alt Hacker NewsI teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades.
And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used against them, have had the chance to develop.
I expect this to massively electorally backfire on the government. But in the long run, it will be more than worth it. The only alternative would be to blanket ban phones in schools, although they'll still be plugged into social media the minute they leave.
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Tbh I've never understood why a strict non-negotiable ban on phones in schools hasn't been in place. This is an easy win with no negative consequences for adults.
My kid's school bans phones for that very reason. I find the age limit annoying and very easy to circumvent, which renders it pointless. This is a problem, because I agree with the benefits of kids attention not being eroded at scale.
edit: added age
May I ask how long you've been teaching and generally how big the behavioural change and/or timespan has been?
That's just a long way to say you hate Pink Floyd
Do you agree that parents should be the one protecting their children from this 'propaganda' and internet slop?
Whilst I agree that social media can be overwhelmingly negative especially for young people, dont you recon that the risk to privacy and free-nature / increased surveillance of the internet is a greater problem?
I'm really torn on this. On the one hand I agree with you 100%, whilst on the other I have little faith that our government will implement in a non-damaging way. However, I'd almost be willing to trade some amount of civil-liberty in order to protect us from the rot of social media. If I could ban everyone from "harmful social media" I would, I just understand that's impossible to define and implement without massive unintended externalities.
I'm not naive to how much of a slippery slope that is, and I don't think the government is pursuing this in good faith. Nonetheless, here we are.