We are discussing local news in a small town in Japan, thousands of miles away for most of us; and how social media is an attention-wasting time-sink for other people. We need to help those other people.
vasco · 1h ago
If I discuss the stars and planets online am I even wasting more time? It's distance the factor that makes it a waste?
As I read "Comet crossed jupiter's rings at blazing speed!" some guy looks at me at tells me to live in the moment. Thanks.
perihelions · 1h ago
My only position is we should not be quick to judge (or "help"), particularly if we're doing similar things to what we're help-judging others for doing.
miohtama · 1h ago
I don't know about stars, but I can tell Hacker News is complete waste of time (:
autoexec · 6h ago
Recommendations are well and good, but I can't see them having much if any impact on what people do. It would be better to ban the use of smart phones at schools (or at least in classrooms) entirely, pass laws to better protect people's privacy, and pass regulation to restrict the kinds of exploitative practices that are designed to drive up anxiety and addiction to these devices. Especially those that target children.
lll-o-lll · 6h ago
Smartphones are banned at school in Aus, for a strong net positive. Kids still sneak them into toilets and so on (and vapes), but the overwhelming impact has been positive.
Grimburger · 1h ago
> but the overwhelming impact has been positive
You definitely need a source for that comment given that it only just happened.
Smartphones are neutral pieces of technology. It can create the next Einstein or radicalise the next terrorist, the 1's and 0's don't mind.
Why not ban them at universities also? Are these kids suddenly protected the moment they leave high school?
Like your opinion I have my own, and banning smartphones in Australian high schools will turn out to be overwhelmingly negative for outcomes. I predict it will be reversed and looked back upon as a failure.
Khan academy taught me more than dozens of different teachers. Kids are now blocked from accessing it for their entire time at school and when they would be most intruiged to learn.
Just like terrible having internet, Australians seem intent on being left behind in a hypercompetitive world.
averageRoyalty · 22m ago
> You definitely need a source for that comment given that it only just happened.
I don't know a lot about the impact, but this happened about 2 years ago in multiple states. Here's some thoughts from those who have looked further:
It’s surprising that more schools haven’t done this. I suspect that we’ll look back in 10 years with it being common and ask ourselves what took so long.
JumpCrisscross · 5h ago
> surprising that more schools haven’t done this
We have a depressing state in America where you can predict the parents’ income based on whether their kids’ school bans smartphones.
rwmj · 2h ago
And the kids' future incomes as well.
crooked-v · 4h ago
In the US we've completely given up on stopping school shootings, and parents have instead decided that the better thing to fight for is their children having cell phones so they can hear the child's last words when the school shooting happens.
Aeolun · 3h ago
I think the phones are one thing. It was a bit distressing to hear that US schools have “school shooting drills” like Japan schools have “earthquake drills”.
crooked-v · 2h ago
Wait until you hear about how teachers started stocking emergency toilets because of those multi-hour drills, and the right wing in the US responded by using it to accuse schools of setting up litter boxes for self-identified 'furries' in the student body.
vinay427 · 1h ago
I’m not sure what ‘the US’ means here. In California it’s now required (as of next year) for schools to limit or restrict student phone use, and several other states have done similar things as mentioned in the article [1].
I think it is reasonable for a teacher to say you can't actively use your phone while class is in session but not appropriate for them to say you can't have your phone on you. It is also inappropriate to say your phone must be in some special pouch that only they can open, etc.
This is just my own opinion, of course. I think it is also inappropriate to say you need someone's permission to use the restroom. All my opinions of appropriate ness is mostly about adults behaving like adults though. They probably don't make sense when it comes to children?
Gigachad · 2h ago
At least in Australia the phone ban doesn’t mean you can’t have a phone in your pocket, you just can’t take it out.
