When my mother was teaching in high school, the administration couldn’t enforce anything close to any of this. Obviously, H.S. Is a little different, but the problem was parents. The parents have no respect for the school administration or teachers, and they want to be able to get in instantaneous contact with their child at every second of the day, and they don’t want their precious child to be told they can’t do whatever they want. I’m sure this varies by school district and grade level.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

A hundred times this. It has now trickled down into the elementary school. My wife has 2nd graders with cell phones.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

I don’t like bans.

I think one of the reasons anxiety is off the charts is we keep telling kids they can’t handle stuff and then dumping everything they were told they were not capable of handling in their lap between 16 and 18.

I think the loss of land lines has been super detrimental to kids. When we were little we called our friends’ home phones and arranged to meet up. Now adults are arranging play dates into highschool and kids have no clue how to plan and coordinate.

They are rarely outside of adult supervision til at least 12 but then expected to drive a car at 16 and move out at 18.

I really think they don’t need another big thing dumped on them in those two years.

Put limits on your kids and slowly teach them about this technology and how it impacts them. We all know what happened to the helicopter parent kids when they got to college and it wasn’t pretty.

I say this as the mom of an early teen who is in the middle of it right now.

I get it and agree with you, but...a lot of parents are stupid and don't actually want to be parents, but friends. My son and daughter-in-law heavily monitor their boys digital intake, I think sometimes excessively, but they are the parents. They do let them fall down and get hurt and really push to be outside more than in. It's pretty cool when they want to go outside instead of sit inside and watch something.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

One of the things that I find most disturbing about this era is the mindless repetition of propaganda.

I feel that in previous era's people (especially wannabe intellectuals) - were more skeptical of marketing and political propaganda.

Advertising has become a lot more subtle and a lot more ubiquitous.

We have people like Tylertri shamelessly distributing political propaganda for free.

But the rest of us...

I can think of many, many times that even the most progressive posters in this forum have been nothing but shills for this, or that, corporations.

Clearly, social media contributes to this problem.

I tried really, really hard to make my kids aware of the the ubiquitous and harmful presence of marketing.

But I failed miserable.

I suppose the omni-presence of corporate values means that it is a very steep uphill battle.

My daughters are 11-13-15. A long time ago we signed onto the “wait until 8th” campaign that was endorsed by many including the American Academy of Pediatrics. It was absolutely the right call. 15 has a phone with no issues and and 13 will get hers shortly. The last will be the most difficult but we will get it done.

It seems here most people hete didn't listen to this Ted talk... It was more about people hoarding assets to prevent the younger generation from having opportunities to grow

Great post. Great presentation. I’d vote for this guy for POTUS.

Every problem he specifies, and its solution, will inconvenience Americans - even if they benefit longer term. And that’s if they even understand both problem/solution. Americans WILL NEVER be inconvenienced. Sadly.

I can’t however, send this to MAGA’s I know. In my years with them, they would perceive it all as an infringement of Liberties. They are too easily convinced by FOX that any changes at all are a conspiracy against them… And never seem to think that the words “In order to form a more perfect Union” applies to them as individuals.
If a policy that doesn’t immediately lead to more beer, cigarettes, and a MAGA hat, they’d be ready to storm a Capitol… Again.

I'm ultra MAGA and I can watch this video and agree with the principles wholeheartedly. Solutions might be argued, but the overall intent of the video should be well received by absolutely anybody.

Might? As soon as any discussion starts of anything that might get between the ultra-wealthy and their accumulation of a greater percentage of total wealth, the MAGA-voting working classes will get to work backing the ultra wealthy. :)

I think the whole thing is a bit retro.

The video seems to have more to do with the period between 1980- 2016.

The Trump/Biden era of deliberate hyper inflation, economic Irrationality and nationalism - has had the effect of undermining the wealth of middle-age and elderly "mini-millionaires"....

This IS a transfer of wealth to the MAGA middle class.
And to certain groups of poor people.

The ultra wealthy ARE more advantaged than ever.

But....

Point or order. We never - under either Trump nor Biden - came remotely close to hyperinflation.

The threshold of that is, I'm reading, undefined, but on the order of 50% per month. The highest rate we've had recently is appears to have been touching 9.1% *per year* calculated in the month of June, 2022. To be clear that wasn't the rate for all of 2022, just one monthly report.

That's a couple orders of magnitude less than hyperinflation. It is "high" inflation.

It’s good to know you’re out there. I agree “should be well received.” I fear you are in an “ultra MAGA” minority. Mention this amongst your MAGA friends. I’d be interested to hear if they consider you a Socialist.

