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

    (gothamist.com)
    279 points geox | 12 comments | 11 Sep 25 13:39 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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    trentnix ◴[11 Sep 25 14:08 UTC] No.45211888[source]▶
    Texas banned phones in schools as well. A local school administrator told me “in the high school, the lunch room is now loud with talking and laughter!”

    There are still parents that complain. Turns out they are as addicted to texting with their kids all day as their kids are addicted to the same.

    Regardless, it’s great to see that the ban has seemingly nudged things in a healthier direction. Its a failure of leadership that schools needed a statewide ban to make such an obviously positive change.

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    softwaredoug ◴[11 Sep 25 14:11 UTC] No.45211928[source]▶
    Phones might be as much a symptom as a cause

    The related issue is parents are overly protective of teens and don't give them enough independence. You see this in a lot of different ways from parents wanting to text their kids, to only letting kids do highly managed structured activities, to treating teens as their best friends, to helicopter parenting protecting kids from all adversity, etc etc

    And a similar thing happens not just with parents, but society, there are not a lot of places teens can just hang out. A lot of fun things teens would do increasingly ban minors.

    If you want teens off devices, you need to give them alternatives

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    soupfordummies ◴[11 Sep 25 14:32 UTC] No.45212177[source]▶
    There's also the symptom that almost our entire society is addicted to staring at their phones for at least 4 hours a day. Go literally ANYWHERE and just look at the people around you if you don't think so.
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    bsghirt ◴[11 Sep 25 17:56 UTC] No.45214305[source]▶
    Why is the exact device the problem?

    20 years ago everyone on suburban trains would be looking at a newspaper, magazine or book throughout their journey. Then they would watch a couple of hours of TV at home. Why is 'looking at a phone' such a problem, when most of the looking replicates those activities, with much of the rest being basic utilities which didn't exist previously - consulting a map, ordering food or shopping, looking up timetables or schedules?

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    1. fn-mote ◴[11 Sep 25 18:24 UTC] No.45214584[source]▶
    You're ignoring the engineered addiction to the games on phones. Loot boxes, 2 free hours of play with double bonuses, etc.

    There is no engineered addiction to reading the New York Times, so people just put it down when something else wants their attention.

    Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society. It is a problem to the extent that the attention you pay to the phone does not go toward solving real problems.

    It can be a problem because it allows kids to escape from uncomfortable situations like struggling to learn something, and the Instagram-perfect view of the world makes their own lives feel inferior.

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    2. bsghirt ◴[11 Sep 25 18:42 UTC] No.45214765[source]▶
    But the New York Times on a phone is not particularly more or less addictive than the same content on a piece of paper. Nor does reading it on a phone cut anyone off from the rest of society any more than focusing on the printed paper or a book or a Walkman.

    If the problem is games, social media, or porn, why don't we identify those as social problems and try to fix them? Rather than blaming the device.

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    3. spiderice ◴[11 Sep 25 19:04 UTC] No.45215014[source]▶
    > There is no engineered addiction to reading the New York Times, so people just put it down when something else wants their attention.

    Tell that to all the absolute news addicts out there. News is very clearly addicting, just like loot box games.

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    4. elzbardico ◴[11 Sep 25 19:11 UTC] No.45215083[source]▶
    Oh! It definitely is, and it was engineered to make it more. The comments make sure of that, then you've got the alerts for Breaking News, the sense of urgency in animated visuals with shiny colors. Of course, the NYT in a phone is far more addicting.
    5. ◴[11 Sep 25 20:58 UTC] No.45216042[source]▶
    6. astafrig ◴[11 Sep 25 22:46 UTC] No.45216873[source]▶
    I’m confident that people watching porn on suburban trains isn’t the problem.
    7. ◴[11 Sep 25 22:58 UTC] No.45216952[source]▶
    8. majormajor ◴[12 Sep 25 01:49 UTC] No.45217890[source]▶
    News doesn't get created that fast.

    There's a lot of commentary addicts and such. Cable "news" started this, the internet has magnified it even more. "Screens" wouldn't be the problem if we all used them for mental enrichment, but instead they've been taken over by "engagement"-hunters trying as hard as possible to get you to see just one more ad... and then another one... and another one...

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    9. throwaway2037 ◴[12 Sep 25 02:24 UTC] No.45218056[source]▶

        > Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society.
    I am confused here. Is reading the New York Times in paper form, on an e-reader, or a mobile phone different? If you are reading on a mobile phone, can you "just put it down when something else wants their attention"? Also, I was a subscriber to NYT for about 15 years, but quit about 10 years ago when the content got more and more click/rage-baity. (This is probably true of most large US newspapers.)

    Final comment about paper vs digital newspapers: I much prefer paper because the adverts are print-only (no motion/animation) and there are no auto-play videos. It is much less distracting.

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    10. jimbokun ◴[12 Sep 25 04:17 UTC] No.45218604[source]▶
    That would be fine but it’s not how people use phones. It’s far more time spent on addictive social media and games.
    11. jimbokun ◴[12 Sep 25 04:20 UTC] No.45218612[source]▶
    Naming the device where we consume addictive content is just a convenient shorthand.

    If we just stuck to the same NY Times articles we would have read in the paper that would be fine. But very few of us have the will power to pick up our device and not wonder into social media apps.

    12. GoblinSlayer ◴[12 Sep 25 08:48 UTC] No.45220091{3}[source]▶
    >News doesn't get created that fast.

    They are repeated many times with slightly different wording to create appearance of many news, since they aren't limited by print.