France to ban students from keeping smartphones in schools

Comments

• wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I mean… fine? France always does things kind of top-down and there’s certainly no reason you have to have your phone readily available, and plenty of evidence it’s good to be away from it.

  It’s not like they need to get to their phones to tell their parents there’s an active shooter on campus. 😐

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  • cyborganism@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Tragedy in a French school:

    “Maman! Maman! Ze school is out of baguette and fromage! Please come pick me up! I am about to le faint!”

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    • Arkouda@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Tragedy in a French school:

      “Maman! Maman! Ze school is out of baguette and fromage! Please come pick me up! I am about to le faint!”

      Disgusting.

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• atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don’t know how to regulate it they do this.

  The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won’t dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding then instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can’t use them.

  The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it’s to do with “children’s mental health”, or these devices being a distraction.

  Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.

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  • rippersnapper@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yeah I think the adverse effect of handing an iPhone to a 10 year old in Atlanta, when that teen is still highly impressionable unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet is far worse than handing a kid a Gameboy on which they can only game, or a Walkman on which the worst thing they can do is listen to Cardi B.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And the fault of the parent who is the only one who can do anything about that child having unrestricted access to the internet of a phone. This is adding to the responsibilities and liabilities of the schools without solving the problem in a meaningful way and this is exactly what I’m being critical of in my statement.

      If nobody has a phone you can implement other technologies to alarm if such a device is brought into the property etc. You can actually jam cell phone use in the area too. There’s solutions that would mitigate a school having to take on hundreds of confiscated $1000 phones which would be a huge liability and make them a target.

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  • Pirata@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy?

    Except none of these things were feeding Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan garbage straight into their highly impressionable skulls.

    I, for one, support the banning of phones in schools. The social media addiction has been shown to cause depression, particularly in girls, and the brainwashing is ever more apparent.

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    • hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Rush Limbaugh was broadcast on the free radio, you could listen to it on $1 worth of junk parts if you knew what you were doing. The ease of access is not what made republican bigotry accessible or popular.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about.

      I’ll also point out the argument that there was a push back then for outlawing video games and violent music because of its effect on young children and regardless of the validity of the danger to kids, it’s still the fault of parents who were allowing their children to listen to that music or play those games. Schools already likely have policies about cell phones, or at the very least policies about confiscating distractions.

      You seem to have taken this as not support for banning phones in schools rather than what it really is. A criticism of this method for the deficiencies that it creates without solving the problem or even (more than likely) changing anything about the protocols already in place for handling distractions in schools except potentially creating a worse situation for the administration who have to now be responsible for these items en masse because students and parents are going to ignore this until it hurts them personally.

      It also doesn’t teach students anything at all about moderation or the dangers of the internet, nor does it teach them anything about this tech which they will end up having to use as adults. And if you have seen adults with this tech you know it’s not just a danger to kids.

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    • thoro@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What’s your point? Are you banning the entire Internet?

      All this stuff is still accessible once the bell rings and before they get to school, just like it was when I was a kid. Kids were still going on YouTube/MySpace/ Facebook and more to share things. This argument doesn’t make sense.

      You’re attributing the issue of algorithms to the medium itself.

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  • Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I remember when people didn’t have phones on them 24/7 and kids didn’t die and parents could call the school if they needed to talk to the kids. Somehow we survived.

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    • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And a bunch of people didn’t but we don’t talk about them, it was the norm back then.

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    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Well the #1 reason parents want their kids to have phones is because so many kids die in school shootings and parents have a need to be able to get ahold of their kids.

      That’s the #1 reason, no matter how illogical it is

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  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    About ‘better at hiding them’; maybe so; but that will largely be down to how the rule is enforced. Some schools basically just say “please don’t carry your phone. Put it in your locker.” In those schools, basically every student has their phone in their pocket. Whereas other schools are more strict about it. The phone can be confiscated on site, and in some cases require the parent to collect it. In those cases, compliance goes way up.

    As for ‘no phones for teachers and admin’; unfortunately, some of the jobs and responsibilities of teachers are done using a phone. Teachers are required to carry a phone during yard-duty, for emergency purposes. And teachers often use their phone to mark class attendance rolls. … But its definitely a bad look when a teacher is walking down a school corridor staring at their phone while student phones are banned.

