I live in Texas and the state outlawed cell phones in school this year. All of my clients with high school kids - and I really mean all of them - have told me that their kids are thrilled. Apparently no one was talking to each other at lunch and other breaks, they would just sit together and play on their phones. How sad and dystopian, I’m thrilled for the change.
As a teacher, I commend Sweden’s courage to act and follow the evidence. I firmly believe that attention needs to become central to curricula worldwide. How do we cultivate it in a world where profit is derived from involuntary attention capture? Schools should provide our kids with an alternative to the screen-saturated norm. They should be places where we protect and nurture their cognitive potential, not risk it to data-hungry private interests. I’m glad Sweden is getting this done. It’s time for the rest of us to do the same: https://open.substack.com/pub/walledgardenedu/p/why-attention-must-become-curriculum?r=f74da&utm_medium=ios
I love it, and as a LinkedIn Top Voice and former teacher in a youth offenders' Institution In Ireland, this warms the heart. I am about ot launch something significant that I hope parents the world over can get behind. Thank you for being part of the solution. The Anxious Nation is the blueprint for all of us.
It’s refreshing to see Sweden recognize that progress doesn’t always mean more ed-tech. Reintroducing books and pencils is not regression. Children’s brains and bodies need tangible tools for focus and comprehension. Children need handwriting, the patience of reading from paper, and the human connection of face-to-face discussion, not just another app or gamified task. More tech equals better learning narrative is backfiring all over, so we need to ensure that schools remain places of depth, curiosity, and real thinking rather than another branch of the attention economy. This is a reminder that innovation can also look like returning to what’s proven to work.
In 2011, I didn’t have the right letters after my name to state with any authority that the handheld electronics were destroying kids’ health and learning. With no backing from school or community, I tried to restrict my kids’ use of the iPod Touch devices my ex had given them. It was impossible, and only served as a relationship-destroying constant conflict with my kids, whom I was rightly concerned about. With even teachers in elementary grades piling on to “reward” fifth graders with a “bring your handheld device to school” day (like pizza day, or movie day), I knew I was helpless to save my kids from the worst of an internet-in-your-pocket childhood and adolescence. And here is what I see in my own young adult kids:
• Sleep pattern problems, which cascade down into all aspects of mental and physical health
• Self-consciousness on a level I’d normally associate with mid-teens, yet they are in their 20s
• Lack of physical movement and tragically hunched posture
• Social avoidance; even though they are socially skilled, they still prefer not to do transactions in person
• Attempts at romantic bonding subverted and warped by violent online porn
• Inability to go without the phone for any length of time during waking hours, and the phone is in their hand as they finally fall asleep at 3am.
It’s such a disaster. I saw it all coming 14 years ago, and I was ridiculed. But I remember the day I keened and wept, and realized I was forced to accept that my kids were simply caught in a very unfortunate moment in human history. Like a devastating war or disease outbreak, there was going to be carnage I couldn’t prevent.
Such a shame. So sorry. I see that also in my grandkids, one getting counseling. Thank you for sharing these habits that have harmed, now seen in that generation.
I find it incredibly frustrating how much my primary school age children use screens at school despite us restricting it at home. I wish the UK could be more Sweden!
In our US state we have a new grade in public schools for 4 year olds called transitional kindergarten- so that’s a pretty young child on an elementary campus. A friend has her child in the grade this year and I asked them how child is doing. Apparently they are using screen time so frequently in class it’s all the child mentions about school- all the shows they see. This family doesn’t even use screens regularly at home. But mom works for the schools and doesn’t want to rock the boat. Makes me sad that even families who attempt to do better are undermined by the device use in the classroom.
I was fired from my non-tenure position at a university in Texas in 2023 when a student and their parent complained that they were not comfortable that I was teaching students about emotions in a programming course for digital artists. The student was encouraged by administrators to video my lecture, and then the administrators notified me that I was removed from teaching all courses and my contract would not be renewed. I had been hired specifically to design the curriculum and had been teaching the course for 8 years. The use of students and their phones as a surveillance device for those who have learned to project the illusion of control as a means to assert power is problematic....It is a zero-sum game for ethical educators who try to teach students that digital media can create powerfully addictive experiences. The factory model used in higher education is not likely to adapt to integrate AI in ways that align with student learning to develop curiosity, growth-mindsets, resilience, and an understanding of the need to question the organizational models of capitalism and the status quo.
