Yeah. That's even more proof that kids shouldn't have them

GameBoy withdrawal symptom used to be a thing, too. We survived. They'll be fine.

Instant Dopamine Machines cause withdrawal when taken away.

Wow. I'm shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked and stunned.

I'd be more curious if restricting students to using screens as actual tools - i.e., for specific purposes and tasks, not for broad entertainment - causes similar effects.

I give absolutely zero fucks. Screens everywhere is the most developmentally impactful education policy I have seen in my lifetime. My local public school district (which my kids do not attend) has a 1:1 laptop policy, meaning each kid gets their own dedicated Chromebook. Under no circumstance will I send my children to schools that apparently think Google/Microsoft have the kids best interests at heart

If people get withdrawal symptoms, it means they have become addicted. Which means it is important to get them off the addiction ASAP.

I really don't think the article makes a good case for why they are using "withdrawal symptoms" (which clearly evokes drugs) beyond being a nice quote. Could the behavioural issues be, say, kids figuring out what to do (or what they can get away with) now that what they used to do is no longer available? The article certainly doesn't say so.

The other thing is that these are things that are taking years to play out, which suggests to me that there may be more than just cellphones in the classroom. There is certainly a point to be made that if the smartphone is still used at home, you may up in a wash anyway. A reductive scenario I could think of, for example, might be that a student may say they are more attentive, and they may look more attentive, but if they aren't really engaging with because they will just go home and ask an LLM for the answers to the homework.

It seems like they are saying that having the phone taken away could be an even bigger distraction from learning than just having the phone.

I feel like this says important things about how much they should have been allowed screens before this.

"Stanford study finds school heroin bans may trigger "withdrawal symptoms" in students" is a headline that does not suggest that stopping students from using the heroin they are accustomed to, is the point at which the problem needs to be attacked.

Waiting for the "just a tool" crowd to emerge and complain that there's basically no difference between cell phones with chatGPT, vs a calculator or dictionary.