Taking your phone out when I was in school meant having it placed on the teachers desk until the end of class, and possibly some other kind of penalty if they particularly didn’t like you. But you always got your phone back before leaving the class.
conradev · 4h ago
It’s not actually about school shootings in the US, as much as that might be cited as justification. Some parents just want to be able to text their kids all day.
umanwizard · 4h ago
People who claim that as the reason they want to allow phones are simply lying.
throw83949459 · 3h ago
I am more worried about dogs in school. Many teacher are fine to blame 11 years old for "provoking" dog attack! It is ok to send a kid to hospital, for eating a sandwitch!
Teachers at my school do not believe allergies are real! If there is asthma attack, it is an uncorrelated event! School will stab my kid with epipen, call ambulance and send me hospital bill! Avoiding it is too much work!
Once school brought unrestrained police dogs to school for a demonstration! Those had a record of attacking and torturing suspects!
Being able to call help is a basic human right!
what · 3h ago
You could give them a shitty flip phone for that.
Gigachad · 2h ago
In Australia all the private schools have done it for ages, it’s just only recent that public schools did it.
Sure we still did sneak in a bit of phone usage in the bathrooms and behind secluded buildings but it’s a huge difference from being able to freely scroll social media all day.
dartharva · 2h ago
Most schools in the Eastern Hemisphere have always been doing this. It is basic common sense to not allow phones in classrooms.
jnxx · 2h ago
So what needs to happen to ban smartphone use while driving? I mean not "formally forbidden" but "thoroughly enforced".
Personally, I avoid phone use even as a pedestrian in busy city spaces - I think the time it takes to fully switch attention to be fully aware of things like a reckless driver running a red light is too long to not affect safety.
j0057 · 2h ago
In the Netherlands we have 'focus cameras' now that specifically detect smartphone use while driving, with hefty fines of €430. These cameras are mobile as well, so they get placed on different spots over time.
Aerroon · 4h ago
How do you know that it has had an overwhelmingly positive impact? Can we, for example, see a marked increase in PISA scores for Australia from after the ban?
Or is this one of those "I hate phones, therefore banning them must be good for kids" things?
devjab · 3h ago
These are the key findings from the UK research which was part of the reason we started banning phones in schools here in Denmark.
> our results indicate that there is an improvement in student performance of 6.41% of a standard deviation in schools that have introduced a mobile phone ban.
> Finally, we find that mobile phone bans have very different effects on different types of students. Banning mobile phones improves outcomes for the low-achieving students (14.23% of a standard deviation) the most and has no significant impact on high achievers. The results suggest that low-achieving students are more likely to be distracted by the presence of mobile phones, while high achievers can focus in the classroom regardless of whether phones are present.
I believe OECD and Pisa results have also pointed towards banning as a net postive since their 2022 report.
I think it's fair to say that it's not a "black-and-white" thing. As the research points out, digital devices aren't the only factor in the equation. I believe OECD research has also found that using a digital device with a parent can be a benefit while using it alone will most certainly be a negative for children aged 2-6. I'm sure you can imagine why there might also be other factors that make a difference between parents who can spend time with their children and those who can't.
Aside from that there are also benefits from digital devices for students with learning disabilities like dyslexia. In most class-rooms this can be solved by computers + headphones, but for crafts people (I'm not sure what the English word for a school that teaches plumbers, carpenters etc. is), having a mobile phone in the workshop can often help a lot with insturctions, manuals and such.
So it's not clear cut, but over all, banning phones and smartwatches seem to be a great idea.
akk0 · 3h ago
6% of a standard deviation sounds like very little to me, but it's hard for me to grok what that actually means.
viraptor · 41m ago
On an IQ test for example that would be just under 1 point of difference.
oasisaimlessly · 3h ago
> I'm not sure what the English word for a school that teaches plumbers, carpenters etc. is
"vocational school"
anakaine · 3h ago
Given that teachers are no longer competing for student attention in class, that is one single and quite important positive which doesn't require an academic study and referencing to demonstrate.
