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The students you mentioned are probably more nervous about the $1000+ device now not in their control than they are as a ‘withdrawal’ symptom. I’m happy to show the device being turned off and out in a backpack in those situations, but I’m not letting it out of my possession. I’d sooner just not take it with me in the first place.

Taking my own phone into a hostile situation on the other hand, why would you? I don’t even take my own phone when travelling for business.

> I don’t even take my own phone when travelling for business.

Huh? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Being on business travel is exactly when I want my phone.

That’s what your business phone is for.

Burner business phone?

Maybe just reuse the phone number?

Most would certainly want a phone, but the borders one crosses and the government policies around those crossing may disincentivize bringing your personal phone.

Yeah this is a good point. Maybe it’s solvable with simple tech like this: https://www.amazon.com/brotrade-Hanging-Jewelry-Organizer-Je...

Get a similar soft display case with compartments big enough to hold cell phones, and have it displayed at the front of the class where everyone can see them. You put your phone in one of the “pouches,” you can see it the whole time you’re taking an exam, you pick it back out once you’re done.

I’m not sure what a practical method of ensuring you get the right phone back would be, but I can think of a few schemes. For example, each pouch has a uniquely numbered card, and when you put your phone in there, you take the card. Then you put the card back when you pick your phone back up. It would probably be helpful to have 1 or 2 visual indicators that you got it right, like the coordinates from the card also printed on the clear plastic in a way that’s easy to see them match, plus maybe a color scheme where a stripe or sticker of some kind on the clear plastic matches the color of the card itself. (This all to prevent accidental mix ups, not theft. The main benefit I see is letting the people still taking the exam feel confident that their phone is visible to them and it’ll remain where it is until they pick it up.)

Highly disagree. We all have things that cost money that we don’t think about every 10 seconds. Even your own example, leaving your phone while on a business trip is fine. But having it in a box a few feet away is somehow anxiety inducing because of its cost?

What if some asshole throws theirs into the pile and cracks the screen of yours? What if the box gets turned over and phones spill to the floor?

Those are objective risks. Then you should also factor in subjective belief that when the phone is in your hands then you control its safety, while when it's out of your hands then anything can happen. When you're not in control, you tend to get pretty anxious.

Then you can add in other nightmares. What if the screen gets scratched? What if the phone gets crushed? What if someone takes your phone and accidentally drops it? What if they take it and leave with it? What if someone spills their coffee into the box? What if someone touches your phone with their filthy greasy hands and you get corona because of that?

Yes we can “what if” the situation to death but that’s not really of much use to anyone. The phones being described are presumably stationary without anyone throwing anything on the pile, since we’re talking about an exam environment.

The exam guards can start with saying: "There is no need to worry. We will not drop your phones on the stone floor, and no one will take your phone by accident just because it looks the same." The students will then look relaxed :-)

tbh as a kid, i 100% definitely would have been worries about someone claiming my phone is theirs, on purpose

I still am, as an adult.

Mildly worried about both on purpose and by accident.

(My GP comment was meant ironically, like, wouldn't this be crazy if: ...)

> While running an exam I asked students to switch off their phones and put them in a box at the front of the hall. Half were resistant. I had to expel two for refusing and another who sneaked-in a second phone that rang during the examination. Many of the remaining students were distracted, looking nervously at the box every minute.

Seems like you are looking for conflict trying to be abrasive and prove your prejudice. This is especially the case now since many people use cases which are also wallets for your credit cards. Would you be comfortable leaving your wallet in a pile of other wallets in a box you can't control?

The easy way of doing it, which I personally experienced during countless exams, is that all phones needs to be turned off and put in your bag. The bag is then stashed out along the walls or hung on hooks. Then you can both keep an eye on your bag, knowing that no one will ruffle around in it and the exam watchers can easily make sure that only allowed materials are on the desks. Magically there's no opportunity for conflict.

Sure, someone inevitably forgot to turn off their second morning alarm and then an exam watcher and the person would together walk to the bag and under supervision turn it off. No need to escalate it into something more than it is.

Indeed. Put it in your own bag and you're good, I wouldn't trust a box filled with mobile phones. Someone is bound to take the wrong one home when they're done, someone might even steal one. There is really no need to create that unnecessary stress when you're already writing an exam.

> Seems like you are looking for conflict trying to be abrasive and prove your prejudice.

With respect, it sounds as if you have some issues with authority. The chaps were told weeks in advance. The box was for their safety. It's not a theatrical magicians box that disappeared down a trap door in a puff of smoke while my scantily clad assistant made big eyes and cooing noises. It's just a clear plastic storage cube in full view the whole time - really no different than having it on the desk in front of you, just a few feet further away.

> Would you be comfortable leaving your wallet in a pile of other wallets in a box you can't control?

Absolutely yes, in the hands of a trusted figure, if protocol demanded it. I have to put my gear through a scanner every time I fly. Damnit, I have to put my life in the hands of others. It's something you get used to as you grow. We're not all in in control all the time.

> Sure, someone inevitably forgot to turn off their second morning alarm

You're making my point for me. The example I am giving is just a crummy maths exam. People are griping about scratched screens and other first world "nightmares". The original article was about getting yourself and all your buddies blown to pieces because of an "inevitable" lack of self-discipline.

As a [near poverty] grad student, I am more concerned with the loss of the device than with "cheating" in an exam. The phone has my cards, contact info, plus its actual value. Understandably, exams are a stressful situation, and risking losing your phone is an added and frankly unnecessary stressor. 250 euro (how much my one plus nord cost me on sale) is not a lot to most people here, but that covers my living expenses (minus rent) for a month or so.

