77
‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
77 points (93.3% liked)
Technology
59708 readers
5537 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I was a high schooler last year and by this standard, every single one of my classmates' parents are complete failures, including mine. Not that I disagree, but clearly we can't trust the parents to do anything about this.
Yeah because most of our parents are trash at it and make kids because "that's what people do"
If the parents fail the parents fail, the kids at the high school and up age should understand the values of education and the importance of paying attention. If they want to fuck up their lives that's on them. Giving the government more power to do shit like this will only lead to headache and abuse of power, the same story as every other time the government is given more power.
The thing about adopting the "live and let live" philosophy with children is that children are psychologically incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions, or exercising proper impulse control. If their parents have failed them then it is the moral obligation of the rest of society to make up for it.
High school aged children definitely can understand the concept. I would argue middle school aged children can as well. Again, if the parents are worried the kids are spending too long on their phones they can do something about it, not the gov.
High school aged children are well known to be complete and utter dumbasses, especially when it comes to making mistakes who's consequences are abstract and long-term in nature. Punishment by social superiors is oftentimes the only thing preventing them from doing idiotic things, because their brains are not developed enough to think very far into the future. And even then, proper impulse control is one of the last things a developing brain develops, so they might understand the issues but be psychologically incapable of the self-control needed for it. Not to mention, social media apps are designed by psychology experts in Silicon Valley to be as addictive and distracting as possible, since that's how you get people to use your app. Having those in your pocket, when you're too young and dumb to understand the consequences of overusing it, and can't even exercise self control when they're pointed out to you? It would be irresponsible for us adults to continue allowing it.
Parents aren't worried about this, and that's the root of the problem. If the school system does nothing about it, then the kids will just end up addicted to TikTok and completely unprepared for the world on account of being distracted in class. Their parents aren't going to do anything about it until it's too late.
Because this is not about trust. Don't overestimate your or your kid's contribution. Our brains seek to use as little energy and effort as possible, always. The right strategy is to reduce the amount of distracting factors in school.