From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens adjusting to the smartphone ban

Excellent news.

Though what bothers me is all the high schools mentioned are the top prestigious ones you had to apply to, not zoned. Brooklyn Tech, Gramercy Arts, Bronx Science, I'm surprised no comments from Stuyvesant students.

> Alia Soliman, a senior at Bronx Science, said cards “are making a big comeback.” She said kids are playing poker when they’re done with their work in some classes.

Ha! When I was in NYC high school in the 90s we were not allowed to have playing cards or dominoes. The staff would confiscate them because it was believed to encourage gambling. Quite amusing that now they are the saving a generation of kids from mindless scrolling.

They still could encourage gambling, but someone somewhere judged it's the lesser of two evils.

Anything could encourage gambling to a person who has a penchant for gambling. Cards and dominoes are no different than anything else that can be bet on, which is pretty much everything.

Yeah indeed, phones have many games of chance also.

Among other things, lots of those kids are probably using their phones to gamble way more money than they'll ever lose playing poker with their friends.

Playing poker with friends is at worst zero-sum with limited downside; your friends will probably cut you off when you run out of money and the money stays in your little pool. Betting sports against a faceless profit-maximizing corporation is negative-sum and if it turns into a problem for they're happy to raise your minimum and encourage dumber bets.

As long as they keep it in the friends circle, the social aspect of it is going to limit the damage that lousy players do to their wallet. On the other hand, being good at gambling (at least for games that are not designed to give the bank an inherent advantage) requires a good understanding of statistics, which is also useful in science and in life generally!

In my school back in Brazil we had the same rules. But my group of friends played Magic The Gathering which the inspectors wouldn't confiscate. Good feeling that time.