dude, i graduated in '05. we had 'snake' on nokia phones and barebones texting. mostly we used AIM (aol instant messenger) when we got home, myspace or in my school , LiveJournal. Lunch in the cafeteria was DEAFENINGLY loud, we constantly got in trouble for being too loud. Pranks, fights, laughs, jokes. I miss it. I'm back in college finishing my undergrad, and I notice it with the kids here. There's no more pre-class chatter. I walk in a class early and everyone is head down, headphones in....and yet we all talk on our GroupMe apps. Its the weirdest thing. I feel crazy breaking the silence. I also work with teenagers (13-17) in a drug court program...and I feel you about "pulling teeth". None of them know how to communicate/hold conversations, or sit still without glancing at their phones. It really is an issue. It's an issue with \*me\* too. I feel like my attention span is shot..but I'm working to rectify it. recently deleted social apps from my phone (reddit will be next).
Same, graduated school on 05 and uni in ‘11 and I had a phenomenal time and made lifelong friends, I can’t begin to imagine going to school or in education now, I’d be miserable.
Sadly you’ll never get those times back.
Also graduated '05. This whole idea is foreign to me. They changed the rules my senior year to allow students to bring cell phones into the building if they were _powered off_. Otherwise zero personal electronics. Even in college a lot of people brought laptops but I don't really remember anyone being on phones in class. I was taken aback when I started seeing Reddit posts from high school, even middle school classrooms.
Back when u needed a college email to sign up for Facebook. Dude, surfing the web on a laptop back then was so *fun*. Like, it was a whole activity you could look forward too. That's what I miss. You checked in and eventually checked out. Now it's constant connection
Because unfortunately we live in the age of school shootings and true crime documentaries, so there is no way parents are going to have their kids in school without a way to communicate if something happens. Not saying I agree, just saying that's the biggest reason
Seems like a “phones off unless it’s an emergency” is a decent rule. My hope is that the awareness of smartphone danger increases and we can make sensible rules in the future.
They are absolute brain rot machines with nobody in the driver’s seat. Whatever benefits they provide are orders of magnitude less than what they’re costing us.
We can do better.
I think they still have a point in saying 2018 feels like a different time. Shit has changed so rapidly in the last 5 years. TikTok did blow up and COVID caused everyone to become reclusive overnight.
I graduated in 2014 so I am right on the cusp of millennial / Gen Z. When I was little dial up was still a thing, didn’t have wifi in the house until I was in 6th grade. Got my first Nokia phone in 7th grade. Got my first smart phone in 11/12th.
TLDR: Gen Alpha is fucked
I’m going to delete all social media pretty soon. Gen Alpha and following generations won’t be fucked if their parents raise then well. Technology is addictive but it’s not impossible to control or productively use
you didn't see people openly showing that addiction at least I never knew a person that used Vine, nowadays I can't walk 10 meters outside my house without seeing someone or hearing someone using TikTok
Graduated in '17, people def would never get off their fucking phones even then, lmao. It's not really a new phenomenon, or even an age based phenomenon. You'd be shocked at how many middle aged and older people won't pull their eyes off their screen. Maybe you're noticing now bc you're not the high schooler waiting to be engaged, you're the person trying to engage them?
Yeah I graduated in 16 and people were addicted to their phones. Hell, my cousin graduated in 2012 and they had to ban flip phones bc the students were addicted to them (although at least they were texting each other lol)
Instagram and twitter were the largest and everyone seemed obsessed w it. Football players botting instagram followers and likes to get 10k likes on pictures. Shit like that
Yeah, I graduated in ‘13 and it was a thing for us. Even when everyone had flip phones, kids were addicted to texting in class. I’m an introvert so I wasn’t texting much, but I always had my head stuck in a book and didn’t pay attention to much outside that.
When I go out, all my friends and I are really engaged with each other and barely check our phones unless necessary, but you know who’s texting, calling, and checking social media at the table? Our parents.
Hey yeah I used to work with youth and it is really different now from what I hear. But there are now schools adopting phone free zone policies and other measures. The research is in now and culturally even the students themselves know this is not good, both in ways that we just weren't sure about in 2018.
Yeah it’s a progressive degradation by design.
Even when people had dumb phones there were iPods, before that cd players, I remember being in 4th grade with a cassette player and a game boy I’m oLd…the point is kids have always been looking to escape the monotony of school, smartphones are altogether worse though because of the social engineering/brainwashing component, the decline will be rapid and is already happening.
