The experience of phones being fixed/placed in one setting.
And, thus, the experience of being able to talk on a phone only when one is close to a phone. That goes for adults, too, I guess. In other words, I question carrying phones/media appliances on our persons 24/7.
I wanna add to that and say, the experience of not being in direct communication with the rest of earth 24/7, Vis-à-vis phones. I know it's less stressful as a parent to have track of where your kids are all the time, but I think it's good for a kid to get lost every once in a while and explore their city or town and learn about their surroundings first hand, dangers included. But I'm not a parent.
* Perhaps it's the benefit of, at the extreme, having the experience of 'having' to just "be" -- without a device-on-the-body to suddenly clutch for "security/et.al."
* to have to actually "wait" to use a phone/device. * to possibly have to exist without knowing that a phone/device is right there, in my hand, on my body, that I can grab at all times * to experience boredom
Right before I singed in here, I read an interesting-to-me article -- the title was something like, "What Happened When I Asked the Students To Turn Off Their Phones." I tried to copy and paste the article here. It's pretty long -- I'm sort of surprised I read it all! Ha! But it was interesting.
If the article isn't under here, I failed somehow to successfully copy and paste it. :)
The article was written by Joelle Renstrom and it was on the Aeon website.
As a teacher who has long witnessed and worried about the impacts of technology in the classroom, I constantly struggle to devise effective classroom policies for smartphones. I used to make students sing or dance if their phones interrupted class, and although this led to some memorable moments, it also turned inappropriate tech use into a joke. Given the myriad deleterious effects of phones – addiction, decline of face-to-face socialisation, deskilling, and endless distraction, for starters – I want students to think carefully about their phone habits, rather than to mindlessly follow (or not follow) a rule.
After reading my Aeon essay on the topic, a representative from a San Francisco startup called YONDR contacted me. YONDR makes special pouches that keep audiences from using their phones at shows. You silence your phone, slide it into the pouch, and lock it at the top. After the performance, or if access is necessary before then, you can unlock the case in the lobby by touching the lock to a metal base, similar to anti-theft tags on clothing. Performers such as Dave Chappelle and Alicia Keys have used YONDR – whose motto is ‘Be here now’ – to curtail unsanctioned recordings and, when they look into the crowd, they see faces, not phones. The approach seems less draconian than forcing people to part with their tech, as separation anxiety defeats the goal of increased engagement.
YONDR sent me pouches to use in class. At the start of the winter semester, I introduced my students to the routine: before each class, they’d silence their phones, get a pouch from the box, and lock their phones in. Before leaving, they’d unlock the case and put it back in the box. During class, I didn’t care if they put the pouches on the desk, in their pockets, or if they clutched them tight. I told them this was an experiment for an eventual article, and that I wanted their honest opinions, which I’d collect via surveys at the beginning and end of the semester.
Initially, 37 percent of my 30 students – undergraduates at Boston University – were angry or annoyed about this experiment. While my previous policy leveraged public humiliation, it didn’t dictate what they did with their phones in class. For some, putting their phones into cases seemed akin to caging a pet, a clear denial of freedom. Yet by the end of the semester, only 14 percent felt negatively about the pouches; 11 percent were ‘pleasantly surprised’; 7 percent were ‘relieved’; and 21 percent felt ‘fine’ about them.
Workarounds emerged immediately. Students slid their phones into the pouches without locking them, but because they still couldn’t use their phones in class, this became a quiet act of rebellion, rather than a demonstration of defiance. Some of them used their computers, on which we often search databases and complete in-class exercises, to text or access social media. I’m not comfortable policing students’ computer screens – if they really want to use class time to access what YONDR denies them, that’s their choice. The pouches did stop students from going to the bathroom to use their phones. In previous semesters, some students would leave the room for 10 to 15 minutes and take their phones with them. With phones pouched, there were very few bathroom trips.
A quarter (26 percent) of my students predicted that YONDR would make the classroom ‘more distraction-free’. At the end of the semester, twice as many (51.85 percent) said it actually had. I can’t tell if this is a grudging admission, as though conceding that broccoli isn’t so bad after all, or an earnest one. Once, after class, I noticed a pouch left under a desk. A few minutes later a student raced in. ‘I totally forgot about my phone after I put it in the pouch,’ she said. ‘I guess that means they’re working.’ Perhaps she daydreamed about something else or produced a magnificent doodle, but chances are she was actually engaged in the class.