    As for the reasons for the ban… well, they are many and varied - including all of the things you mentioned. (liability, mental health vs bullying in particular, and distraction from class activities.)

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Are they going to allocate money to every school to employ technologies to prevent cell phone usage on the premises? Unlikely because, as I said, this law is to prohibit students from having cell phones, not teachers or administration.

      So what happens when a school now has to confiscate and hold $1000 phones en masse? It makes them a target for theft. It makes them a target for lawsuit in the event that any of those phones are misplaced, stolen, damaged etc.

      Teachers and admins didn’t used to have cell phones in schools either. What are they doing on a phone that they can’t use a landline and a computer for? Why is a cell phone so important for yard duty? Why is it a requirement? What does the cell phone do that a landline can’t do?

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  • Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    If they have to hide their phones now, they won’t be using them as much, which is The end goal.

    You might be living proof that not using tiktok does not necessarily make you smart, I’ll give you that point.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      They already had to “hide the phones”. Literally France already passed a law stating that phones aren’t allowed in elementary and middle schools for students. Those phones previously had to be kept in a backpack or pocket and weren’t allowed to be used on the premises.

      This new law does one singular thing, so far as I can tell (which isn’t made clear in either of the articles I read). It actually actively makes students surrender phones at the beginning of the school day and locks those phones away in a centralized location the students don’t have access to.

      The problem with that is what I have been saying in subsequent comments. There are protocols in place for what happens when a student breaks the rules. But A. They mention nothing at all about how they will know a student is carrying around a phone in their pocket or using it in the bathroom. And B. they mention nothing about the repercussions for skirting such rules and regulations.

      Additionally, if this is about student mental health (as they claimed), it does absolutely nothing to teach them about the dangers of cell phones, nor does it even remotely teach them to moderate cell phone use.

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• phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Good, you don’t need smart phones in school

  For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t.

  We’ve been without smart phones for millenia, literally, and we were fine without. You will be fine without.

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  • Dil@is.hardlywork.ing ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    we didnt have clean drinking water either, or daily showers, we lived without soap for millenia

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    • Olap@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Lol, we definitely have had clean drinking water for far longer than we have had dirty drinking water, thank the industrial revolution for that. And try skipping a shower for a day - you’ll be fine. Soap also has a long history www.soaphistory.net/soap-history/ over 4000 years

      So literally wrong on all three points. Perhaps you need to read more instead of doom scrolling and swapping nudes on your smartphone

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Those are good things.

      Mobile ohones, barring a few exceptions, are not

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  • LaggyKar@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    We’ve been without a lot of things for millennia

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Uh huh, and we can do without the bad things

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  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    For me school was a great way to learn almost nothing of any use while occupying 11 years of my life with pointless time filing busywork that I hated every hour, minute and each and every eternal second of of. The only thing worse than school has been work and my consolation is that at least it’s not forever!

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    • CalipherJones@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And yet here you are writing English.

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    • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      You wish you would have been home schooled?

      To be honest I’m disappointed we haven’t seen more progress into “VR schools” yet. Where you are fully submerged into a learning experience. While your blood is constantly analyzed and drugs to increase concentration and energy levels are dispensed. Ok maybe not the last part.

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Aaahhh yes, you’re one of those people that just knew English grammar right at birth. I envy you!

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  • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yeah who needs the wheel either? We survived 450,000 years without it. And don’t get me started on paper. Paper can be used to make paper airplanes or spitballs. What a distraction! Kids should chisel their assignments onto stone slates like our ancestors did.

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    • CalipherJones@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      If wheels could brainwash a kid, completely distract them, and make them throw a tantrum when you take it away then we might have to worry about them.

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    • musubibreakfast@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      No, you’re being facetious. Go sit in the corner.

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    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I understand the paper, but why do they need wheels? Why are you leaving out guns?

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  • Dil@is.hardlywork.ing ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    People werent fine either, why dont you just google 911 calls from kids and see how many would have been better off without phones

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      without phones

      IN SCHOOLS.

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  • Pika@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I wanna preface this with I had a small keyboard slide phone in school, not a smart phone by today’s standards, but I am firmly against this archaic mentality.