Does this imply that you value passing your course at less than 250 euros? I understand your point about the hassle, but trying to understand the rationality

No it doesn’t, humans don’t work like that.

It implies that I will be performing suboptimally because I will be worried about my livelihood over the examination.

If the instructor had announced, a few weeks before, "Absolutely no cell phones in the exam - leave it at home, or it will go into a box in the front corner of the classroom during the exam, or else you will automatically fail the exam"...would that work (both operationally and psychologically) for you?

Leaving it at home may not be feasible if the student needs to take the metro and they use the ticket apps.

I'd ask whether I can sit at the front, put my phone in my backpack, and store (lock) the backpack in front of the desk so that I can't access it without standing up and making noise.

So far no professor took issue with this.

I think that you are underestimating soldiers emotional need to have contact with wifes, children, parents, friends. Yes, it put them in danger. No it is not just about facebook.

Second, students really dont want to loose phone. Do, they like me have habits - check pocket/bag periodically whether phone is in. If the phone is not where I always have it, I will search for it soon.

It is expensive. People without such habit loose their devices often. And yes I know such people and they buy new phone once nine months or so. Cause the old one got lost.

Mail a letter.

Jesus, yes that is totally the same. Why dont we all mail letter to each other

Consider yourself lucky you live today and not >20 years ago, eh?

You know what, the communication means are better now. Duh.

I was in the Army before smart phones really existed and did a 15 month deployment. While it does indeed suck, soldiers are capable of functioning without continued contact for long periods of time with their families.

I more recently was employed as a mobile device exploitation analyst at DIA and leverages many and more tactics outlined in the article against 'enemies of the state' if you will. The pragmatic thing to do is to properly educate the military and prohibit the use of these devices on deployments. Alas, that'll never happen though.

Literally no one said they are "incapable of functioning".

What I am saying is that characterizing use of tech as pointless Facebook post is argument base on lie. It is designed to make us feel certain way, it is designed to mock those soldiers, but it is not designed to be true.

Are we underestimating the power and importance of connection to family and home?

Given that soldiers went to great lengths to write letters from trenches, it seems like war might suck and it may be nice to hear from mom or the wife.

On the other hand, if your army has shitty comma gear having a cellphone might be useful as a fallback communication option, but I probably would prefer to use previously locally acquired sims…

This has been going on for a long time and affects Western nations just as much as what's happening in Ukraine.

Remember all those Strava (and other) fitness/running heatmaps from US/UK bases in Iraq/Afghanistan back in the day?

It's like you need some phone isolation practice time before the exam also. One class a month with phones in the box.

Maybe schools should not then demand that students carry cellphones. Let them register for courses oldschool, using paper forms. Let them submit work in hard copy. And give up on all those emergency/amber alert/active shooter notification schemes. Stop asking for personal phone numbers on every form.

What school requires students to carry cell phones?

All registration and homework is online at my college, and signing into anything has enforced two-factor authentication now. Phones aren't optional anymore. K-12 might be a different situation. Still lots of material online, especially post-covid. I don't think many high-schools use enforced 2FA though.

Aren't those things you'd mostly do at home? I can't think of a single reason I would strictly need to bring my personal phone to university. Worst case I'd sign into one of the provided computers.

Asking for schools to go backwards on technology is kind of the opposite of what we want. Schools already get enough flack for not preparing students for “the real world”.

> Many of the remaining students were distracted, looking nervously at the box every minute.

There are many possible reasons to look at the phone. Some were mentioned in comments, I can add two more.

It may be a reflex action triggered by the need to consult google. Not the real attempt to google, but when my mind suggested such a possibility to me, my eyes could flicker in a direction of my phone.

Another possible reason is the process of rehearsing. If I was rehearsing answers using the phone, then I would try to look at my phone on each question needing a mental effort to answer. It is how memory works: when you trying to remember what you had read in a book you will look at the book or at least imagine the book.

Or third reason. A neurotic reaction. Exam is a stressful experience, while phone often used to relax, to shut down external reality and to get some rest. So students are trying to get grip on themselves by taking a phone, but stop themselves from doing it. Probably they stop not just because their phone is unreachable, but because it is an exam and not a time to relax. But their mind keeps trying to use phone as a tool of self-regulation. If phone was in their pocket, they would touch it sometimes without looking.

These things are not drugs but a new part of a human body. Like pants. Or even better, like glasses. I use glasses from my childhood, and I refuse to use contact lenses, because I feel myself naked without my glasses. I feel every movement of the air. It is disturbing. If you asked me to take an exam without my glasses, you probably would watched how I sometimes reach my nose with my hand, trying to touch my glasses founding everytime that I wear no glasses now. Or how sometimes I look longingly in a direction were my glasses are. I would do all this while being absorbed in an exam, and probably wouldn't remember it afterwards.

> These things are not drugs but a new part of a human body. Like pants. Or even better, like glasses.

The big difference is that glasses are a clear net positive. It is possible for phones to be a net positive but a phone is multipurpose and I doubt most of there users prioritize it as an educational device.

Sadly behavior like mindless scrolling is all to common, and companies know and measure success by sucking in more of there users minutes. The goal of these companies isn’t to maximize productive and meaningful minutes. The goal is to get any minutes at all. Sadly those mostly seem to come from the more drug-like use cases.

> If phone was in their pocket, they would touch it sometimes without looking.

I am old enough to remember people doing that with packs of cigarettes. Automatically or subconsciously touching the pack for comfort at an interval when not actively smoking.

I have remarked on this behavior in myself and my phone.

Yet no one in government finds a reason to curtail the privacy invasion aspect or the gross level of location tracking they do.

> These things are drugs

Dopamine dosing systems.