MAGA Minority. Good alliteration.

Dang, I thought this topic was about:

I wouldn't say parents are dumb, but they'll push back.

With regard to "no phone" school policies, I suspect a good number of parents will insist that a phone is essentially in case there is some need or emergency during the school day. I also suspect a good number of those parents will be ones who grew up and went to school before cell phones, and they and their parents were still just as capable of dealing with these so-called emergencies without them.

These are likely the same parents proudly boast about that good old days when they grew up and were allowed to wander about after school for hours unsupervised by adults, but who won't let their 10 to 12 year old kid cross the street and walk a few blocks to the store alone. (Nevermind the solid evidence that the risks/crime is significantly lower now than then.) They're probably also the same parents that, despite over-monitoring or outright prohibiting outdoor exploration and fun, will allow their kids to have nearly unsupervised and fettered 24/7 access to a smart phone.

I suspect it may be a necessary skill, but that's only to the extent that using a smart phone may be essential for a few, minor things -- phone calls, emails, text messages, and perhaps depending on the circumstances, the internet and certain apps, such as maps and ride sharing. Most other uses, which in many cases involving kids, are completely unnecessary. Most of those things don't involve skills that kids need to learn growing up, especially beginning at age 13 or younger. How long does it really take to learn how to send or answer emails or texts? Or to be proficient in arranging for an Uber? My 86-year-old dad who suffers from onset dementia learned that five years ago.

The other stuff smart phones have to offer -- social media, photos (and selfies), videos, music, etc. are not necessary to function as an adult even today, at least they're not necessary through a smart phone.

I'm not even saying that social media is completely bad for kids, provided they're an appropriate age. Not completely, but mostly. They make money by keeping users engaged, and kids and adolescents are particularly susceptible to this.

But it's more the combination of social media with all the functions that smart phones now have, as opposed to a desktop computer in the family room. People used to fret about how much time kids spent watching tv, with a couple hours a day being of concern. Smart phones can effectively make this a 24/7 thing, where the adolescent is compulsively thinking about the phone even if they're not actively online. The mere fact that a smart phone is in the pocket can still be a significant distraction if not obscession.

Right now, you have to be 13 to open a social media account, with no age verification required or even in place. Why 13? Where did that come from? Is that an appropriate age? There seems to be some good evidence that it should be at least 16, with some true and meaningful age verification process required.

Why do kids need to have smart phones at such a young age? Even if it is a skill to be developed, can't it wait until high school?

Why do kids need to have phones on themselves, even if in a pocket or a backpack during the school day? Why not provide 7 to 8 hours per day where there isn't that distraction?

That parents and teachers may be hypocrites is irrelevant.

Except that there are schools that have these bans and successfully enforce them.

Sure, there will be kids who will sneak in a phone, perhaps the old dummy phone dropped into the lock box while the real one is kept. But it's a matter of consequences if they're caught. Given how people use smart phones, it's not as simple as waiting between classes to sneak a few hits on a joint when nobody's looking, or filling your water bottle with vodka. People tempted to use a smart phone don't ask to go to the bathroom so that they can check their Instagram. They won't have that kind of self-control, so they'll pull them out in class to take at peak, probably many times during the class. And they'll get caught.

Well said.

The literal, proximate answer is COPPA. Congress enacted that in 1998, long before smartphones and social media as we know it.

(I agree with the rest of you post. I deleted it just to boil down the question.)

I do a lot of work with app makers and content creators of all sorts, including ones that focus on the youth market. It’s unsettling the amount of focus there is on obtaining, maintaining and maximizing engagement from users.

Few people will admit that publicly.

Here is another good interview with Scott. He makes some good points.

https://podcasts.apple.com/...5136?i=1000653888802

For folks who prefer reading here is an interview.

Pivot podcast host Scott Galloway: ‘Tech bros conflate luck with talent’ | Science and nature books | The Guardian

While I find his "Gish gallop" delivery grating at times he raises some interesting points.

Well I’m not Ultra but it made my reply “better.”

This reminds me of the pushback one of my colleagues got in NC when she was part of an effort to get soda and candy vending machines taken out of their middle school. It never occurs to a lot of people that soda and candy are something that none of us should probably be consuming on a regular basis. She was flabbergasted by the number of emails she got by parents asking what are their kids suppose to drink if not soda?

We did our best to allow our kids to free-range as we did as kids. The problem we ran into is almost no one else is doing that, so it's not like your kids can you go outside and wonder around town to find other kids to play with. It's probably to the point now that if you just showed up at a friends house on a Saturday morning to play, their parents would think your parents were negligent or something.