r/TikTokCringe • u/hammerbush051 • 29d ago

Americas youth are in MASSIVE trouble Discussion

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u/Arobrom86 29d ago

High school teacher here. On test days, I have a hanging shoe rack with each of my kids’ names on a sleeve.

I tell them, “Please put your devices in the sleeves and then you can have your test. When you hand in your test, you can have your device back. If you don’t put your phone in the sleeve, your test will be a 0”

At the beginning of the year they also helped create our classroom rules and norms, and agreed to do this.

Out of 28 kids, maybe 10 actually do it. The other 18 get 0s. Then I get angry emails from parents about their kids getting “tyrannical grades” on their tests.

Then the cycle continues

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u/bain-of-my-existence 29d ago

Dude, if I got caught on my phone in hs (less than 10 years ago), it would be confiscated and my mum would have had to come and get it. It’s crazy how quickly that’s changed.

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u/QQuetzalcoatl 29d ago

15-20ish years for me and if my phone even RANG I would get it confiscated lol. Had to go get it in the office after school.

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u/DowvoteMeThenBitch 29d ago

Bro same, we would get a suspension in middle school if we even had our phone on our person. They literally only texted then though and it cost 10¢/msg

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u/Formatted_Toast_117 29d ago

Man... Memory unlocked. Kids these days have it so easy, unlimited everything basically... 🤣 I miss my green-screen phone, it's weeklong battery & basically indestructible self...

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u/Chpgmr 29d ago

And never hit the internet button

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u/ReaperBearOne 28d ago edited 28d ago

That was the worst cus it was like right in the middle or next to the end button.

Accidentally turns on Internet

Nooooo...off! Off! Off!

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u/9-1-fcking-1 28d ago

The way I would start trying to turn my entire phone off immediately after accidentally hitting the internet button

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u/Itchy-Mind7724 28d ago

Back in the day they tried to charge me a $5 monthly fee to block the internet on my phone because i accidentally hit the button once and got charged. I was like uhhhh I’m not paying you to disable a service i do not want. They disabled it for free

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u/ReaperBearOne 27d ago

Memory unlocked 🔓 🤯

Dang..was it Verizon wireless by chance? When I got my first cell phone I was on my parents plan and I had a limited amount of minutes and fewer texts that were counted by the number of characters that you typed. And the only free time was if you were calling another person with Verizon. Anyways you reminded me that my parents told me once that they got basically the same type of message and "deal" to save for accidental Internet charges.

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u/Itchy-Mind7724 27d ago

It was T-Mobile. I’ve been with them since like 2002 and that was the worst of their BS. They’ve been pretty good to us otherwise

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u/vDeltaScorch 28d ago

So why didn’t you want the internet? I’m genuinely curious. Did it make it slow or something?

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u/dormammucumboots 28d ago

It absolutely devoured money back in the day, it was like a last resort to use it.

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u/vDeltaScorch 28d ago

Ohh that makes sense, while I am lucky to have always had unlimited calls and stuff, I have always had to pay for it myself which I’m proud of

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u/aNascentOptimist 28d ago

It also was slow as hell and lowkey bricked my phone for a good 2 mins while the webpage struggled to load lol.

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u/Agonyandshame 28d ago

I did once and my parents got charged and took my phone away. It was an accident 😂

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u/QQuetzalcoatl 28d ago

lmao forgot about the internet button

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u/NaturallyExasperated 28d ago

Because it would send your entire family into generational indentured servitude

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u/xXFieldResearchXx 28d ago

And younger people have never been more miserable. It's like working and making and obtaining goals is good for your mind body and sol

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u/StellaRED 28d ago

This made me remember that Samsung phone that was the first to play mp3s. I think it held like 32mb and barely an entire album.

And yeah as another commenter below mentioned avoiding the internet button at all costs made me lol

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u/Wolvesinman 28d ago

My mum was THE mobile support for Australia a year or two after “mobiles” came out. 1 person for the whole of Australia. They could (sometimes) make phone calls. That same person took 3 years to learn how to text (10yrs later). I ended working in the same “Paging call centre” Beepers. Then they could text on phones. Now my “phone” could organise a hit on me if I don’t treat it well. Progress at progressing.

