Comment by WillPostForFood 5 days ago
Covid and the school shutdowns, did create a real boost in the homeschooling. Exacerbated by the particularly draconian shutdowns and masking in areas where there are a lot of tech workers like the Bay Area.
> My nephew sent back a video of the lunch room: every single student had their eyes glued to a digital device of some sort.
Wow, this just makes me intensely sad. We are ruining a generation of humans with these digital narcotics. Say what you want about being a Chicken Little, or that every generation looks at the next generation's behavior with some amount of trepidation ("MTV will corrupt your mind!"), but this feels pretty different to me. Humans are social creatures, and human children need lots of unstructured social play, and they need to be allowed to get bored, and we're killing all that.
Which is why so many districts are pushing for no mobile devices during the school day.
Does the US really not do that yet? That's crazy. My children have school laptops for work and need to lock their phones up upon arrival until departure. You couldn't bring in a Switch, period. Sometimes they look at YouTube videos or play web games etc at lunch time on the laptop, but AFAICT they've been discouraging that more and more.
Some schools have moved to this model, but it definitely is not a standard. It is also not always popular with the families or students.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2024/12/28/a-north...
I'll let you in on a secret. I did own a GameBoy while in elementary school. I did bring it to school a few times against my parent's wishes. When teachers saw me playing with it, it was confiscated and held at the front office only to be released at the end of the day. After a few times of that happening the confiscation also resulted in a parental phone call.
The same went with cell phones. I had a cell phone in high school. If it was being used during a class or even chirped a single sound it would be confiscated to be released at the end of the day at the front office. They were not to be used during school time.
I think trying to equate the situation in the 90s with what's going on is a mistake because it glosses over the huge differences and increased harm in today's world.
I also had a Gameboy in the 90s. I played with it quite a bit, but nowhere near the average amount of time spent on screens by kids today. And I don't think there is any school in the US in the 90s where you'd see every kid glued to a digital device at lunch.
I think it's like saying "hey, I smoked weed in the 60s" and comparing that to someone freebasing cocaine today - or heck, even smoking weed today, as today's weed has about 10-100 times the amount of THC as most 60s weed.
Completely agree, but it's not really like "tech homeschooling is a new thing" vs. the fact that public schools (I'd argue especially in the Bay Area, e.g. see the school board recall) got so bad during the pandemic that parents had huge motivation to find an alternative.
And the fact of the pandemic makes this article even worse in my opinion: "Gee, why would parents with means want to find an alternative when public schools had to go all remote for extended periods and were a shit show in general?"
I think it merely made parents aware of what was already happening.
My nephew texted my brother during his lunch break to ask for more credits for his switch account. My brother asked why play games instead of talking or hanging out with others. My nephew sent back a video of the lunch room: every single student had their eyes glued to a digital device of some sort.
The experience kids have in schools isn't what we as adults went through - a common thing for every generation - but when you can get more interaction and socialization via home school networks and groups of motivated parents, it is hard to argue against it.