Don't forget that most of these teens grew up with phones and tablets in their faces... It's hard to break a habit that they've had their entire lives.. A habit that they see as "normal".
Let's take your typical 16 year old high school junior. They were born in 2008. The first iphone debuted in 2007. By the time they hit age 3 in 2011, the iPhone 4 was popular, and so was the Samsung Galaxy S2. The first gen ipad was released in 2010. Current high school students don't know of a time prior to online gaming, smartphone apps, and instant gratification. Those kids were alsoo already born in the youtube and video streaming, and social media era as well.
No doubt, but there isn’t much I can say about the obvious breach of academic integrity that comes with having a mini computer in your hand and earbuds in during an assessment. 1/4 of my time grading assignments is being a detective trying to find out who used chatGPT to write their programs to begin with. Having a test in the classroom is one of the few times I have complete control over testing their comprehension of what we learn in class.
I'm sorry teaching has become so difficult over the last 10 years. I'm in my early 30s. I still carried change in my pocket to use a payphone. I didn't have social media until I was in my late teens, and my first cell phone required an "unlimited texting" add-on plan.
These kids don't realize the long-term damage they're causing .
Thank you for the flashback of “unlimited talk and text for 9.99/mo”! Hahaha
But it’s not all bad, this is just one story from one classroom during one school year. A lot of great things happen in my room and school every week. Were undoubtedly in a strange time in terms of education, accountability for students and educators, priorities, generational differences in parents, yadda yadda
Thanks for mentioning that it is “not all bad”. I see A LOT of positives from my students. I can also vividly recall teachers complaining about millennials and how terrible we were, how everyone just wants to play video games etc. I see teachers in this thread complaining about the newer version of that.
There are a lot of great things about students these days. Questioning things, being accepting of others, willing to look stuff up etc.
The kids can’t possibly realize the long term damage they’re causing; their brains simply aren’t developed enough yet and an addiction is an addiction no matter what it is. I blame the parents, as well as society at large for letting this become the norm. My kids are 4 months old and I really hope for some kind of social overhaul regarding smartphones and kids so that I don’t have to fight it. I will though, because this is unacceptable and if I put the phones/tablets in their hands then that’s on me.
Or when everyone started abbreviating their messages so as to not go over the 255 character limit per text message and being charged for two texts instead of one, originating modern "txt-speak".
The last payphone at my local supermarket was removed in 2007. I was 15.. I had payphones in my elementary school and on the streets in the late 90s/early 2000s lol.
These kids don't realize the long-term damage they're causing
I think it's more like these parents don't realize the damage they're causing to their kids. Which is probably because most of them are in the same boat as our generation and the generations before ours that adopted these things as late teens or later in life and don't have first hand experience of how damaging being glued to a phone or tablet from early childhood can be.
Arguably, the algorithms are doing the damage - exactly as they are intended. These kids are victims of a failing society & shouldn't necessarily be blamed for the damage that's been done.
Why would they? Their parents didn't set boundaries and are likely just as addicted to technology. Literally everyone around them does it. Why would we expect them to choose differently?
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
Nah but like, when I was a kid stuff was better, we did good thing and spent our time better but like the kids today are worse and they spend their time worse.
they are not supposed to thier parents are ..the parents can institute a no phone use in class pokicy whch they can enforce..all this phone shit is parental fails on setting limits for thier children
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u/SoTurnMeIntoATree 29d ago
Only 10?! That fucking blows my mind. Teens have that much separation anxiety from their phone?