We can learn a lot from the Sweden Experiment. I see change starting with the parents taking responsibility, stepping up, and giving the best chance for their children's growth and development. Screen time provides the "what to learn" at the expense of "how to learn". Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is generational and the foundation of good mental health. Sorry for the lecture but this is a real concern for today and for our future. Dr L
I was born in Sweden and came to the US at age 6. My earliest years formed a deep love of freedom, fairness, nature, nd human connection. I worked for Qualcomm from 1986 until 2010 and promoted the use of of digital tools for learning. At that time, digital access allowed a kind of freedom and agency that had never been possible before. It broke my heart when the tools became used in ways that enforced non-human, non-humane, and harmful in the schools where the poorest kids were expected to improve performance through obedience without compassion. I have lots of articles in education blogs about how the technology could be used to enhance human dignity even among the least powerful. And it could have. And in certain situations it absolutely did. Contrast that with my own lived experience. My kids were born in 2000 and 2003. They got computers as soon as they could use a mouse, phones as soon as they could keep from losing them, and iPads as soon as they were released. These communication tools were instrumental in developing their own identities, finding their tribes, and learning deeply about important topics. They learned leadership through both authority and influence through gaming. They never were interested in social media likes or status but in using this tool to find people all over the world who they connected with.
At that time social media had not yet become the cesspool that it can be today. At that time, our family gamed together and when people were mean or creepy we would all, as a family, take our hands off the keyboard and talk things through. About how they thought about people who acted that way, about what they wanted people to think about them online, about how to offer grace to immature and egoistic players, about how what people say online says things about them, not my kids. I am ridiculously proud of how compassionate, kind, courteous, insightful, and honest they grew up to be. I have a million examples.
The kids of my friends had similar experiences when the parents were engaged in this way. But a few years down the line the toxicity has increased. My kids were inoculated by their early experience and being neurodivergent the internet was a place where they could find true belonging in a way that was hard to do in school.
I have been trying to find the underlying reasons why my family has had lovely outcomes that I would love every kid and teen to be blessed with, while recognizing that most teens now are receiving the opposite.
I am skeptical of a lot of the causation arguments, but you have been a very influential part of my current views on politics and persuasion so when I hear this from you, I believe that it is a clearer assessment than the knee jerk reactions I struggle with.
We could have used this tech in schools in ways that enhanced autonomy and compassion, but those don’t seem to be the goals of school. I am confident there are ways for tech to be liberating and psychologically helpful and healing. I base this on including tech as part of implementing schooling based on Self Determination Theory and on my own homeschooling efforts plus experiments I funded in elementary school back in the early twenty-teens.
My question is: are there similar approaches that work for cell phones at home, for social media, for the things that make us all feel as though we are on call and judged every moment? Is there something to fix at a deeper level that drains the toxicity but leaves the benefits? I hope so.
Wow, our kids are peers and I didn’t see an even remotely similar outcome as you did with that group of Gen Z. The majority struggle emotionally or with practical life. A ton disown their parents over minor slights. Many can’t find jobs the jobs they were promised by going full STEM ahead, computer science degrees in hand. They were the guinea pigs. Gen Alpha will similarly struggle, maybe more so. The youngest children though I have hope for. Their parents are starting to insist on something different. Renewed interest in an analog childhood. They are very tiny yet though, so time will tell.
My children certainly struggle with neurodivergence and societal conditions and the economy. But they are profoundly mature and compassionate at the same time. Society has failed these generations deeply. But I am wondering whether technology is amplifying trends rather than being the cause. Or if there is some deeper causes that need to be addressed and that tech can amplify positive experiences as well as negative ones. I think we might be a counter example that suggests we need to look more deeply.
The article would have been significantly more powerful had it included a comparison between Sweden and the United States, identifying what makes a national course correction feasible in one but far more difficult in the other.
