- It's so insane that they let things go this far. It could have been immediately obvious to those involved that cell phones in class would have immensely negative effects. I mean they talk about a lunch room "quiet enough to hear a pin drop"??
I think I learned half my basic social skills from lunch rooms in school. That time period is probably more important than any of the classes themselves.
Senior Raya Osagie, 16, said she has to “think more in class” because she used to Google answers or use artificial intelligence. “Now when we get computers, I actually have to [do] deep research instead of going straight to AI,” she said.
This kind of blew my mind a bit, as I had always imagined AI being used to do homework, hadn't occurred to me it could be used during a class as well.
by everdrive
3 subcomments
- Hopefully society continues to develop healthy norms with regard to this sort of technology. Collectively it's taken us a while, but I think people generally are starting to get the picture. Smartphones are bad in a wide variety of ways, but even when people miss some of the nuance I think we can make progress regarding the minimization of their usage.
by duderific
2 subcomments
- > In the cafeteria, Ryan Tripathi, 16, was paging through “Lord of the Flies,” which he said is slow-going. “I'm just not used to reading,” he said. “I’m usually on my phone.”
Damn, that hits pretty hard.
by sp4cec0wb0y
4 subcomments
- It is interesting to see how rapidly social fabrics deteriorated when smartphones came around. I was in highschool from 2014-2018, and for most of the years, I could remember everyone socializing during lunch, break times, and even in the classroom. Which is odd because we had access to smartphones, airpods, and laptops. Perhaps it was because we spent the majority of our lives without them still? Seems to have gotten a lot worse since then.
by sidewndr46
3 subcomments
- This is really funny for me to read because as a kid we were prohibited from having telecommunications devices while at school entirely. We were also prohibited from speaking during lunchtime. Our lunch was most definitely not loud.
by kevinfiol
1 subcomments
- As a millennial, the concept of public school lunch not being loud is weird to me! I always remember the constant chatter of school lunch. Definitely had my share of hearty shared laughs, and heated conversations during lunchtime.
- It makes me so sad that it's possible for technology to steal the need to talk and play, even from our youth. If you have little kids you know how frantically they NEED to yap and play. I hold such horror for anything that would sap such life away.
- I'm guessing that teachers never wanted smartphones in class in the first place and that this was just about pushing back against the helicopter parents.
by getnormality
0 subcomment
- The impact of phones on teen social life seems to be still controversial in academic circles. I think it would be a lot less controversial if everyone knew the lunchroom had fallen silent because everyone was scrolling, and became loud again when they banned the phones.
- Why should articles like these always start with some fictional story like a novel? The actual news is buried somewhere half-way after the throw-away story.
- Crazy, I went to boarding school 2009-2011 and our dinner hall was always loud with talking and laughter. However sometimes it would slowly get quieter until the room went silent with everyone looking oddly at each other, then a massive wave of laughter would erupt.
Some weird phenomenon.
I also remember downloading Froggy jump on my iPhone and playing it with friends, but you certainly put your phone away more than you do now. You also had it taken off of you if you were on it when you shouldn't have been. If my parents found out they took my phone off of me, they'd probably crack it at me because I wasn't paying attention. I get the feeling many parents might just get angry at the teacher rather than their child.
by mcprwklzpq
0 subcomment
- > Enakshi Barua, 14, said she’s also opposed to the ban, on principle. Barua said. "I feel like the trust isn’t there between the students and teachers."
> staff members are collecting around 30 contraband phones a day
> There’s a strike system with escalating punishments
Does not sound good.
- I’d like to know what happens to cell phone use after school lets out. Are these students more likely to spend the rest of the day online? I could also see it going the other way. And if that’s the case, Cardozo is one of the first cell rehabs for students. Terrific to see!
by josefresco
0 subcomment
- Anecdotally burner phones are already being discussed and presumably used. They lock up your primary phone, and you sneakily use your burner phone which if confiscated can be used again or easily replaced/abandoned.
- Is it just me who finds it annoying that some people like using the pattern "make something <adjective> again"? Like, you don't have any other choice?
by JumpCrisscross
1 subcomments
- It’s fascinating to see a practice that was previously limited to Silicon Valley executives become first a national class signifier and now go mainstream.
We haven’t extensively studied how social media and smartphones affect a kid’s brain. It’s becoming abundantly clear the former is inappropriate for kids and adolescents. It’s emerging that the latter is at least destructive for non-adolescent children.
- Smartphones are this century's cigarrettes.
- Just get the standardized test scores you need and call it a day. I find this to be very performative from a student perspective.
by cramcgrab
1 subcomments
- No more kids cameras in the classroom
- FOOD FIGHT!!
by lambdanil
1 subcomments
- I don't see how a loud lunch break is good in any way
by bfkwlfkjf
4 subcomments
- The school president is 17?
by jollyllama
4 subcomments
- I don't think smartphones should be allowed in schools but as someone who was dumbfounded by the lunchtime cacophony of my peers, I wouldn't lead with that as a triumph.
- title should include "school" like in original article:
"NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again"
- The ban will be revoked after Meta sues for business damages caused by unlawful government interference with their customer acquisition operations. /s
- AFAIK know phones are banned in all secondary school (and primary school) from the start till the end of the school day. My daughter just started secondary school and one kid was trying to text her mum to add credit to her lunch money account in the first week and got a one hour detention for getting her phone out during school. This was in the canteen, not in a lesson. Bit harsh but seemed to get the message across.
Ironically most homework is done by the kids on their phones so when I tell her to get off her phone she always has the excuse that she's checking/doing her homework, or looking at her timetable online.
[edit] note this is a UK perspective, not sure why this got downvoted
by ForgetItJake
2 subcomments
- Why is it that Hacker News is overwhelmingly liberal on most issues but when it comes to teenagers/children incredibly authoritarian and big government?
- All of this read and written on a smartphone.
Reversion to the past is not preparation for the future.
- So I have eye witness accounts of this lunchroom saying that's not true. The lunchroom was deafeningly loud before the ban.
This school is also a magnet school with only high-performing kids who did not suffer from distraction problems and who actively made use of phones during class for classwork.
by Der_Einzige
1 subcomments
- A whole lot of people who got to their great tech jobs by commoditizing their screen addictions (I.e a significant amount of this very website) are massively harmed by these policies. I can’t believe that the folks here nearly universally like this.
We should celebrate screen addiction and not fight it.
Hacker News