Young People and Politics

[The Brain]

lol, during breaks.

Why would anyone allow phones to be turned on in class?

How old are you? This sounds like a question of somebody who never was a student or has dementia or something. 

It's a rhetorical question. I know that many schools do this. Back in my day there existed popular handheld eletronic entertainment devices, and using them in class was never allowed as it would disrupt learning. Many schools today seem to be unwilling to establish and uphold classroom discipline.

[Oexmelin]

Yes, it would be nice if the school enforced discipline that students would be unable to follow, and which parents would be opposed to.

At this point, it is a problem that goes well beyond the walls of schools.

[The Brain]

Yes, it would be nice if the school enforced discipline that students would be unable to follow, and which parents would be opposed to.

At this point, it is a problem that goes well beyond the walls of schools.

If they are unable to follow it, then what good will a ban do?

[Sheilbh]

I'll be damned. A teacher finding the students disrespectful and ungovernable, engrossed in a new cultural phenomenon to the point of self-ruin.

I now have seen everything.

Fair - and fortunately because there are no other indications of misogyny among young men or issues with smartphones/screen-addiction, I'm sure it's all fine

[Oexmelin]

There are many possible ways to discipline usage. In my students' experience (i.e., students who train to become teachers), classroom bans are ineffectual unless phones are physically removed from kids before the class starts. But then parents complain (some of whom are in fact, texting their own kids throughout the day). And kids also surrender a spare phone while keeping their actual one. School wide bans could perhaps yield results, but its main virtue, at this point, is to foster a larger political conversation throughout society at large.

In college, I usually (still) can manage with a simple reminder to put phones away. But honestly, until a few years ago, I didn't expect to have to police such behavior for 20-something students. I expect it will only become worse.

[Josquius]

Yes, it would be nice if the school enforced discipline that students would be unable to follow, and which parents would be opposed to.

At this point, it is a problem that goes well beyond the walls of schools.

If they are unable to follow it, then what good will a ban do?

Beware of the Nirvana Fallacy.
If a ban is less than 100% succesful it can still serve a purpose.
It could for instance give schools a kick that this is something they absolutely should be doing, and spread the message of how damaging phones are.

[Tamas]

Yes, it would be nice if the school enforced discipline that students would be unable to follow, and which parents would be opposed to.

At this point, it is a problem that goes well beyond the walls of schools.

If they are unable to follow it, then what good will a ban do?

If you are allowed to have the phone on you but are not allowed to use it during class that's much harder to enforce than if having a phone at all means they can take it from you.

I do not subscribe to this end of the world panic over social media because I feel like you could replace "social media" and "tik tok" with "rock and roll" and pretend the articles were written in the 60s, but I still think its a good idea to ban phones in schools.

[crazy canuck]

I remember back when I was in school, long before smart phones, phones were basically banned.
 you couldn't use them at break time, using them during class would be like standing up and shouting "fuck sticks" .
I wonder when things changed.

But overall aye. Big problems for young boys these days. I wonder if this is an English speaking world thing  or they're seeing it abroad too? I hope/guess it's nowhere near as bad.

As to twitter and destroying conversation - strikes me this is something an academic should have looked into. Anyone heard of any research into the correlation between the rise in social media and decline in old school forums? I wonder when the key tipping points were.
A fair few years after Facebook dropped it's awesome uni link closed network system I'd guess.

There is an excellent book on the topic, and yes it is indeed a topic of study.  We have discussed the findings of the research over the years here. Decline in concentration, decline in reading comprehension, decline in the ability ti read longer text, the list goes on and on.

The book if you are interested

https://www.amazon.ca/Reader-Come-Home-Reading-Digital/dp/0062388770/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=aLMCx&content-id=amzn1.sym.292e2174-5767-4018-85e7-6b1a9086d346&pf_rd_p=292e2174-5767-4018-85e7-6b1a9086d346&pf_rd_r=133-8607851-0059915&pd_rd_wg=2IOsL&pd_rd_r=fddc9b42-7c9a-4756-94a8-1466bee7de9e&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk

[Oexmelin]

Rock and roll wasn't pestering you in school,sending continuous notifications. Pulp magazines could be engrossing, but never enough for you to tune out completely your surroundings. Your turntable wasn't engineered to capture your attention, and request constant likes. Your browsing of magazines wasn't producing shiny moving pictures and bright colors that would also distract your comrades. Fads of the past weren't integrated with a device upon which the rest of your life could be hitched. In short, it did not produce what increasingly looks like an addiction.

This year will be the 20th year I have been teaching at the college level. It is enough to remember a time before the prevalence of social media in our everyday life - and certainly in students' everyday life. There is a marked decline in capacity to concentrate among students and to read complex sentences. The only students who once were as jittery as many I have now were those who were anxiously eyeing the clock for a cigarette break.