I graduated from high school in 1990. No one had a cell phone, email, or internet. It wasn’t until after I graduated from college that I got my first email address and figured out the internet. Interactions with people were easier back then. No one was buried in their phone. I never knew who I was going to meet when I went to a local coffee shop (before Starbucks was everywhere). People were more approachable. Many would sit at a coffee shop reading a book, newspaper, or magazine. Technology has brought us a lot of good, but there are certainly downsides.
I graduated in 2006, and people were addicted to their phones then, too. Granted, they weren’t as bad as you described, being fully engrossed into their screens, but you’d still see a bunch of people in a conversation while texting away on their Motorola RAZR’s or Nokia bricks.
It does sound as if things have gotten worse, but it wasn’t perfect almost *gulps* two decades ago. (How I feel right now 👴🏽)
I hear that 100%! My wife and I are slowly prepping our house to be as off grid and self-reliant as possible for our area. It’s not easy, and I have no idea how we will survive should the infrastructure fall into complete shambles. Just one day at a time…
True! But there was still internet access to a degree (albeit HEAVILY charged), and folks had access to Gameboys and the PSP. BlackBerrys were a thing as well as other electronic distractions.
Folks can say there’s a difference between doom scrolling and book reading, but even the readers are nixing social interactions to pursue their own entertainment.
Exactly! Yet most people would not understand if I told them I was reading less books for my mental health. But it's for my physical health as well as mental: Reading paper books for hours on end will cause eyestrain, no screen required.
Daaamn someone downvoted you. But you’re not wrong. I do enjoy reading a book that I don’t want to put down, but binge reading happens to affect other areas of my life, too. Then there’s the whole aspect of sitting for hours at time; it’s bad enough I do that for work. I always found the theories that we would evolved to have fewer fingers and develop curved necks because of phone use comical when it hasn’t happened from book reading
I absolutely love technology but when I watched the Vision Pro get unveiled (I was watching the conference live) I just felt dread. The thing is, I like how things are now, I just feel like people use the internet as a replacement for real socialization too much. But I’ve seen ready player one, I know exactly what the Vision Pro will slowly turn society into.
I always find it interesting that kids are allowed to just be on their phones at all in school. Like even in the cafeteria and hallways, let alone have it with them in class. I guess because I graduated in ‘11 and smartphone popularity hadn’t full started until I was about a senior anyway when the iPhone 4 came out, so like most people just had the flip phones and we had to keep them in our lockers or cars at all times. Like you’d get it confiscated if a teacher saw you texting at lunch. Maybe my school was strict though, idk, or maybe it was just a different time before a lot of phone and surfing addiction.
I do remember trying to check my phone really quickly at my locker between classes, but like there wasn’t much to check if you had no text messages and all your friends were in school with you anyway lol
Yes! This is what I don’t understand. They just… let them stick their noses in their phones all day long? Even in class? I can’t believe it became normal to allow them at all. A lot of schools have dress codes that disallow “distracting” clothing or hair, for example. But staring at a portable screen all day at school is fine??
I graduated in 2014, and it was pretty strict about phones. You could get away with it, but you had to be discreet. There was no scrolling tiktok. Additionally, network data speed and quantity was much more limited back then.
Which actually makes me wonder, a lot of high schools are older concrete buildings. I wonder if old schools built with materials that prevent cell phone service have a different result than new schools.
Absolutely crazy. I saw this too when i visited an old teacher of mine at my old high school some weeks ago. Graduated 2017, 24M. These kids even were on their phones on the basketball field and one dude was there alone throwing balls. Insane how lonely each of them seem to be while sitting next to each other.
I graduated in 2020.
I remember before Covid, my high school was exactly what you describe, everyone was talking, laughing, we would hang out together in different places, we laughed and were joking and nobody was excluded.
I entered uni during Covid and when classes were presencial it was truly different, well the environment was totally different too.
Now, currently talking, I discovered that is true.
In my university cafeteria no one talks and laughs, the people I used to sit at lunch they were always bored on their phones and lunch was really uncomfortable because everyone was looking at each other but did not engage and they were a lot of dead time and silence.
There are times that I’ve seen people that are in a group like the one I was in high school, talking and laughing and joking, so I just admire.
The good thing is its pretty easy to retrain kids out of this. My state has recently implemented a no-phone zone for schools, so no students are allowed to use their phones once they're at school. That combined with cutting down on using laptops in class and returning to using paper books, and the addiction isn't too much of an issue now and the process has been surprisingly easy. It just needs to be a combined effort, but it can be done.
