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Comment by internetter | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people in the comments supporting cellphone bans in school. To play the devil's advocate: the role of high school is to transition students between childhood and adulthood. In adulthood, nobody will tell you to get off your phone. You will simply suffer repercussions if you cannot preform. If you can perform, nobody should care. So why are we babying students by incessant confiscation and phone cubby nonsense? "ok 17 year olds! lets put our phones away in our numbered phone cubbies!!"

Redirect them, sure. Teach about tech literacy. Find the middleground between these two stages of life. But at this point, it should be ultimately the student's choice.

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It's probably worth reading the actual text of the law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

It says each school district is required to come up with a policy to prohibit or limit smartphone use. The policy has to allow teachers to grant permission for phones, and it says:

> The goal of the policy shall be to promote evidence-based use of smartphone practices to support pupil learning and well-being.

That sounds like the middle ground you're talking about. Kids will have plenty of time to pick up tech skills at home, and they can still be taught tech literacy in class. But that doesn't mean they have to be allowed arbitrary use of phones to disrupt their own learning or their peers', just like they don't have to be allowed to skip as many classes as they want.

Actually I'm of the opinion that highschool students needs to be sheltered, and the focus should be on academics and not necessarily trying to be an adult. There's always time to become an adult later, even if it hits you in the face in your 20s. But there's only a small window to get your academics in order while you're still in highschool.

While I'd love to agree with your opinion, it is unrealistic. 40% of high schoolers will not enroll in college. A further 20% will drop out of college before they graduate. The students that do end up completing college are likely not the students this policy is worried about anyway.

While I'd love to see higher college attendance, the reality is that high school must prepare students for every possible outcome.

Short of jail, nowhere in adulthood are you required to stay somewhere by law.

On top of that, I don’t think the kid quietly using their phone and ignoring class is the main issue here… it’s causing issues with the other kids and making the experience worse for a lot of kids.

> So why are we babying students by incessant confiscation and phone cubby nonsense?

Because your prefontal cortext does not fully grow till you are in your early 20s. A 17 years olds brain is very different from that off a 22 year old. There are different repercussions to arressting development vs letting the brain "grow" and then have it face the issues of the day. Both will still have impact but the latter gives them the best fighting chance.

Arguably a good reason for school to not be the only place teenagers aren't given unfettered access to digital crack.

> Lots of people in the comments supporting cellphone bans in school. To play the devil's advocate: the role of high school is to transition students between childhood and adulthood. In adulthood, nobody will tell you to get off your phone.

You can get fired or people can stop associating with you though. Not allowed to do that to students.

> You will simply suffer repercussions if you cannot preform. If you can perform, nobody should care. So why are we babying students by incessant confiscation and phone cubby nonsense?

Because it disturbs and distracts other students, mostly.

> Redirect them, sure. Teach about tech literacy.

Nobody does that for you in adulthood either though, so that's not a good argument when it's used selectively like that. School is not adulthood, it's totally different, and phones are a pretty insignificant part of that.

There are plenty of jobs where you'll be told to get off your phone. Or, more likely, told to get off the job if you're dumb enough to have your phone out in the first place.

Sure, that may not be most office jobs. But not everyone is a desk monkey.

Not to mention movie theaters, churches, funerals, weddings, the driver's seat of a car, etc.

The other apt comparison is that as an adult, nobody will tell you you can't have liquor, and you'll be expected to moderate it yourself. Shall we stock vending machines full of beer in the cafeteria as well? The dopamine hit from most popular phone apps is no less neurochemically problematic.

I thought the role of school was for teaching kids how to think.

Doesn't take much imagination to think how a viral Chase money "glitch" can get past common sense when kids ignore the lesson and doom scroll tiktok.

There are lots of professional environments where you cannot just use your phone.

Where? Nuclear power plants? I'd wager that at least 95% of high school graduates will be bringing their phones on site.

More secure or controlled environments: Could be in manufacturing, defense, medical, but also some business settings, for example.

there is difference between having your phone with you and using it while on the job. If you are scrolling tiktok on your job, you won't have it for long.

That is exactly the point I was getting at when I wrote

> In adulthood, nobody will tell you to get off your phone. You will simply suffer repercussions if you cannot preform. If you can perform, nobody should care.

On the job, you will fail if you have a tiktok addiction. On the job, there are no phone cubbies.

You’ll also fail at a job if you have a crippling gameboy addiction, but almost nobody (well—almost no adult) was against banning those in schools.

I graduated highschool 4 years ago. What I remember is about 1/3 of the kids not even paying attention in class and just being on their phones. For honors and ap classes it was a little better, but even then there were always a few kids completely distracted with their cellphones.

If this is the case, question what will happen when the students you describe graduate. Maybe, they will get a reality check. Why didn't that check come in high school? Maybe, they will fail in life. In both cases, the school system has failed them. High school should be a controlled environment that allows youth to safely fail, learn from failure, and grow.

Phone addiction is an immensely complicated problem. This strategy of blanket bans will not rehabilitate students, just as the war on drugs failed prior.

> If this is the case, question what will happen when the students you describe graduate. Maybe, they will get a reality check.

I just went to whole foods the other day and the butcher didn't know how to convert between fractions and decimals. They were American btw, in 20s or 30s

Maybe they'll fail after high school? Who knows? But anyway, at least they'll know how fractions work. At least they'll have basic reading skills and be capable of voting and participating in society

I minored in math and damned if I can be bothered to convert 12/13 to decimal in my head.

That said if it was 1/2 lb and they were having issues... Yeah not good!

I don't think that's exactly fair. I took a few years between high school and college, it's surprising how much basic math skills I forgot how to do. Now, it was simple to relearn that information, but if you asked me at that time how to convert 12/13 to decimal I probably wouldn't be able to do better than a rough approximation.

> but if you asked me at that time how to convert 12/13 to decimal I probably wouldn't be able to do better than a rough approximation

lol now I kind of want to try this at the butchers and see the response I get

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