It doesn't need to be a panic. But to cling to the idea that there is nothing new under the sun is to miss the specificity of our times, and its specific challenges.

[Tamas]

Rock and roll wasn't pestering you in school,sending continuous notifications. Pulp magazines could be engrossing, but never enough for you to tune out completely your surroundings. Your turntable wasn't engineered to capture your attention, and request constant likes. Your browsing of magazines wasn't producing shiny moving pictures and bright colors that would also distract your comrades. Fads of the past weren't integrated with a device upon which the rest of your life could be hitched. In short, it did not produce what increasingly looks like an addiction.

This year will be the 20th year I have been teaching at the college level. It is enough to remember a time before the prevalence of social media in our everyday life - and certainly in students' everyday life. There is a marked decline in capacity to concentrate among students and to read complex sentences. The only students who once were as jittery as many I have now were those who were anxiously eyeing the clock for a cigarette break.

It doesn't need to be a panic. But to cling to the idea that there is nothing new under the sun is to miss the specificity of our times, and its specific challenges.

Fair.

[DGuller]

I think The Brain is onto something, in his usual indirect way.  The issue seems to be that school discipline has been gradually eroded, probably due to greater and greater reluctance of society to delegate enough power to teachers to allow them to enforce the rules.

[Tamas]

I think The Brain is onto something, in his usual indirect way.  The issue seems to be that school discipline has been gradually eroded, probably due to greater and greater reluctance of society to delegate enough power to teachers to allow them to enforce the rules.

When I was in elementary school and things escalated the one male teacher was called in to slap students around. I do not wish for that world to return.

The phone ban IS installing more strict discipline and giving teachers the power to enforce it.

[crazy canuck]

Rock and roll wasn't pestering you in school,sending continuous notifications. Pulp magazines could be engrossing, but never enough for you to tune out completely your surroundings. Your turntable wasn't engineered to capture your attention, and request constant likes. Your browsing of magazines wasn't producing shiny moving pictures and bright colors that would also distract your comrades. Fads of the past weren't integrated with a device upon which the rest of your life could be hitched. In short, it did not produce what increasingly looks like an addiction.

This year will be the 20th year I have been teaching at the college level. It is enough to remember a time before the prevalence of social media in our everyday life - and certainly in students' everyday life. There is a marked decline in capacity to concentrate among students and to read complex sentences. The only students who once were as jittery as many I have now were those who were anxiously eyeing the clock for a cigarette break.

It doesn't need to be a panic. But to cling to the idea that there is nothing new under the sun is to miss the specificity of our times, and its specific challenges.

The point I will disagree with is I think we do have to start to panic.  Those behaviours are creeping finding there way into the workplace.  People looking at their phones during meetings because they got an alert, as an example.  People being unable to read/comprehend emails of more than a few paragraphs, etc.

One example illustrate.  A client got very upset that I had not told them that a particular thing might happen. I explained that it was set out in a fourth concluding paragraph of the email he was upset about.

Not only had I warned him about the potential consequences, I had advised him not to do the thing because of those potential consequences.

He apologized and admitted he had only scanned the email.

That is, I think, the most damaging thing that is occurring.  Social media is training our brains to just scan information, not to carefully consider.

I am noticing a stark contrast now in my work between people who are still readers.  Meaning the still read books.  And those who spend there days scanning social media.

The implications are significant.  Our politics are now largely informed by social media. Few few now read actual newspapers.  The resources of newspapers have in turn diminished.  As a result there is now much less in depth reporting.  And even when there is, how many people are actually reading those lengthy articles?

As I have said now a number of times, Orwell got a lot things right, but what he got wrong is the state did not need to dumb down language and the ability to understand complex thought.  We did that to ourselves.

And as I write this, I am fully aware that there are some here that will consider this to be a too long to read.

[Tamas]

CC that absent-minded approach to thins is NOT a generational thing, come on.

[DGuller]

I think The Brain is onto something, in his usual indirect way.  The issue seems to be that school discipline has been gradually eroded, probably due to greater and greater reluctance of society to delegate enough power to teachers to allow them to enforce the rules.

When I was in elementary school and things escalated the one male teacher was called in to slap students around. I do not wish for that world to return.

The phone ban IS installing more strict discipline and giving teachers the power to enforce it.

Obviously it's not an easy compromise to find.  Not all teachers are saints driven only to spread their love and inspire the children to greatness in life, quite a few are pathetic losers on a power trip.  I'm sure we've all had quite a few of those.  That said, my impression is that the balance of power has shifted so far away from teachers and towards parents that it makes effective education very difficult.