I'm not sure what you were hoping to achieve with the request for evidence, but what you're asking is not yet subject to a longitudinal study. The move has certainly been praised by educators, and that should be enough given it's the first or second year year of implementation in many cases, and what they are advocating for isn't a social taboo, nor draconian.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
Meet kids who have smartphones in school. A lot of them aren’t able to maintain eye contact in a conversation. It’s a remarkably jarring change that looks like it will wind up stunting the development of low-income kids for a generation.
ffsm8 · 2h ago
I wasn't able to do that either, and smartphones didn't exist back then
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
Folks on the spectrum are different in a way I can’t quite explain. I’m talking about full-blown can’t have a conversation or express an interest in anything.
The iPad kids are more prevalent and highly recognisable. They’re also highly concentrated in the lower and lower-middle classes. (The country’s richest communities and private schools are banning devices in schools.)
dartharva · 2h ago
Basic common sense? We are dealing with CHILDREN IN CLASSROOMS here. Leaving aside the obvious psychotropic properties phones and social media have on people of all ages, in what universe can preventing children from diverting their attention from live classes ever be good?
jajko · 3h ago
What sort of argument is that? Anybody who lived long enough anywqhere saw many times what a cancer screens are to kids and their development, the smaller the worse. You can't make any sort of strawman out of this topic, its proper cancer.
If you want to measure something for this measure happiness or strength of social circles. Good luck with that.
logicchains · 3h ago
>What sort of argument is that? Anybody who lived long enough anywqhere saw many times what a cancer screens are to kids and their development, the smaller the worse. You can't make any sort of strawman out of this topic, its proper cancer.
That's not science, that's a demonstrably false assumption that everyone thinks smartphone usage is bad for kids.
In my experience with kids and smartphones, kids of the young generation (gen Z) are way better informed (and less brainwashed) than kids of their parents' generation were, whose only access to information about the world when growing up was through the captured, centralised legacy media.
xboxnolifes · 3h ago
Using their phones while in class makes them more informed?
fuckaj · 5h ago
Ohhh I assumed all countries did that. Like common sense.
nottorp · 19m ago
What you need to ban is notifications :)
And social networking after that.
x2tyfi · 5h ago
All of these seem valid, too, but they don’t need to be mutually exclusive. I’m all for common sense recommendations - even if it only helps a relatively small percentage of families.
I look at it in a similar light to nutritional guidelines.
Shank · 4h ago
> It would be better to ban the use of smart phones at schools (or at least in classrooms) entirely, pass laws to better protect people's privacy, and pass regulation to restrict the kinds of exploitative practices that are designed to drive up anxiety and addiction to these devices.
Once again, I must reiterate that parents choose the schools their children attend, and that means that they choose the solution. I argue strongly that we, as a society, should not impose arbitrary restrictions on parents and children. If we afford the freedom of letting parents be parents, there is no scientific basis for reallocating smartphone use responsibility to the state.
Aeolun · 3h ago
The state exists to protect the majority from the minority. If the majority believes phones are bad, then they’ll be banned in schools to prevent whatever effect having them would have.
jesterson · 2h ago
In Japanese culture recommendations (for lack of better word in translation) carry quite different load in comparison to western society. It’s usually accepted and followed (unlike west where recommendations are usually ignored)
MantisShrimp90 · 5h ago
Remember, in other countries, especially eastern ones, the recommendation of even your local city means allot. There is a deeper trust of government bodies so this will likely have an impact.
And starting small is probably good, lets the idea iterate before rolling it out wider and this often comes down to making a choice, this city just thought this would be best and I suspect unless this goes horribly wrong it will help
tjpnz · 2h ago
I live in the 23 wards of Tokyo and certainly do. The local governments in other countries I've lived seem to just take and give very little back (while paying their unelected c-suite ridiculous salaries), but ours has given us thousands over the years for child related expenses.
jesterson · 2h ago
Your child related expenses are not “given”, other taxpayers have paid for it. And for them, they have very little given back, if we factor in very high tax load in Japan.