Sweden’s ability to pivot so decisively stems from several structural and cultural advantages: a centralized education system that allows for swift policy shifts like a nationwide school phone ban; a relatively cohesive political culture with high institutional trust; and a public that accepts, even expects, state involvement in child welfare and education. Just as important, Swedish leaders were willing to publicly acknowledge that the digitalization of childhood had been a failed experiment—an act of humility rarely seen in U.S. politics.
In contrast, the U.S. faces steep barriers to a similar shift. Its education system is highly decentralized, fractured among thousands of local districts and school boards. Tech lobbying is far more entrenched, and cultural polarization—especially around parenting norms and individual liberty—would likely turn any screen-time restrictions into a political flashpoint. The U.S. also suffers from a litigious culture and a deep suspicion of government involvement in family life. S
till, there are glimmers of hope: rising parental dissatisfaction, growing grassroots efforts like Wait Until 8th, and early experiments at the state level suggest that change is not impossible. But without acknowledging the fundamental differences between Sweden’s context and America’s, the article risks being read as a hopeful anecdote rather than a call to action grounded in political reality.
This gives me hope! As an educator in the throws of it, watching what is happening to children in schools when they are given a device as young as kindergarten is heartbreaking. I can only hope that those of us speaking out against the harms of edtech will continue to gather more voices so that the powers that be will have to listen. A child's ability to learn and develop their social emotional skills is degraded when they are expected to learn from a screen. We can no longer let the tech industry drive the narrative on how to educate children while they profit significantly. Bring back the books, paper and pencils!
I am a middle school counselor in New York State. I’m so happy we are banning phones in schools. Next up is the Chromebooks! During lunch most kids just quietly play video games and few interact with each other even though we try our best to promote engagement
The 97% Snapchat penetration among 12-15 year olds in Sweden is staggering and shows how deeply the platfrom had embeded itself in youth culture. What strikes me is that Snapchat's ephemeral messaging feature actually made it more appealing to kids who wanted to avoid parental oversight. Sweden's reversal could be a wakeup call for investors as more countries may follow this regulatory trend.
Yes and let’s throw parental responsibility out of the window. The whole idea that the breeders and birthers should raise our children is ludacris. Just look at how badly that’s worked out. Much better to have the State raise children. Yes! Hip Hip Hooray for the Statists!!!
I see nothing about adult, teacher use. ITS impact on adults: in turn, on kids. If most students arrive at college experienced w/ smartphones, while a minority don't, how redress the disadvantage this puts on those NOT cyber-savvy? A severe nerve disease leaves me unable to send/access text, navigate a smartphone. Even now, at 65, my inability to use smartphones blocks me from much vital medical info; registering for many orgs, social contacts, finding needed services -- participating in advocacy, education I once commonly led. I was a minor my first year of college; hence denied a job there. Found a job that summer only because one employer mistakenly assumed I was an adult. I see no concern about how debilitated this would have left me; leaves me now. On top of my afflictions themselves, mightily increasing how vital contact w/ leading researchers worldwide has been. Along w/ access to medical journals, etc. via the internet, medical studies that have welcomed my participation, etc., other patients similarly afflicted, confronting similar problems
Smartphones and iPads are extremely easy for young people to learn how to use. They don’t actually make young people tech savvy either. The smartphone skills they need will be learned almost instantly, so this is almost a non-issue and isn’t worth the trade offs of heavy tech use.
Smartphones are also not the only tech students should learn to use. When I was in high school, smartphones hadn't been invented yet. Kids were forbidden from using their dumb cellphones in class (it had to be kept in a bag, or the teacher would take it until the end of class). We used desktop computers to do research and write papers.
Smartphones are made to be incredibly intuitive. There's no reason someone would need a childhood marinated in smartphone use in order to learn how to use one. Kids spend many hours on phones, but never learn about the underlying computer technology that would actually be useful. They don't know about file systems, or how apps are made. It's like saying Gen X are at an advantage in the broadcasting industry because they spent 8 hours a day watching TV.
The accessibility concerns you bring up are a different issue. Have you looked into alternatives, such as voice control? The nice things about interconnectivity is that text messages are available on many systems, in many form factors.