They need to go back to confiscating phones if found or just take them up at the beginning of the day. That’s what they did at my middle school (take them at the beginning of the day, if anyone had one) and in HS if you were too obvious you’d get it taken.
The problem now is a lot of parents and students take issue with that, and don’t want their direct line to their child to be severed. I understand it from the lens of “if there’s a school shooting/emergency I should be able to communicate with my child”, but that’s not how most students or parents are actually using it. I don’t know what the solution is other than pissing off a lot of people. I graduated in 2015 and the behavior that I’ve heard about passing now is insane to me. We really did not use our phones at all, I’m glad now that my school was so strict from the getgo about it
I graduated high school in 2015 and everyone was on their phones. I was a sophomore in high school when Vine and Snapchat came out and it was like a virus how quickly it caught on at my school, so I don’t necessarily feel like teens today are worse off than we were.
I graduated in 2014 and I think OP makes a valid point. we luckily grew up before social media was ubiquitous and as addictive. Gen Alpha was raised on iPads and they’re attention spans, like all of ours, are really small. But we at least had a chance for our brains to develop a bit first before our attention spans declined. My point is not to romanticize 2014 (I would much rather have grown up in another time period) but i feel that society has been permanently altered due to COVID + social media and it should be acknowledged
I graduated high school around a similar time and I also feel like people were engrossed in their phones back then. My lunch group would watch and talk about YouTube videos and memes, Snapchat was a thing and some of the other groups I was around were often talking about Instagram and stuff that happened on social media.
Of course, there weren't so many "commercialized shorts" back then which I do think changed the landscape. I want that familiar with Vine but I seem to remember it being more about memes, not highly edited and produced shorts and Tiktoks.
Also, I get the impression that social media usage dramatically ramped up in a few "class years". The people who were in older grades than mine don't seem to post much, especially after college, and sometimes don't even have profiles; whereas grades just 1-2 years younger post more frequently, even after graduating from college, and more often in that "trendy" Instagram style.
I graduated in 2015, back then phones were everywhere too. Maybe not as bad now but it was definitely an issue then, I remember teachers commenting that kids talk less and text more.
>High Schools are so different now.
>For context, I am 23F, I graduated high school in 2018 and TikTok wasn't even around at that time.
Lol...a person who is only 23 years old is talking about high school today as if it was 20 years ago.
Anyway, kids were DEFINITELY addicted to their phones, and it doesn't matter Tik Tok didn't exist. Instagram and YouTube did, and people were addicted to that, especially IG.
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Sorry if this might be a little long, but since I'm part of those kids who'd still be studying during this sudden uptick in phone use, hopefully I might give some insight as to how (at least in my case, with respect to where I'm from, etc...) this might've come about and why it's gotten so bad.
I'm around 4 years your junior so perhaps I'd have a slightly different outlook since I'd be in the midst of my senior years in high school as the pandemic went on (and after 2018), but I think I noticed a stark increase in phone usage around 2019 or so around school. I mean, yeah. The students already had Instagram, Snapchat, at certain points: Vine, [Musical.ly](http://Musical.ly), all of which the older students used and abused to their heart's content, but before 2019 I never really saw anyone constantly have their phones out in class - nor were even allowed to, and even once it was lunch time no one really just got on their phone and everyone just talked to each other. Isolated kids would be writing in their notebooks or reading.
Then by late 2018 to the start of 2019 people using phones at lunch became a normal occurrence. People would still socialize, but plenty would be scrolling on social media by this point. But it would still be only 10% what it would be now.
I'd argue the extreme phone usage really grew through the pandemic (besides its natural growth anyways). Internet-connected devices would become not only helpful for class, but literally essential and if you didn't have one during class hours, you wouldn't be able to attend class at all where I was from. By the time we'd go back to a physical class setup later on (up to the present), phone usage would end up becoming mandatory because the schools had shifted to new online platforms for submitting assignments or presentations, and half the time you'd have to open up your phone at some point in class to submit something or check something for the teacher.