When I asked whether society would benefit from decreased phone use, only 15 per cent said no. Two-thirds (65 percent) said yes, and 19 percent said: ‘I think so.’ Half (50 percent) of students mentioned better communication and more face-to-face interactions as benefits of using phones less. ‘I started to notice how my cellphone was taking over my life,’ one student wrote. ‘eing in the shower is a time I really appreciate because it forces me to spend some time away from my phone, just thinking rather than mindlessly scrolling.’
My goal with this experiment was to get students thinking about their habits, rather than to necessarily change them. Students should question authority, including mine. It’s easy for me, and, I suspect, much of the older generation, to seek evidence to support the idea that life was better before smartphones. My students admit they can’t read maps, that they find reading and writing on paper antiquated, that they don’t memorise information they can google. Yet these are not confessions – these are realities. Some changes are simply changes. Not everything needs to be a value judgment, but students generally agree that phone use in the classroom is inappropriate – only 11 percent believe a class phone policy is unnecessary.
At the beginning of the semester, 48 percent said that a more distraction-free environment would help with learning. Given that, I asked why we still surround ourselves with phones in the classroom. A fifth (20 percent) used the word ‘addiction’ in their responses – a word they often avoid. Many mentioned boredom. Unfortunately, societal norms suggest that phone use is an acceptable response to boredom. But as philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Bertrand Russell have argued, boredom is essential – it ignites imagination and ambition. Boredom isn’t something from which students need rescuing.
One student voiced a reductionist explanation: ‘We are idiots. We cannot control our behaviour.’ While I appreciate the pithy observation, the resoluteness of these statements troubles me. If we write ourselves off as idiots, then why bother examining the way we live? If we have no control over our behaviour, what’s the point of trying to change?
Technology is part of humanity’s narrative. That’s neither inherently good nor bad – the implications are up to us. While 39 percent of my students said that studying the effects of phone use didn’t change their thoughts or behaviours, 28.5 percent try to use their phones less and 21.5 percent now try to be more aware about how/when they use their phones. Half of my students think more critically about the role of phones, and that’s the first step in guiding our relationship with technology, instead of letting tech guide us.
Still, I wanted some sense of where my students’ generation will take this story. I asked them whether they’d ever implant their phones in their bodies (as predicted by industry leaders at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2016) and here’s what they said:
7 percent: Yes! The closer I can be to my phone, the better 7 percent: Yes – it’s inevitable, so I might as well 7 percent: Depends on the cost 11 percent: Depends on how many other people are doing it 36 percent: Depends on the physical risks 32 percent: No way
Two-thirds of my students would at least consider making their phones part of their bodies, which would mean accepting all the consequences of screens, instant gratification and information-dependency. But as with all hypothetical questions, perhaps when the possibility arises, some will decide to preserve the ability to put down their phones. Perhaps they’ll remember that time with the kind of nostalgia I feel for the experiences of childhood that no longer exist.
In the novel Ishmael (1992) by Daniel Quinn, the ape Ishmael tells its human pupil that it’s an expert in captivity.
‘I have this impression of being a captive,’ the pupil says, ‘but I can’t explain why.’
‘[You’re] unable to find the bars of the cage,’ Ishmael replies.
I keep returning to this idea when I think about the YONDR experiment. Ishmael is talking about the destruction of the environment, but his observation applies to human use of technology too. Participation in modern-day civilisation requires technology, particularly smartphones. We pay bills, communicate with friends and family, get our news, and apply for jobs, college and healthcare via websites and apps. The old-fashioned way doesn’t work anymore. We have to adapt.
But it’s up to us exactly how to adapt. Do we line up to fork out more than $999 for the new iPhone? Do we text someone across the room or keep our phone on the table during dinner? Do we opt to interact with other humans as little as possible and rely on technology as the go-between?
Ultimately, that’s what the YONDR pouches represent: choice. Perhaps agency won’t lead to a different narrative, but it could offer my students a workaround. If they are going to implant smartphones in their bodies, I hope they do so not because it’s the path of least resistance but because they thought about it and truly want it. And if they power down their phones, I hope it’s not (always) because a professor asked them to.
This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at January 10, 2019 2:41 PM MST
Ah. Gotcha. I've never heard of YONDR. I don't know how I'd feel about that. I would probably be one of the quiet rebellious ones that didn't lock my case. lol And, it's not because I don't see the value in them, but because I'm perfectly capable of policing myself, and if I do need to be on my phone, it's to connect with my kids. When I was in high school, cell phones were just emerging and they were banned. I carried one anyway, purely so my son's babysitter could reach me if something happened to him. I wouldn't allow someone to place a barrier between them and me and I'm respectful enough to excuse myself to use the phone.