Kat, Danielle. I see no data supporting your assertions. My experience (also no macro-data), I said, has been wildly contrary. So too my Mom's, others afflicted similarly. Yes, w/ unflagging determination, highly proactive measures. I have severe voice problems too, along w/ problems digesting spoken info. Besides running frequently into tech barriers I'm not savvy to redress without extensive help. This despite being exceptionally capable, successful before ongoing Shingles, autoimmunity, took a ruinous toll. My visual and dexterity defects render me unable to read, type on smartphones no matter what I do. I break, lose hundreds of dollars worth of items every month from transient seizures, losses of strength, falls w/, overwhelming pain rendering substantial focus impossible most of the time. E.g. inability to read, converse, understand what's said on TV. None of my parents, grandparents, sibling -- all very bright, generally capable -- ever became tech-savvy.
Yes, I’ve looked in vain for alternatives. And as I plenty bright adult, I and many peers, I must rely on my college roommate to configure my new desktop computers, frequently troubleshoot. My mother has gone to spend hours this past week w/ a cyber savvy friend to get help at Apple stores w/ Apple geniuses to fix her defective email software. They wrongly claimed success. She will be returning for a 5th time.
The objective should not be whether young adults can learn smartphone use over a few years. How would I manage as a college freshman now while still a minor? Just because of these patronizing laws blocking access to those persons without them? Upbringings are meant for kids to hit college, adulthood with the ground runnning, so to speak. Not w/ gaps that will leave them further disadvantaged.
Unless I missed it, you utterly fail to address that lack of smartphone access away from school prevents me and others from access to so much else necessary to be a functioning, employable adult.
In my case, this is no matter of time: I have severe medical imairments that prevent me from accessing or accessing text. From having the vision and dexterity necessary to use a smartphone, including increasingly to access much else.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations to allow everyone to function notwithstanding disabilities. Including w/ accommodations as “reasonable.”
Naturally, our society functioned fine w/ access not requiring smartphone use.
I live in Texas and the state outlawed cell phones in school this year. All of my clients with high school kids - and I really mean all of them - have told me that their kids are thrilled. Apparently no one was talking to each other at lunch and other breaks, they would just sit together and play on their phones. How sad and dystopian, I’m thrilled for the change.
In Tennessee it is the same. I have heard from parents thought that some kids are getting around the edict with burner phones.
There will always be "smokin' in the boys' room", but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ban the cigs for kids, though, I say. :-)
The important lesson is that it’s not too late. Thank you so much for sharing the article. Go Sweden!
Yes!!!
As a teacher, I commend Sweden’s courage to act and follow the evidence. I firmly believe that attention needs to become central to curricula worldwide. How do we cultivate it in a world where profit is derived from involuntary attention capture? Schools should provide our kids with an alternative to the screen-saturated norm. They should be places where we protect and nurture their cognitive potential, not risk it to data-hungry private interests. I’m glad Sweden is getting this done. It’s time for the rest of us to do the same: https://open.substack.com/pub/walledgardenedu/p/why-attention-must-become-curriculum?r=f74da&utm_medium=ios
I love it, and as a LinkedIn Top Voice and former teacher in a youth offenders' Institution In Ireland, this warms the heart. I am about ot launch something significant that I hope parents the world over can get behind. Thank you for being part of the solution. The Anxious Nation is the blueprint for all of us.
It’s refreshing to see Sweden recognize that progress doesn’t always mean more ed-tech. Reintroducing books and pencils is not regression. Children’s brains and bodies need tangible tools for focus and comprehension. Children need handwriting, the patience of reading from paper, and the human connection of face-to-face discussion, not just another app or gamified task. More tech equals better learning narrative is backfiring all over, so we need to ensure that schools remain places of depth, curiosity, and real thinking rather than another branch of the attention economy. This is a reminder that innovation can also look like returning to what’s proven to work.