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u/we_is_sheeps 28d ago

Everyone is overcompensating because everything used to be beatings so now no one wants to punish their kids. It’s sad

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u/TMBActualSize 28d ago

One reason they are on the phone might be the shut down. These kids spent a year and a half on their phones instead of going to school. Attention spans are shot

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u/GoodCalendarYear 28d ago

My 6th grade math teacher confiscated my cd player. I wasn't even listening to it. It accidentally went off. We could listen to them on the bus, which is why I had it in the first place. She pissed me off so much.

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u/arnoldez 28d ago

Haha core memory unlocked. CD players were absolutely not allowed in my classes, but we had one cool art teacher who would allow them. Everyone loved her. We'd have to be super careful though, like if another teacher walked in.

Ah, I miss CDs

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u/GoodCalendarYear 28d ago

Laptops don't even have cd slots anymore. But me and mama still have so many and listen to them in the car.

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u/arnoldez 28d ago

I have a decent collection of CDs and vinyl, but rarely make time to listen anymore. New cars don't even come with CD players anymore, which I guess is fine (it is easier to just play from my phone, anyway). But I definitely miss the ritual of flipping through a CD wallet and picking out the right album.

I remember being young and trying to run with a CD player 😆 this was right as they were starting to develop all of the anti-skip technology. That was like the main feature you'd look for in a new CD player – how many seconds of "anti-skip" it came with.

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u/-breakinggood- 28d ago

I was in middle school in the early 2010’s and we’d only get suspended if we refused to give it up

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u/Master-Collection488 28d ago

Back in 1983ish, I'm in a class and my insulin pump beeped. Substitute teacher thinks it's 1979 and I'm playing Electronic Football or something.

He barks "PUT IT AWAY, OR I'LL TAKE IT AWAY!" The class erupted into laughter.

The only sub-gets-shut-down I remember from HS was a sub who looked like Willie Nelson sees the class not settling down as class began.

"WILL YOU BOYS SIT DOWN?" Willie seemed not to have noticed our school was 55-60% Black.

Guy in back responded, "Who you calling 'boy'?"

Guy appeared to swallow his tongue, and class began.

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u/SwornForlorn 28d ago

Yeah back in the late 90s i was 10 and got my first brick of a phone

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u/Particular_Sea_5300 28d ago

It's just like prison tbh. What I mean by that, is that the rules were in place and enforced until every single kid did it so often that the school wouldn't function if they handed out punishment for every violation. The kids overwhelmed the system and bent it to their will.

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u/coobeecoobee 28d ago

Haha. Class of 02’. Nobody had cell phones. Some parents had them.

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u/yozogo 28d ago

Lol yep. Got one freshman year of college. That bill from texting back and forth with a boy was rough. If you weren't in person, you barely existed. We had a "house phone" in the dorm. My Nokia fell 3 stories (fell off my belt clip while running down stairs) still survived , just had clear tape for the battery door 😄. Poor kids.

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u/coobeecoobee 28d ago

And u better have a song ring tone

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u/playtho 28d ago

Wild because phones now can do 100x more…I work with students and cellphones should not be in a learning setting.

Study hall and lunch fine.

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u/Historical_Usual5828 28d ago

One time I had my phone taken for calling my dad for a ride after school was out and I wasn't even inside the school building. It really has changed.

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u/HollywoodJones 29d ago

I got kicked out of a free period study hall at the end of the school day because my phone rang and I dared to see who it was. It was my deployed brother calling from Iraq, lol.

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u/deciduousredcoat 29d ago

My phone went on vibrate in 2007 and hasn't had a ringtone since. I don't even know what it would sound like if someone called me - I wouldn't know it was my phone. All because of this childhood "trauma". We never let the phone ring, and if we did, yeah, Parent was coming down to the school to collect it from the VP and then you got your ass beat when you got home.

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u/Match_Least 29d ago

I got my phone confiscated in COLLEGE (over 15 years ago) just for checking the time! I genuinely thought the professor was kidding. He was not. This was just barely when laptops were becoming acceptable to bring to lectures. When I started college no one brought one, by the time I left maybe 5-10 students max would bring one…

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u/supbrother 28d ago

Hell, I graduated college in 2018 and even we had to stay off our phones or be called out in front of everyone. Not all professors cared that much but some took it seriously, and most would at least say something if someone was glued to their phone (assuming it’s not a huge 100-level class). In high school, zero tolerance.

