hoodatninja

If you want to teach kids how to look up information, you can create spaces for that. They don’t need unrestricted access to their smart phones to accomplish that throughout the day. Hell you can relax your policies as they grow up and show the maturity to handle having a smart phone in the classroom. If schools want to do that, I am all in favor of it. But they would have to start early and build a system, which is a lot to ask of already overworked educators.

That appears to be a quickly referenced theory by one (yes qualified) person on one blog post without a study behind it. I could also argue that kids generally have short attention spans but social media just allows them to indulge in it more, and they will of course prioritize attention to that over other things. That is not the same as “it shortens their attention spans.” We need at least one study here or at least something more substantive than a one-liner linking social media and decreasing ones attention span. I’m not sure if you noticed, but blog is actually focusing on how to reach kids and strategies to get them to pay attention. It has one throw away non-cited line about social media shortening attention spans.

I should also point out that I also did a cursory Google search before writing the previous comment, and that was the only post I saw as well. The reason you selected it is because there was no other decent hit when you searched I imagine.

Let me be clear here, the only reason I am sort of arguing about this is because there is a really bad propensity for older people to say something is wrong with younger people. We see it over and over again. I think social media is actually very harmful to kids, but I have yet to see anything that shows it actually diminishes ones attention span. And the reason I really don’t like that claim is because it seems to be just another variation of “kids these days.”

Source?

No, but the attention span kids have these days seem to be shortening.

I hear this a lot but have yet to see evidence/sources from anyone. It’s just “look around you.” I don’t find it particularly compelling. I didn’t exactly sit quietly as a kid myself.

I have very little faith the person you’re responding to even acknowledges the existence of ADHD .

I don’t think y’all realize that not a single staff member or administrator or any employee of the school would be able to use a phone either (other than landlines I guess?). Schools aren’t just full of students lol

Where’s the hyperbole? You’re also affirming what I’m saying with the rest of your comment.

Yeah because as we all know, teenagers (14-18 for high school mind you, not sure why you’re specifically saying 11th graders?) are emotionally mature, rational actors who are ready to take on the world with no emotional support or direction.

You must be LARPing. You’re far too much of a caricature to be real. You gonna lecture me about my bootstraps next? Pen an op ed about how “nobody wants to work anymore”?

Like I said prior, I don’t think kids should be on their phones either.

I mean I’m not that extreme lmao that’s also a safety issue. Kids will be kids, they will not sit quietly all school day and be total lesson sponges lol