In 2011, I didn’t have the right letters after my name to state with any authority that the handheld electronics were destroying kids’ health and learning. With no backing from school or community, I tried to restrict my kids’ use of the iPod Touch devices my ex had given them. It was impossible, and only served as a relationship-destroying constant conflict with my kids, whom I was rightly concerned about. With even teachers in elementary grades piling on to “reward” fifth graders with a “bring your handheld device to school” day (like pizza day, or movie day), I knew I was helpless to save my kids from the worst of an internet-in-your-pocket childhood and adolescence. And here is what I see in my own young adult kids:
• Sleep pattern problems, which cascade down into all aspects of mental and physical health
• Self-consciousness on a level I’d normally associate with mid-teens, yet they are in their 20s
• Lack of physical movement and tragically hunched posture
• Social avoidance; even though they are socially skilled, they still prefer not to do transactions in person
• Attempts at romantic bonding subverted and warped by violent online porn
• Inability to go without the phone for any length of time during waking hours, and the phone is in their hand as they finally fall asleep at 3am.
It’s such a disaster. I saw it all coming 14 years ago, and I was ridiculed. But I remember the day I keened and wept, and realized I was forced to accept that my kids were simply caught in a very unfortunate moment in human history. Like a devastating war or disease outbreak, there was going to be carnage I couldn’t prevent.
Such a shame. So sorry. I see that also in my grandkids, one getting counseling. Thank you for sharing these habits that have harmed, now seen in that generation.
I find it incredibly frustrating how much my primary school age children use screens at school despite us restricting it at home. I wish the UK could be more Sweden!
In our US state we have a new grade in public schools for 4 year olds called transitional kindergarten- so that’s a pretty young child on an elementary campus. A friend has her child in the grade this year and I asked them how child is doing. Apparently they are using screen time so frequently in class it’s all the child mentions about school- all the shows they see. This family doesn’t even use screens regularly at home. But mom works for the schools and doesn’t want to rock the boat. Makes me sad that even families who attempt to do better are undermined by the device use in the classroom.
I was fired from my non-tenure position at a university in Texas in 2023 when a student and their parent complained that they were not comfortable that I was teaching students about emotions in a programming course for digital artists. The student was encouraged by administrators to video my lecture, and then the administrators notified me that I was removed from teaching all courses and my contract would not be renewed. I had been hired specifically to design the curriculum and had been teaching the course for 8 years. The use of students and their phones as a surveillance device for those who have learned to project the illusion of control as a means to assert power is problematic....It is a zero-sum game for ethical educators who try to teach students that digital media can create powerfully addictive experiences. The factory model used in higher education is not likely to adapt to integrate AI in ways that align with student learning to develop curiosity, growth-mindsets, resilience, and an understanding of the need to question the organizational models of capitalism and the status quo.
We can learn a lot from the Sweden Experiment. I see change starting with the parents taking responsibility, stepping up, and giving the best chance for their children's growth and development. Screen time provides the "what to learn" at the expense of "how to learn". Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is generational and the foundation of good mental health. Sorry for the lecture but this is a real concern for today and for our future. Dr L
I was born in Sweden and came to the US at age 6. My earliest years formed a deep love of freedom, fairness, nature, nd human connection. I worked for Qualcomm from 1986 until 2010 and promoted the use of of digital tools for learning. At that time, digital access allowed a kind of freedom and agency that had never been possible before. It broke my heart when the tools became used in ways that enforced non-human, non-humane, and harmful in the schools where the poorest kids were expected to improve performance through obedience without compassion. I have lots of articles in education blogs about how the technology could be used to enhance human dignity even among the least powerful. And it could have. And in certain situations it absolutely did. Contrast that with my own lived experience. My kids were born in 2000 and 2003. They got computers as soon as they could use a mouse, phones as soon as they could keep from losing them, and iPads as soon as they were released. These communication tools were instrumental in developing their own identities, finding their tribes, and learning deeply about important topics. They learned leadership through both authority and influence through gaming. They never were interested in social media likes or status but in using this tool to find people all over the world who they connected with.
At that time social media had not yet become the cesspool that it can be today. At that time, our family gamed together and when people were mean or creepy we would all, as a family, take our hands off the keyboard and talk things through. About how they thought about people who acted that way, about what they wanted people to think about them online, about how to offer grace to immature and egoistic players, about how what people say online says things about them, not my kids. I am ridiculously proud of how compassionate, kind, courteous, insightful, and honest they grew up to be. I have a million examples.
