So why make it worse? Why gives kids tablets for things we know don't need tablets, and where a device is more of a distraction?
Shiny new technology is great for distracting from a failure to perform basic childcare like keeping children physically safe so they can learn. And then it's a rhetorical weapon "We can't listen to parents, they don't even want their children to have state of the art equipment!"
Second, the parents are mostly buying the tablets anyway.
Thirdly, about this:
> distracting from a failure to perform basic childcare like keeping children physically safe so they can learn
Pretty much the one kind of safety I can guarantee kids have when using a computer is their physically safety.
And learn what, exactly, given the hypothetical scenario you're replying to here is that the only thing left to learn is being sociable which they can ultimately do best by experiencing whatever medium they will be sociable in as adults, and for all other learning you're just being a nerd like me who learns for the fun of it.
Parents are buying the tablets because teachers - pushing shiny new technology in lieu of results - tell them it'll help. There aren't any studies showing the putting screens in front of kids helps in any way, and there are many showing it hurts - from fitness to mental robustness and socialization.
> Pretty much the one kind of safety I can guarantee kids have when using a computer is their physically safety.
I think you're remembering computer lab, or something, where there was a proctor because computers were expensive. Now schools won't expel anyone they label troubled, no matter how much they trouble other students, and they won't protect anyone or let them protect themselves.
> the only thing left to learn is being sociable which they can ultimately do best by experiencing whatever medium they will be sociable in as adults
I don't see social media being so complex that they need all the years of practice to keep up, but I do see forming deep relationships as being essential and social media doesn't do anything to help with that. They'll get there when they do, no worse for not having partaken.
> Parents are buying the tablets because teachers - pushing shiny new technology in lieu of results - tell them it'll help
Funny, I'm remembering a summer holiday job 20 years ago, working on a HVAC production line. One of the others there bought a plasma TV for his infant.
It's not all about what teachers are pushing.
Heck, from what I've heard the teachers don't like the tech any more than you do.
> I think you're remembering computer lab, or something, where there was a proctor because computers were expensive. Now schools won't expel anyone they label troubled, no matter how much they trouble other students, and they won't protect anyone or let them protect themselves.
I have literally no idea what this is supposed to be about. Computers themselves are not part of any of the things you just said are bad.
And as I'm asking if the schools are even going to still be relevant, expulsions would carry as little meaning as being banned from owning horses does today.
> I don't see social media being so complex that they need all the years of practice to keep up, but I do see forming deep relationships as being essential and social media doesn't do anything to help with that. They'll get there when they do, no worse for not having partaken.
I didn't specifically say social media, I said "medium they will be sociable in as adults". That might be the traditional forums of the 2005 interwebs style; or soc med; or group chat apps like IRC, Slack, MS Teams as various of my employers have had us using; or video group chats like many of us got used to during the pandemic; or VR environments, be they games like WoW or roleplay environment like Furcadia or Second Life or VRChat, or "serious" metaverse things like whatever it is FB is trying to do.
It can also be going to parks and gyms, art galleries and graffiti walls, cafés and nightclubs. How much of that is part of school anyway?
But even for text, what counts as polite, friendly, professional, intelligent, serious, or severe is absolutely a moving target, so…
that means knowin when they need to be all like yo and emoji wif spellin' that confuses ol fogies like me and missin all the full stops coz that be rude yo yo lol
And of course the fact that such cultural idioms shift arbitrarily and I've stopped caring means that actual real young people will cringe as much when reading that last paragraph as I did when writing it, in exactly the same way I told my mum to stop trying to be hip and with it back in the late 90s.
> Heck, from what I've heard the teachers don't like the tech any more than you do.
The school district found the ones who'd push it. If teachers aren't fond of this I hope they fight it themselves.
> It's not all about what teachers are pushing.
Sure, I bought my child a laptop. But I spent time teaching computer skills under the guise of game design, etc, and it wasn't for classwork but for everything else. It wasn't a one-size-fits-nobody cash grab.
> I'm asking if the schools are even going to still be relevant, expulsions would carry as little meaning as being banned from owning horses does today.
I don't care if the violent kid thinks he wins, as long as he's not allowed to spend more time with the non-violent kids. His failure isn't my problem, my kids happiness and success is.
> what counts as polite, friendly, professional, intelligent, serious, or severe is absolutely a moving target,
Not so much, I think, that it needs practice over the years. I've seen people pick up social media with no practice whatsoever and right away seem to fit right in.
> I have literally no idea what this is supposed to be about. Computers themselves are not part of any of the things you just said are bad.
Yeah, it seemed to be a bit of an unguided post. I'm not sure if you don't like that I don't like excess tech in schools, or what. I don't think computers are bad, I think teachers and schools pushing them uselessly is bad.
So why make it worse? Why gives kids tablets for things we know don't need tablets, and where a device is more of a distraction?
Shiny new technology is great for distracting from a failure to perform basic childcare like keeping children physically safe so they can learn. And then it's a rhetorical weapon "We can't listen to parents, they don't even want their children to have state of the art equipment!"