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Comment by Throwaway204044 | Hacker News Reader

Throwaway204044

Silent phone usage doesn't impact the class, it impacts the individual using the phone.

Why should my education and social life be negatively impacted because individuals decide to indulge in self-destructive behaviours? I use my laptop because it's significantly more effective for my education than pen and paper.

To answer your point, the group of people who are affected by this are people who use their laptops for notes. This isn't "a fairly small group of people". I'm just affected more than most: it eliminates my ability to take notes, rather than reducing the efficacy.

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> Why should my education and social life be negatively impacted because individuals decide to indulge in self-destructive behaviors?

Because although a teacher cannot make someone learn, it is the teacher's responsibility to create an environment which is as conducive to learning as possible. And:

>> Apple, Google et. al. have spent massive fortunes developing a technology that is excellent at commanding the attention of even quite committed students.

I'm guessing you've never had to give lectures to students who are staring at screens instead of your presentation and are clearly not paying attention? It's distracting for the lecturer as much as it is for the students in the room and it makes the job much more challenging to focus. No one wants to give a lecture to a room of people who are uninterested in the material.

What happens when your disability collides with the disability of another student?

What if a student with ADHD says that they find the clickity-clackity of your keyboard distracting?

But if half the class is fiddling with their phone instead of paying attention or engaging with the class it does begin to impact it overall.

I would say it depends how the class is done. In my opinion all class material should be available as pdf before the class, and during the class students should just ask what they didnt understood from the material. Any good question can be included in faq's material for the next year

> Silent phone usage doesn't impact the class, it impacts the individual using the phone.

That’s just not true. You decided to attend class, you are taking up a seat. You count toward the outcome for the class and what you do and don’t do affects the class as a total. If you decide to half ass it, that affects the class. At the end of the year if every student fails. A teacher can’t just go: “but that’s not a problem with the class, that’s an individual problem for each student, the class was perfect they all individually just weren’t good enough”

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