When I was younger I imagined a world in which computing devices would be a boon to (young) people everywhere.
But many apps appear to be detrimental to people's mental health, both young and old.
Possibly this can be changed. Maybe separate app stores are a solution (think f-droid)? Or maybe we need to start looking a lot harder at apps that might actually be user hostile.
We were often encouraged to use them, in fact. If there was ever a question someone asked that the teachers couldn't answer, or they heard an argument between students about something that could be solved by looking up hard data, they would invite us to take out our phones and look it up. One of the teachers would occasionally make little websites and apps related to whatever we were learning at the time. Sometimes we were shown interesting blog posts, educational youtube videos (before it was an industry), personal sites from people who make things. It was reinforced again and again that they were for discovery first, creation second, and anything else third.
I feel very lucky for that to be how I learned to interact with them. The fact that we have magic machines that can answer any question in our pocket, that can take photos and connect us to people and teach us languages, yet we've corrupted them to the point that people are willingly giving them up and banning them from educational settings, is one of the greatest failings of modern society in my view. Or rather, an indication of even deeper and more troubling problems.
I don't remember anyone "misusing" their smartphones when I was in highschool because the fear of getting it taken away was massive.
It’s a horrible way to optimize technology for addictiveness.
Not sure if there is a fix for that.
Unfortunately when you buy a phone you don't get a link to libgen or a youtube account with DW Classical or Veritasium pre-installed on your phone screen. You get tiktok and instagram and similar slop. If even adults are vulnerable to these turbo-addictive attention harvesters, how can kids hope to escape?
They can call their parents if required from the main office.
This is fantastic and once again shows why Finland is a pioneer in childhood education and why Americans and other countries are so far behind.
Americans sure, but not all other countries e.g. in Singapore, many schools make the students put their smartphones in lockers and don't allow access at all during school hours. In case of emergency, they can call from the Main/General office.