    It doesn’t address the elephant in the room, classrooms have become painstakingly boring. There is no real incentive for the student to actually do well anymore, or even pay attention. This is exclusively for the k-12 system though, as the issues seem to have become non-existent entering the college and university system. I went from being a solid D/C student in high-school to being an A/B+ student going into college

    I spent my time in grade school fucking around and barely paying attention, this was without a smart phone. I couldn’t keep focused on the class subjects, and so therefore I gave up. The college system has the process downpacked, it’s laid back, not hours on end in a row learning useless shit you won’t need, and you have the freedom to either listen or don’t, there isn’t the constant pressure from professors “You are failing you need to do better” like in high school. Plus the professors seem actually happy to be there and they make the content more enjoyable, its not just droning on and on on a subject.

    The only things removing a phone from a classroom is going to do is remove a potential learning tool, and just annoying your students even further. If your student doesn’t want to learn, removing items isn’t magically going to make the kid learn. Make it entertaining, do something OTHER than this stupid info cram shit where you just regurgitate information constantly. There is zero incentive on almost every subject you learn to actually want to learn it. You don’t learn any type of life skills, you don’t learn anything for your career/future. Hell they don’t even teach cursive anymore. My sister couldn’t even read a physical clock entering 7th grade. They don’t teach it. But you can bet things like “what happens in the 16th century” will be taught, or what basic cell structure is (I couldn’t tell you, I forgot all that info leaving that class room).

    Like I get needing to know history, and basic mathematics, but the current schooling system is a overburdened plug of useless information for society. Everyone knows it, everyone lies to their kid saying things like “yea you will definitely need to know what beware the ides of march means in life”. If things that people knew would be useful in life, and it wasn’t just a professor saying “ok class open your book, this is the lesson” for 3/4 of the year, you might have a better student attention span.

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    • Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      We oughtta send the kids to the mines again, god forbid they might discover something they never knew they’d like studying at school.

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  • BlackArtist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Type 1 diabetics would like a word.

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      About?

      That didn’t exist 20 years ago?

      There are no teachers with mobile phones around?

      You don’t need a mobile phone

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  • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t

    I have a feeling that you haven’t gone to school recently. It doesn’t work the same way anymore.
    Educational resources are blocked that you literally cannot do your assignments without accessing. Teachers will tell you to use your phone.

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Do I really need to explain this? I guess I do

      I’m sure there are classes in school now that require a phone. There better be, kids need to learn how to properly and responsibly use them. Having said that, 90% of other classes never required and still do not require a phone.

      Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media, harmful to the development of the brain. This is not news, this has been known for a while.

      This is not fascism, this is not me trying to be a dick this is simply kids needing to be away from their phone for a few hours per day and everyone is losing their minds because OMG, how are we going to make it without phones? Such opinions alone are reason enough to ban phones in schools. Learn ti be a human being first.

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• iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  We’ve had a similar ban in the Netherlands for a year or two now. Mobile phones were already not allowed in classes. Kids seem to have survived.

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• RecipeForHate1@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Brazil did it a while ago. Nobody died [yet]

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  • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Some kids have medical issues and need a phone to monitor their health or text family for advice and help since they may be young. It’s also nice to track the kids with their phone when they’re walking too and from school.

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    • fluffy@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      We did not even have dumb phones … somehow we still survived …

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    • NightCrawlerProMax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Right. Kids used to die like flies back in the day when there were no smartphones.

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  • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    That you know of

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  • Wanpieserino@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Brazil and nobody dying, what kind of propaganda is this?

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• SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Make school fun and not a prison and then kids don’t need phones like their office worker parents do.

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  • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    You could be in the finest school in the world and the phone would still win.

    Also, France started doing this a few years ago already and has seen improvement across every metric. Better grades, more socializing, 80% less bullying, less anxious kids. They only downside they found? Parents complaining they were unable to call the kids at any moment.

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  • NightCrawlerProMax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Doesn’t matter if the teacher is an absolute gem and knows how to captivate kids who want to learn. Most kids prefer the dopamine hit from social media and other phone usage compared to actually learning. It just ruins it for kids who actually want to learn.

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• Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  What’s funny is all the rich tech elite send their kids to schools that don’t use tech to the same degree as public schools. Wonder why.