I've also been on the other end of things. With my dance group, one of my responsibilities has been to monitor the audience for phones because they do not allow photography/ videos during performances. The MC would make a point of telling people at the very start that they would be removed from the audience if they were caught, and they would have been caught. From the back, we can see everything, especially glowing screens. That always made me nervous because I was supposed to be the one policing the rule. However, I never once caught someone using a phone.
And, where college students are concerned- they're paying for that class. What they get out of it, or don't get out of it, is theirs. I think it's pushy for a professor to enact rules about phones, especially at that age. She said her previous consequence involved humiliation. Really? That's the tactic we're using on young adults? How about natural accountability? You use your phone, you miss out. That's a natural consequence. No need to bury them in anything else.
That's not to say I don't agree with establishing limits for kids, especially younger ones. I do. However, I think the focus needs to be put more on natural consequences and understanding why certain behaviors are harmful, so that they learn to conduct themselves better. And, I do agree there are times kids would be better off without phones for sure too.
On a side note, you can always just post a link to stories like this. I always read them. And, you've inspired more questions. :)
Yeah, you make really good points, Just Asking. :)
Posting a link would have been good. Ha! I guess was thinking that, in case someone might come across my comment there and I had put a link (assuming they were interested in the article), they might have been wary of clicking on it. I've read here and there some answerMuggers saying they won't click on links that are posted. :)
I didn't read too closely the article and I, too, am unfamiliar with that YONDR.
I don't know -- sometimes I think technology goes way too fast for humans to keep up and to remain humane But as far as all the phones and devices, they're here to stay it seems. Somehow, I still don't think I've communicated my thoughts so well here. :)
Before I got to this thread, I did see some questions out there that were related to this article. :)
Yeah, I don't know -- I guess sometimes I
EDIT, some time later : Hey, Welby - - nice hanging unfinished thought there at the end! Huh?
This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at January 10, 2019 2:54 PM MST
Some good ole fashioned games...like the spinning wooden top pictured below. Bedtime before 6 PM. And a hundred lines on a chalk board if they complain about it.
Muhahahahahahaha!!!!
This post was edited by righty1 at January 10, 2019 2:41 PM MST
Darn -- my computer threw out a warning that this site could not provide a secure "something" -- I forget the word now and it was just a second ago I read it. :)
I think that picture was taken aboard "The Titanic" ship. I've seen the picture before, I know; I like it. I think the photo was in one of the books I've read about "The Titanic."
It is from the Titanic, yeah. I remember seeing it before also. I bought a magazine special for the hundred-years anniversary, I think this photo was in it...and this question reminded me of it. :)
I've recently bought some special 'magazine special' publications -- "Cults," "Anne Frank" - -some others I can't remember at the moment. I'll add them later if I remember. :) Have to go to work now, I"m late -- typos, ignire them :)
And how crazy -- and stupid -- of me is this? I looked for the other special magazines I had bought. It was this one about the Titanic! And I looked through it --- sure enough, your photo is in there! Maybe we bought the same one. :)
But why I didn't remember that I had this one, especially with your answer and photo staring at me . . crazy. :)
Freedom, I think some children today miss knowing the freedom of just going out and riding their bikes, camping out, and playing out in the street most of the time. Freedom to not care about what you look like (did you see the children in the 1970's?). None of them cared about fashion, make-up or what their friends say and think about them on social media or how many likes they have. You could do real scientific experiments at school which consisted of Bunsen burners and blowing stuff up, science was fun.
Unfortunately, the fun police came along and put safety laws on everything, gradually draining away all fun and freedom. It's funny if you go to other countries now you can do what we were able to do over 50 years ago, without breaking the law or being taxed and licensed in some way.
This post was edited by kjames at January 9, 2019 11:57 PM MST
You tease. I remember I use to ride horses with a hat that is a far cry from the jockey skull caps they wear now.
This post was edited by kjames at January 8, 2019 12:50 PM MST
Those are good points. For the sake of safety, I do have strong rules that tether my kids. If they're out playing, it has to be in groups and they have to come back in and check in frequently. We also use walkie talkies for when they're playing at the park a block away. I hate putting restrictions on them. I used to go out and explore for hours on end without watching the clock or worry, but today, anything could happen.
WelbyQuentin 