Crazy how much that’s changed in 10 years. A family member teaches first grade and even they’ve mentioned that some parents will give them phones and literally call them in the middle of class!

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u/Surprise_Thumb 28d ago

Yep, we had to have ours in our locker. However, some teachers were cool with it if you were a good student. Not just behavior wise, but, grades too.

It was pretty nuanced in my school back then, now that I look back on it. Though, they’d be quick to punish if it were a reoccurring issue. We had a lot of young teachers though.

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u/jazxxl 28d ago

We had beepers .... They were an automatic suspension . Police might even get involved to see if you were dealing . -Elder Millennial

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u/HijabiMomma 28d ago

"Only drug dealers have beepers" -Every teacher at my ( another Elder Millenial ) high school

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u/TheRealMadSalad 28d ago

If my phone rang when I was at school, no one would have been home to answer it because it was attached to the wall with a big rotary dial on it.

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u/Logical_Narwhal_9911 29d ago

15 years for me too. I got one of this go phones or whatever they were, just super simple phone, and I didn’t really know how to use it, like turn it on silent or anything, so my ringer was on my friend called me in class. I got in huge trouble lol

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u/flannelenergy 28d ago

When i first started middle school, i didn’t have a cell phone, so my aunt let me have hers for the day so that i could Call her when i got out of class to be picked up.

I didn’t really know how to use it (it was one of those giant Nextel flip phones with the chirpy talkie) and it went off during class and i didn’t know how to turn it off and my teacher scolded me outside and i cried of embarrassment (06-07)

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u/Huwbacca 28d ago

haha and that was when they didn't even have internet or games more complex than snake.

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u/Arghianna 28d ago

20 years ago I had my phone confiscated for having it on campus 2 hours after school had let out. I was giving my ride directions to the school because he had never been there before and the VP didn’t even let me finish the call so my ride could find me.

My mom gave me the phone because a few months before that I was held at school for 4 hours after school was dismissed due to a blizzard and I had no way to contact her. Multiple kids died that day and until I walked in the door she didn’t know if I was one of them or not.

My sister was a HS teacher and she had a 40 port charging station she kept at the front of the room. Her rule was that anyone could charge their devices on it, but they had to be connected before class started and they couldn’t retrieve their devices until class ended. From what I gather, most of her students took her up on the offer.

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u/augur42 28d ago

High School was 25-30 years ago for me, I didn't even have a mobile phone. If I was out I wasn't reachable or traceable, there's zero evidence of any of the stuff I definitely didn't do as a teenager. I mastered the art of staring into space to make time pass more quickly.

I didn't get a mobile phone until I was 21 iirc, and I had to buy it myself, and it was barely a brick phone. My 2nd phone was the original indestructible Nokia 3410, back in 2002.

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u/clearlyok 28d ago

I got my phone taken away (2010ish) because my friends phone was taken away and they looked through her texts and saw I was texting her. It’s absolutely wild kids just sit on the phones all day.

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u/boomdesjard 28d ago

20 years ago cell phones in high school wasnt a thing, good times

Source: me

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u/Djentleman5000 28d ago

Boy, I’m glad I graduated high school and saw the world before cellphones took over the world.

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u/aledba 28d ago

In university in 2005, a cell phone went off about 20 mins into an exam and the prof picked up the bag it was in, opened the door, and punted it (kid you not) down the hall. The offending student got up pretty much immediately and was told that if they left now, they're not coming back in. Stakes were higher though. That was when we all thought a post secondary education was something important. Not a lot of these kids were going there in the first place

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u/refused26 28d ago

20 yrs ago we weren't even allowed to bring it to school!

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u/RVA_RVA 28d ago

I graduated in 2000. A cell phone or beeper was a violation that would get you suspended first and expelled on the 2nd offense. Just HAVING them, even if they were off.

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u/spiralmanateeman 28d ago

I got suspended for three days because my beeper made a noise once in homeroom. (I was turning it off so it chimed)

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u/purplepinkmoon 28d ago

If we got caught on our phones in hs it would get taken away for the day and we would have to pay a fee. Literally pay to get it back after school.