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  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Probably because elite schools have smaller class sizes or teacher/student ratios thereby making it less necessary to have the ability to disseminate information via mass means with technology. Put it all up on a big screen where 30 kids can see it, send the assignments out to 120 kids via google classroom on school issued chromebooks (because there are plenty of kids from families that cannot afford computers), and do all the grading and review digitally. I’d be willing to bet those expensive private schools use plenty of tech, maybe kids carry Macbook Airs instead, but there’s no escape from tech in schools.

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Because personal tutors are engaging directly with the student the whole session?

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• AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I’m still not convinced that this is the answer to helping kids concentrate & learn more in school.

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  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    there is no “the” answer but it can be part of an answer.

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  • Akrenion@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I think it is fine but we also need lessons to properly interact with the technology. Scams, fraud, disinformation and checking sources were handled very abstractly at best and archaic at worst.

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    • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Gen alpha is significantly worse than prior generations on tech. Them having their phones on them doesn’t teach them, they consume on the lowest level. They don’t learn the actual Internet skills prior generations had to to survive.

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  • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    It is. Phones are the #1 distractor in school

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    • AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Boring lessons are pretty big distractors. I seen kids fall asleep and daydream long before smartphones were even a thing. Make learning fun and the kids will engage. Confiscating their possessions is a hostile move that never goes down well.

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    • randon31415@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Dude, it’s been 2 centuries, take a hint

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  • wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I do sometimes think there is a bit of hand-wringing that happens where people glom onto the most visible sign of changing times and blame it for things that probably aren’t as different as the adults think, but by the same token most schools in richer countries have screens everywhere with school-related interconnectivity and even tools that are not unlike social media.

    I see very little downside here, even if it may not result in some magic rebirth of older forms of social interaction. It seems like the major benefit from the French pilot programs was “improved atmosphere,” in which case it’s still better than nothing. Having a period when kids are learning to deal with small-group dynamics is not a bad thing, and neither is taking “dealing with phone bullshit” off the teachers’ plates.

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• Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I can’t believe it wasn’t like that since the beginning.
  How is it not one of the many distracting things they would ban immediately?

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  • FourWaveforms@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think it has to do with the Columbine school shootings.

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    • Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We’re talking about France here.
      And they still have phones in school in a lot of other coutries.

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  • CaptnNMorgan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Some definitely tried. I got suspended in middle school because I forgot to turn my phone on silent and it went off in class. They had a “zero tolerance” policy, so it didn’t matter that it was an accident

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• Arkouda@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Good on you France!

  I hope more countries start realizing how important this is. We have more than enough evidence demonstrating the damage that comes from being permanently connected, or even online for more than a couple hours per day, and minors are taking the worst of it because they are developing under those conditions.

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• AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Maybe you should fix the systematic problem instead of doing surface level fixes that impact the freedom and mobility of minors.

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  • joel_feila@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Wouldn’t no phomes increase mobility since parents cant trqck their location

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  • Gibibit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    This is solving a systematic problem. The problem of social media companies having free reign to make kids addicted. This will give french kids more freedom to think and do actual things with their life.

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  • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Taking away their addictive propaganda gadgets is freedom, lol.

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• flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Good. Boredom is the key to learning. Of course the manner of learning in most schools is not ideal, kids find it boring for a reason, but without distraction they might latch onto some bits of information just to survive the class.

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  • Harvey656@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    This mentality is why I almost failed higbschool. Boredom fails us who need to be constantly invested.

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    • desertdruid@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Yeah, different education methods should be used for different learning capabilities. I’m thankful my teachers in elementary school quickly learned that as long as you kept me busy with new info or math problems I would be happy.

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• PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  That’s a good way to keep children from documenting and reporting abuse.

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• astutemural@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Stupid. Kids are more informed and hooked into current events than ever before, specifically because of phones and the Internet. Hell, half of most peoples’ jobs are looking up reference material online. You want kids to succeed, hand them a big list of the best places to look for the answers and let them use their phones on the test.

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• daggermoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  See everyone, It’s not just us Americans! The French are doing stupid things too!

  It’s a joke, don’t write in.

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• MetalMachine@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  That’s ass. Just don’t allow use during class.

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• vane@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  So schools would suddenly become rehab treatment centers ? What a freaking timeline.

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• a_postmodern_hat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The cover image for this piece smells AI generated

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• capuccino@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  le tiktok

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• Dil@is.hardlywork.ing ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Easier to kidnap

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• cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  We didnt have any kind of phone when we were in school

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