Just because someone ride the wave of payouts for kids doesn’t mean government is giving back a lot. Japanese government, just like any other government out there, extremely inefficient and corrupt, absorbing huge amounts of money in taxes and giving very little back. Particularly to those who actually earn those money.
henearkr · 3h ago
Is this recommandation backed by science? I suspect it is.
Then a public scientific body should come up with such a recommandation, right?
And then there would be no need for a mere city to issue one, am I correct?
ianks · 3h ago
Having a base level of trust in your government can have incredibly positive effects on society. In the US, I dream of the day where government could try out ideas without the pitchforks coming out. Sure, some ideas will be terrible and that’s OK as long as we throw them in the trash can.
gregjw · 1h ago
I don't live too far from here (Osaka), Toyoake is not a small city and is pretty close to Nagoya, it is interesting to see somewhere not completely remote try something like this.
ezoe · 2h ago
If you interested on this new, there was another ordinance in Kyoto city which restrict Kanpai(cheers) must be done with sake. If you kanpai'ed with anything other than sake in Kyoto city, you violate this law.
There is no punishment for breaking these ordinances.
moi2388 · 2h ago
9pm for elementary school children? What are they doing up so late to begin with?
soulofmischief · 2h ago
Whatever their parent has allowed them to do, since parenting them is their job and not yours.
johnfn · 1h ago
It's funny you say this in the context of the article, which is effectively 'parenting' smartphone use across all citizens of Toyoake.
soulofmischief · 1h ago
Well, that wasn't accidental. I think it's insane for a government to wield such power.
tjpnz · 2h ago
Cram school.
keybored · 25m ago
I don’t know how Japanese city ordinances work.
What I would like from these things is to be able to opt-in to a recommendation. Just a two-minute way to opt-in. They can do the work and we all can have the least possible hassle trying it out.[1]
[1] I’m not up to date on the state of the art of limiting your own smartphone time
KnuthIsGod · 2h ago
Smart phone use is banned while driving in australia.
Detectors and cameras are used to find and fine those who break the law.
jesterson · 2h ago
Australia can bring to absurd levels even objectively good ideas.
Ylpertnodi · 1h ago
? Where's the absurdity in the example given.
xeonmc · 3h ago
So how will this work, are explosive ammunitions delivered to your device’s location if you exceed the day’s usage?
halper · 2h ago
Maybe I missed something, but those are spelt "ordnance".
johnfn · 1h ago
This is clever.
yieldcrv · 4h ago
Just thinking about a mockable law may keep it in the collective consciousness for more people to independently choose to detox from their phone
memonkey · 6h ago
Not the first time Japan has done something like this[1] and I honestly welcome it. It's not a strict rule, gives people flexibility to at least talk about it and disagree with little consequence. Another severely online commenter mentions protecting peoples privacy and exploitative practices but we're wayyy beyond those types of conversations. Limiting online-ness in a gentle way that's not gonna piss off a bunch of people and get the feels for it seems to be a very Japanese thing to do.
Isn't it the job of a public health agency? Like, at a national or even international level?
Or of a scientific body?
What legitimacy has an administrative, and often political, structure, to make a non-binding health recommandation (thus, an advice), with a scope limited to the city, even though the matter has nothing to nor specific to this city?
It looks like a political stunt, not something initiated by health specialists.
mrexroad · 5h ago
> "We want the ordinance to provide an opportunity for people to think about how they use smartphones," an official said.
henearkr · 4h ago
Why aren't they issuing ordinances for people to switch to electric cars?
To learn foreign languages?
To study sciences?
I really don't know what to think.
Like, if they think that the bottleneck, the motivation source, to get people to improve their lifestyle, is to have an ordinance issued, then they really need to study the basics of psychology and sociology. And of public communication.