The kids of my friends had similar experiences when the parents were engaged in this way. But a few years down the line the toxicity has increased. My kids were inoculated by their early experience and being neurodivergent the internet was a place where they could find true belonging in a way that was hard to do in school.
I have been trying to find the underlying reasons why my family has had lovely outcomes that I would love every kid and teen to be blessed with, while recognizing that most teens now are receiving the opposite.
I am skeptical of a lot of the causation arguments, but you have been a very influential part of my current views on politics and persuasion so when I hear this from you, I believe that it is a clearer assessment than the knee jerk reactions I struggle with.
We could have used this tech in schools in ways that enhanced autonomy and compassion, but those don’t seem to be the goals of school. I am confident there are ways for tech to be liberating and psychologically helpful and healing. I base this on including tech as part of implementing schooling based on Self Determination Theory and on my own homeschooling efforts plus experiments I funded in elementary school back in the early twenty-teens.
My question is: are there similar approaches that work for cell phones at home, for social media, for the things that make us all feel as though we are on call and judged every moment? Is there something to fix at a deeper level that drains the toxicity but leaves the benefits? I hope so.
Wow, our kids are peers and I didn’t see an even remotely similar outcome as you did with that group of Gen Z. The majority struggle emotionally or with practical life. A ton disown their parents over minor slights. Many can’t find jobs the jobs they were promised by going full STEM ahead, computer science degrees in hand. They were the guinea pigs. Gen Alpha will similarly struggle, maybe more so. The youngest children though I have hope for. Their parents are starting to insist on something different. Renewed interest in an analog childhood. They are very tiny yet though, so time will tell.
My children certainly struggle with neurodivergence and societal conditions and the economy. But they are profoundly mature and compassionate at the same time. Society has failed these generations deeply. But I am wondering whether technology is amplifying trends rather than being the cause. Or if there is some deeper causes that need to be addressed and that tech can amplify positive experiences as well as negative ones. I think we might be a counter example that suggests we need to look more deeply.
The article would have been significantly more powerful had it included a comparison between Sweden and the United States, identifying what makes a national course correction feasible in one but far more difficult in the other.
Sweden’s ability to pivot so decisively stems from several structural and cultural advantages: a centralized education system that allows for swift policy shifts like a nationwide school phone ban; a relatively cohesive political culture with high institutional trust; and a public that accepts, even expects, state involvement in child welfare and education. Just as important, Swedish leaders were willing to publicly acknowledge that the digitalization of childhood had been a failed experiment—an act of humility rarely seen in U.S. politics.
In contrast, the U.S. faces steep barriers to a similar shift. Its education system is highly decentralized, fractured among thousands of local districts and school boards. Tech lobbying is far more entrenched, and cultural polarization—especially around parenting norms and individual liberty—would likely turn any screen-time restrictions into a political flashpoint. The U.S. also suffers from a litigious culture and a deep suspicion of government involvement in family life. S
till, there are glimmers of hope: rising parental dissatisfaction, growing grassroots efforts like Wait Until 8th, and early experiments at the state level suggest that change is not impossible. But without acknowledging the fundamental differences between Sweden’s context and America’s, the article risks being read as a hopeful anecdote rather than a call to action grounded in political reality.
This gives me hope! As an educator in the throws of it, watching what is happening to children in schools when they are given a device as young as kindergarten is heartbreaking. I can only hope that those of us speaking out against the harms of edtech will continue to gather more voices so that the powers that be will have to listen. A child's ability to learn and develop their social emotional skills is degraded when they are expected to learn from a screen. We can no longer let the tech industry drive the narrative on how to educate children while they profit significantly. Bring back the books, paper and pencils!
I am a middle school counselor in New York State. I’m so happy we are banning phones in schools. Next up is the Chromebooks! During lunch most kids just quietly play video games and few interact with each other even though we try our best to promote engagement
The 97% Snapchat penetration among 12-15 year olds in Sweden is staggering and shows how deeply the platfrom had embeded itself in youth culture. What strikes me is that Snapchat's ephemeral messaging feature actually made it more appealing to kids who wanted to avoid parental oversight. Sweden's reversal could be a wakeup call for investors as more countries may follow this regulatory trend.
