Eton bans smartphone for new pupils | Hacker News Reader

Eton bans smartphone for new pupils

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23 pointsTomte16 comments

I was recently talking with a student at the small college I went to a couple decades ago and he said that many students go to a different, nearby college to party on the weekends. This was very surprising because we tended to look down on that college — our primary rival — when I was in school, and we never would have gone there to party. The student said the parties weren't much better, but that they wanted to avoid the possibility of doing something stupid and having it show up on social media that all their friends see.

I suggested that there could be a smartphone-free dorm, and students who live there would have to have dumb phones or no cell phones. Parties hosted there would have the same rules for all attendees. It would be like how there used to be non-smoking dorms for students and visitors who preferred to live in a smoke-free environment.

> there used to be non-smoking dorms for students and visitors who preferred to live in a smoke-free environment.

What do you mean ‘used to be’? To my knowledge, every dorm in just about every college or university is now non-smoking.

What there no longer are, are smoking dorms.

The thing that changed is now students do not have to select into non-smoking dorms. They are the default — or in many states, the only option.

That was my point: it used to be possible for those who wished to smoke in their rooms to do so, but that choice has been stripped everywhere I am aware of.

Free smokers!

Does anyone know more details: do that phones genuinely have no internet at all, I.e. Couldn't use WhatsApp for messaging? Interested to know how they handle that edge case.

If you want to look at something that will permanently damage a kid’s psyche, maybe boarding school should be higher up your list than smartphones.

> permanently damage a kid’s psyche…boarding school

As a counter-example: my 16 y/o daughter attends an arts boarding school and is as well-adjusted, organized, happy and socially-connected as any teen I’ve encountered. I suppose permanent psychological damage could be latent; but I suspect otherwise.

That said, I’m not sure that Eton’s interventions mentioned in TFA, will have the intended effect; but time will tell.

While Eton and its ilk don't have this particular problem, the ongoing suppression of teachers' salaries limits the length of many teachers' careers: in the UK, half of all teachers leave the profession within five years of joining it. There is also a great deal of emphasis on research and its application, at all levels: individual teachers, schools, and regulatory authorities. These two factors create a mind-boggling rate of change in educational practice.

It's been just two years since I left the classroom, but in that time, I know that current classroom practice will have changed sufficiently that I can no longer claim any authority on how teachers respond to specific situations.

What I can tell you is that any opinion you might have formed about schooling based on your experiences of schooling is no longer relevant. People complaining about not learning how to do their personal finances need to bugger off, because that's now on national curricula, and I know that because I taught that stuff.

Boarding schools are well aware of the damage that they once did to their pupils. That's why fagging[0] has been banned, why pastoral care systems have been reformed, why many schools (including Eton) have raised the age at which they admit boarders to thirteen (instead of eleven), and so on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging

I'm really glad the shift seems to have begun.

Humans are terrible in proactive action, we always wait until net negative developments really mess things up and then we are reactive. The main difference in this case is that in my opinion it is only rarely that a development plagues children so much as smartphones have.

We can only hope that the obliteration of attention spans and the cultivation of addictive behaviours will not leave lasting effects.

What exactly is it about smartphones specifically that have plagued children?

Obliteration of attention spans, introduction and proliferation of (mentally and physically) unhealthy role models, the proven by now adverse effects of social media, the rising teen suicide rates etc etc etc

> Obliteration of attention spans

Assuming this is true (some data would be nice though) how did smartphones themselves contribute to this?

> introduction and proliferation of (mentally and physically) unhealthy role models,

This is such an old phenomenon I'm not entirely sure how to respond. This is not remotely related to the rise of smartphones.

> the proven by now adverse effects on social media

I assume you mean "of". We at least partially agree here, though I think we need to delve a bit deeper into why social media has such adverse effects on our children, instead of just blaming the technology itself.

> the rising teen suicide rates

Again, how do you attribute this to smartphones?

You are one google scholar search away from research showing results that align with what I listed. Would you like me to google it for you? Sure, here is the first example that showed up: 10.1186/s12991-019-0224-8

Is it a contentious field due to novelty and/or the sociopolitical aspect involved ? Sure. Does it seem entirely possible to me, especially after experiencing a detox period from smartphones and high frequency technology ? Definitely. I was stunned at how differently my brain worked after that.

> You are one google scholar search away from research showing results that align with what I listed. Would you like me to google it for you?

Given that the burden of proof is on you, yes, certainly I do. Thanks!

Honestly this seems like a good experiment. I am always looking at my phone, but I’m at a very different stage in life than the students at school. With a Nokia phone, it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another or with their parents.

I do worry that it might make it harder for students that struggle finding a group of peers at school and find community online.

Eton College is probably the most famous school in the world. It's called 'the nursemaid of British statesmen' due to its propensity to churn out future prime ministers. The Conservative Party seems to regard an Old Etonian tie as the only qualification needed for appointment as a Minister of the Crown.

Eton is a Full Boarding school: attending as a Day Boy is not an option. The boys don't just attend classes together; they live together in the boarding houses too.

After classes end for the day, the boys have a mind-boggling array of extracurricular activities. The school has its own golf course and rowing lake. There are so many activities on offer that some don't finish until 10pm.

Any boy who can't find a friend in that environment isn't going to get through the admissions process.

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