for virtual powerups? or Math Workout?"

You seem to be looking at this through the lens of best case scenario. These are kids, many if all of them are probably mid puberty. The phones are not being used to take notes. They are playing fortnight, doing whatever replaced texting at this point, and generally just ignoring the lesson.

That's because kids are not educated on how to properly use them. It's like saying that YouTube is not being used to learn stuff. You can watch crappy videos or you can learn how to multiply like Japanese kids. It's all about content, not devices.

Those kids and their newspapers! I bet all they are ever going to do is read the news and not focus on the lesson. Can't they read that muck-racking when they get home? It's going to rot their brains! Don't even get me started on that overtly sexual and disgusting ballroom dancing!

"Back in your day," were you allowed to just pull out a newspaper in the middle of class and read it? I find that doubtful.

Would you allow students to come to class with their own TV and to watch it whenever they want? Because, in a school setting, that's exactly what phones and tablets are: distraction engines.

That's a great phrase - 'distraction engines' - which my stepkids will be sick of fairly quickly. Love the TV analogy, BTW.

Teachers are there to teach you math science etc not how to use your cell phone responsibility that lesson falls on your parents.

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