Yes and let’s throw parental responsibility out of the window. The whole idea that the breeders and birthers should raise our children is ludacris. Just look at how badly that’s worked out. Much better to have the State raise children. Yes! Hip Hip Hooray for the Statists!!!
I see nothing about adult, teacher use. ITS impact on adults: in turn, on kids. If most students arrive at college experienced w/ smartphones, while a minority don't, how redress the disadvantage this puts on those NOT cyber-savvy? A severe nerve disease leaves me unable to send/access text, navigate a smartphone. Even now, at 65, my inability to use smartphones blocks me from much vital medical info; registering for many orgs, social contacts, finding needed services -- participating in advocacy, education I once commonly led. I was a minor my first year of college; hence denied a job there. Found a job that summer only because one employer mistakenly assumed I was an adult. I see no concern about how debilitated this would have left me; leaves me now. On top of my afflictions themselves, mightily increasing how vital contact w/ leading researchers worldwide has been. Along w/ access to medical journals, etc. via the internet, medical studies that have welcomed my participation, etc., other patients similarly afflicted, confronting similar problems
Smartphones and iPads are extremely easy for young people to learn how to use. They don’t actually make young people tech savvy either. The smartphone skills they need will be learned almost instantly, so this is almost a non-issue and isn’t worth the trade offs of heavy tech use.
Smartphones are also not the only tech students should learn to use. When I was in high school, smartphones hadn't been invented yet. Kids were forbidden from using their dumb cellphones in class (it had to be kept in a bag, or the teacher would take it until the end of class). We used desktop computers to do research and write papers.
Smartphones are made to be incredibly intuitive. There's no reason someone would need a childhood marinated in smartphone use in order to learn how to use one. Kids spend many hours on phones, but never learn about the underlying computer technology that would actually be useful. They don't know about file systems, or how apps are made. It's like saying Gen X are at an advantage in the broadcasting industry because they spent 8 hours a day watching TV.
The accessibility concerns you bring up are a different issue. Have you looked into alternatives, such as voice control? The nice things about interconnectivity is that text messages are available on many systems, in many form factors.
Kat, Danielle. I see no data supporting your assertions. My experience (also no macro-data), I said, has been wildly contrary. So too my Mom's, others afflicted similarly. Yes, w/ unflagging determination, highly proactive measures. I have severe voice problems too, along w/ problems digesting spoken info. Besides running frequently into tech barriers I'm not savvy to redress without extensive help. This despite being exceptionally capable, successful before ongoing Shingles, autoimmunity, took a ruinous toll. My visual and dexterity defects render me unable to read, type on smartphones no matter what I do. I break, lose hundreds of dollars worth of items every month from transient seizures, losses of strength, falls w/, overwhelming pain rendering substantial focus impossible most of the time. E.g. inability to read, converse, understand what's said on TV. None of my parents, grandparents, sibling -- all very bright, generally capable -- ever became tech-savvy.
Yes, I’ve looked in vain for alternatives. And as I plenty bright adult, I and many peers, I must rely on my college roommate to configure my new desktop computers, frequently troubleshoot. My mother has gone to spend hours this past week w/ a cyber savvy friend to get help at Apple stores w/ Apple geniuses to fix her defective email software. They wrongly claimed success. She will be returning for a 5th time.
The objective should not be whether young adults can learn smartphone use over a few years. How would I manage as a college freshman now while still a minor? Just because of these patronizing laws blocking access to those persons without them? Upbringings are meant for kids to hit college, adulthood with the ground runnning, so to speak. Not w/ gaps that will leave them further disadvantaged.
Unless I missed it, you utterly fail to address that lack of smartphone access away from school prevents me and others from access to so much else necessary to be a functioning, employable adult.
In my case, this is no matter of time: I have severe medical imairments that prevent me from accessing or accessing text. From having the vision and dexterity necessary to use a smartphone, including increasingly to access much else.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations to allow everyone to function notwithstanding disabilities. Including w/ accommodations as “reasonable.”
Naturally, our society functioned fine w/ access not requiring smartphone use.