No comments yet
Aerroon · 4h ago
I really hope that any city I live in will not try to use city ordinances for feel good things.
numpad0 · 3h ago
It is a political stunt. The city of Toyoake in question has a land area of 23sqkm(~9 sqmi) with population of 68k(density 3k/sqkm or 7.6k/sqmi).
elzbardico · 5h ago
Too late.
thenthenthen · 3h ago
In China, parents track their kids with ‘gps smart watches’. Oh yeah there is also a gamified social network for kids only, giving credit for the schools stationairy shop based on likes/popularity. What could go wrong? [0]
>Her parents also believe that watch circles contributed to Liu’s increasingly unstable emotional state in the run-up to China’s high school entrance exams. With just three months to go, teachers advised that she take a leave of absence after a video emerged of Liu rolling on the floor of a classroom before rushing out. Shortly after, she was placed on medication for severe depression.
>While the Asperger’s syndrome and academic pressure no doubt played a part in the breakdown, Wang and Liu’s therapist also felt that she had become overstimulated by her online socializing.
Naturally, it wasn't the Zhongkao, but basic social media.
com2kid · 2h ago
You do realize those GPS smart watches are everywhere in the US as well right? Some parents opt for the less invasive tool of air tags hidden in clothing or backpacks, same idea though.
Smart watches are actually super useful for kids, it lets them still talk to their parents (or other trusted people) w/o the distraction of smart phones. Plenty of kids age 7-12 or so have them and they are basically used to call kids home for dinner at the end of the day.
As I read "Comet crossed jupiter's rings at blazing speed!" some guy looks at me at tells me to live in the moment. Thanks.
You definitely need a source for that comment given that it only just happened.
Smartphones are neutral pieces of technology. It can create the next Einstein or radicalise the next terrorist, the 1's and 0's don't mind.
Why not ban them at universities also? Are these kids suddenly protected the moment they leave high school?
Like your opinion I have my own, and banning smartphones in Australian high schools will turn out to be overwhelmingly negative for outcomes. I predict it will be reversed and looked back upon as a failure.
Khan academy taught me more than dozens of different teachers. Kids are now blocked from accessing it for their entire time at school and when they would be most intruiged to learn.
Just like terrible having internet, Australians seem intent on being left behind in a hypercompetitive world.
I don't know a lot about the impact, but this happened about 2 years ago in multiple states. Here's some thoughts from those who have looked further:
https://thepostsa.au/education/2025/03/26/more-laughter-more... https://theconversation.com/we-looked-at-all-the-recent-evid... https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/mobile-phone-ban-impro...
We have a depressing state in America where you can predict the parents’ income based on whether their kids’ school bans smartphones.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/california-s...
This is just my own opinion, of course. I think it is also inappropriate to say you need someone's permission to use the restroom. All my opinions of appropriate ness is mostly about adults behaving like adults though. They probably don't make sense when it comes to children?
Taking your phone out when I was in school meant having it placed on the teachers desk until the end of class, and possibly some other kind of penalty if they particularly didn’t like you. But you always got your phone back before leaving the class.
Teachers at my school do not believe allergies are real! If there is asthma attack, it is an uncorrelated event! School will stab my kid with epipen, call ambulance and send me hospital bill! Avoiding it is too much work!
Once school brought unrestrained police dogs to school for a demonstration! Those had a record of attacking and torturing suspects!
Being able to call help is a basic human right!
Sure we still did sneak in a bit of phone usage in the bathrooms and behind secluded buildings but it’s a huge difference from being able to freely scroll social media all day.
Personally, I avoid phone use even as a pedestrian in busy city spaces - I think the time it takes to fully switch attention to be fully aware of things like a reckless driver running a red light is too long to not affect safety.
Or is this one of those "I hate phones, therefore banning them must be good for kids" things?
> our results indicate that there is an improvement in student performance of 6.41% of a standard deviation in schools that have introduced a mobile phone ban.
> Finally, we find that mobile phone bans have very different effects on different types of students. Banning mobile phones improves outcomes for the low-achieving students (14.23% of a standard deviation) the most and has no significant impact on high achievers. The results suggest that low-achieving students are more likely to be distracted by the presence of mobile phones, while high achievers can focus in the classroom regardless of whether phones are present.
https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1350.pdf
I believe OECD and Pisa results have also pointed towards banning as a net postive since their 2022 report.