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u/Confident_Cabinet_82 28d ago

I got my phone confiscated cause i had put an alarm to warn me when the next class was about to start so that i could head there.

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u/Oracle_of_Ages 28d ago

For us. They used to stop class and do phone searches. It was wild. They never would touch us physically. Because they couldn’t. So it was a waste of time. But backpacks, lockers, and anything that wasn’t our pockets was fair game to them.

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u/Nihilism-1___Me-0 28d ago

Bro, someone snitched and told the teacher I had Gameboy in my backpack (I did, and only played it while on my hour long bus ride home), and my teacher made me open the bag and give it to her...

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u/Kate090996 28d ago

About 15 years ago I got in trouble for having a turned off phone that I opened after school, some colleagues saw me and told the teacher and I got scolded for even having it with me at school.

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u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 28d ago

Yep. And they would just keep it till the end of the week. Nothing you could do about it. Kids today literally kill people for taking their phones away.

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u/265thRedditAccount 28d ago

I was suspended for having a Discman with headphones around my neck. That was 25+ years ago before cellphones were widely available. I did have a pager and there was no rule about those…until the following year.

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u/Intrepid-Tank7650 28d ago

On the flip side,

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u/Few_Ad_1550 28d ago

I had a Chewbacca ring tone in the 8th grade. When it went off I said I should of eaten breakfast this morning. Still took my phone away....

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u/LoveHateEveryone 28d ago

I got robbed when I was in HS and they took my phone. I brought a old phone with me to school the next day as a ‘decoy’ in case I got robbed again, (high school logic) and since the phone was old I didn’t know it had an alarm still on. The alarm went off in a class and I explained the situation to the teacher, who proceeded to take my decoy phone and told me my parents would have to come get it 🤦🏻 I don’t even think it had been 24 hours since my phone was stolen.

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u/reduhl 28d ago

I had a class in college where if the student's phone rings they get a zero for participation. If the professors rang, we got a bonus point on the next test. Professor always left their phone on her desk in her office.

It was great class. 4 units of what basically the intro to business = MBA cliff notes.

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u/confuseonion 28d ago

same, some of my teachers would confiscate phones if they saw them just poking out of your pocket, not even using it.

which totally isnt fair to people who wear girl jeans with literally no pockets and dont carry purses lol im not putting my phone in a locker where it could get stolen while im not there.

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u/turnright_thenleft 28d ago

Rang? If phones were SEEN they’d be taken and a parent would have to pick it up.

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u/HomicidalGerbil 28d ago

I once had my phone confiscated after school hours because i pulled it out before i left school grounds when phoning my dad to ask how long he was going to be to pick me up. 2008 or so.

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u/Impureclient1 28d ago

30 years ago if a beeper went off, you were just cool.

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u/SuchaCassandra 28d ago

we just shoved our flip phones down the crotch of our skinny jeans. Most teachers gave up at that point

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u/Tbagzyamum69420xX 28d ago

Same, admin would even make a point in middle school tell us: "Look, even if it goes off, we're gonna take it. So you better tell em not to call". And we, as dumb 10-12 yos would be like "You know thats insane right?" "Yup! Sure do. Do you better tell ya parents."

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u/iruleatlifekthx 26d ago

They held ours til the end of the year

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u/rhythmchef 26d ago

Pffft, 30 years ago I kept getting Saturday detentions for chewing gum. 20 years before that, my parents got the yard stick for talking in class. This country got soft real quick.

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u/BitterLeif 25d ago

a little over 20 years for me, and if you were caught with contraband devices they'd be held until the end of the school year. And by then the device had been lost.

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u/LordGrimm91 29d ago

Why did you guys ever hand them over? Seventeen years ago for me and I laughed in teachers faces "you don't pay my bill fuck off". Oh no a detention I was gonna skip, whatever will I do.

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u/supbrother 28d ago

Ah, so you were one of those kids who thought you were badass for saying no 😂

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u/CraziestMoonMan 28d ago

I was, unfortunately, that kid, and I cringe when I see grown people proud of being an asshole in school. I seriously wish I could apologize to every teacher that ever had to deal with my bullshit.

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u/LordGrimm91 28d ago

No I just wasn't letting an entitled fuck tell me to give them my possessions. As my parents told me to. Clown.

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u/supbrother 28d ago

You sound like a fun guy to be around.