I think it's fair to say that it's not a "black-and-white" thing. As the research points out, digital devices aren't the only factor in the equation. I believe OECD research has also found that using a digital device with a parent can be a benefit while using it alone will most certainly be a negative for children aged 2-6. I'm sure you can imagine why there might also be other factors that make a difference between parents who can spend time with their children and those who can't.
Aside from that there are also benefits from digital devices for students with learning disabilities like dyslexia. In most class-rooms this can be solved by computers + headphones, but for crafts people (I'm not sure what the English word for a school that teaches plumbers, carpenters etc. is), having a mobile phone in the workshop can often help a lot with insturctions, manuals and such.
So it's not clear cut, but over all, banning phones and smartwatches seem to be a great idea.
"vocational school"
I'm not sure what you were hoping to achieve with the request for evidence, but what you're asking is not yet subject to a longitudinal study. The move has certainly been praised by educators, and that should be enough given it's the first or second year year of implementation in many cases, and what they are advocating for isn't a social taboo, nor draconian.
The iPad kids are more prevalent and highly recognisable. They’re also highly concentrated in the lower and lower-middle classes. (The country’s richest communities and private schools are banning devices in schools.)
If you want to measure something for this measure happiness or strength of social circles. Good luck with that.
That's not science, that's a demonstrably false assumption that everyone thinks smartphone usage is bad for kids.
In my experience with kids and smartphones, kids of the young generation (gen Z) are way better informed (and less brainwashed) than kids of their parents' generation were, whose only access to information about the world when growing up was through the captured, centralised legacy media.
And social networking after that.
I look at it in a similar light to nutritional guidelines.
Once again, I must reiterate that parents choose the schools their children attend, and that means that they choose the solution. I argue strongly that we, as a society, should not impose arbitrary restrictions on parents and children. If we afford the freedom of letting parents be parents, there is no scientific basis for reallocating smartphone use responsibility to the state.
And starting small is probably good, lets the idea iterate before rolling it out wider and this often comes down to making a choice, this city just thought this would be best and I suspect unless this goes horribly wrong it will help
Just because someone ride the wave of payouts for kids doesn’t mean government is giving back a lot. Japanese government, just like any other government out there, extremely inefficient and corrupt, absorbing huge amounts of money in taxes and giving very little back. Particularly to those who actually earn those money.
Then a public scientific body should come up with such a recommandation, right?
And then there would be no need for a mere city to issue one, am I correct?
There is no punishment for breaking these ordinances.
What I would like from these things is to be able to opt-in to a recommendation. Just a two-minute way to opt-in. They can do the work and we all can have the least possible hassle trying it out.[1]
[1] I’m not up to date on the state of the art of limiting your own smartphone time
Detectors and cameras are used to find and fine those who break the law.
https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/17744?phrase=Onaga%...
Isn't it the job of a public health agency? Like, at a national or even international level?
Or of a scientific body?
What legitimacy has an administrative, and often political, structure, to make a non-binding health recommandation (thus, an advice), with a scope limited to the city, even though the matter has nothing to nor specific to this city?
It looks like a political stunt, not something initiated by health specialists.
To learn foreign languages?
To study sciences?
I really don't know what to think.
Like, if they think that the bottleneck, the motivation source, to get people to improve their lifestyle, is to have an ordinance issued, then they really need to study the basics of psychology and sociology. And of public communication.
No comments yet
[0] https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1017357
>While the Asperger’s syndrome and academic pressure no doubt played a part in the breakdown, Wang and Liu’s therapist also felt that she had become overstimulated by her online socializing.
Naturally, it wasn't the Zhongkao, but basic social media.
Smart watches are actually super useful for kids, it lets them still talk to their parents (or other trusted people) w/o the distraction of smart phones. Plenty of kids age 7-12 or so have them and they are basically used to call kids home for dinner at the end of the day.