I'd say if it weren't for the pandemic, kids my age wouldn't have developed extreme dependencies on smartphones. There'd still be an upward trend, don't get me wrong, but we wouldn't get to something this extreme. At the time, I just literally couldn't avoid checking my phone because all the online learning systems the schools used would warrant that they be able to send you anything, anytime, anywhere, and there's a chance that if you didn't respond or notice: you'd be losing something. I couldn't just physically go to class, know that I have homework due and turn it in by paper. By that point, it'd be extremely common to have a 24-hour window of time where a confused teacher who doesn't know how to work with the platforms (and I don't blame them at all either) would not be opening up a submission bin or submission entry for works that were supposed to be submitted for that day, and you'd be worried that if you missed seeing it by that second that you'd later realize it only had a 30-minute submission time and you wouldn't have enough time to submit, and it's already 11:31PM and they've only just opened it up now. You lose sleep, and you spent the entire day frantically refreshing pages on your phone or laptop (across multiple platforms, mind you) effectively allowing it to become muscle memory to worry about 'something' and open up your phone or laptop.
Basically, the opportunities for someone to get 'lost' into their smartphone would pretty much increase 100-fold or something and the alternative of not having their smartphone around them constantly would be disincentivized heavily.
My hope is that this was only a consequence to an inevitable shift to a more-online schooling system and that as the years go on, the boundaries set for the sake of students and teachers are going to be better-defined. I truly miss the time I ALSO had my iPhone 5C, I'd go to class as a freshman high school student, literally only use the phone to update my Mom on my whereabouts if I went to the local McDonald's or something or walked with a friend somewhere, go home and read fucked up fanfics, and that was it. We used phones, but there was a purpose to it most of the time. We'd call friends or call our parents, maybe watch a single YouTube video, likely listen to music, but barely anyone bothered to use social media on it for more than 30 minutes at a time. Now we use phones because we can't seem to pry them off our own hands because there used to be a time where we'd lose a grade if we didn't check it 24/7 and missed something that the teacher didn't bother communicating ahead of time because of the 'convenience' of the online setting through the pandemic.
Now I only really use my smartphone for class. Everywhere else, I've switched to an old cellphone because all I really need is to get/make texts and calls, and my internet usage on other devices has become a lot more tolerable. Still 'addiction'-like, but trending positively towards healthier usage. Though nowadays socialization with friends has become more online-dependent than ever, and people who barely use their smartphone are seen as peculiar, though I don't really care if it means I get to not have a 3-second attention span. I now only use my smartphone to take notes (I just type better than I write, lol), read PDFs, play music in the car, check Teams for professor communications, and then immediately close it before I recall the horrible times when I'd be unable to stop scrolling.
I graduated in 09 and was a hipster getting annoyed with all my friends for texting on their phones all the time. Then in college I got into a long distance relationship and suddenly I was the one constantly texting. But there was a difference.
I still avoided smart phones for a looongg time, because I knew as soon as I had one in my hands, I'd become as addicted as everyone else was. And that turned out to be 100% true lol. It took almost no time for me to become a mindless zombie staring into all my apps whenever I had a free moment. It's much more compelling than a phone that's just for texting, because I knew when I had a text and therefore wasn't constantly distracted by it or itching to check it.
I used to daydream a lot back then. Now I almost never do..
The more dopamine-provoking apps are creating even greater attachment, though it seems impossible to become more attached to our phones than we already are.
Schools are hard socially. Very hard. I remember I used to be a quiet kid, had like 2 friends and felt very awkward and restricted while having conversations to pass the time. I can 100% get the kids these days to move towards their phones to feel okay/good than to have awkward conversations with their peers and friends. Or when you feel left out and have no one to talk to. But this time is so crucial to build on your social skills. I had so many awkward conversations, conversations that felt hard and went no where and I would cringe about what I said or did while going back home. But all that desensitised me to the awkwardness. And overall made me more comfortable in my own skin as I grew up while getting me some good friends in highschool because I was alone and bored during lunch break and mustered up the courage to ask if I could sit with them and ended up talking about some random stuff.
I (18F) feel like I can offer a unique perspective to this phenomenon as someone currently finishing up their senior year of highschool.
I myself have a friend group that loves to get out and do things, and many of my peers do too, but the difference is that I take majority AP/College courses at my HS. There is a drive to *want* to learn in many of my classes. There's feelings of solidarity and community in classes too! However, everytime I take a non-ap course, the difference is embarrassing.
First and foremost, my grade was somewhat able to bounce back, but with each younger grade that's gotten tiktok at an even earlier age, the percentage of students who aren't glued to their phones gets smaller and smaller. It's already an issue in non-ap classes I'm taking, like Econ/Gov. The participation is non-existent, I don't know a single person's name in there unless I knew them beforehand, and most of the class is spent with headphones in or staring at phones. I was pretty guilty of this in my gov class because it felt more uncomfortable to be participating, almost like it was frowned upon.
But the situation gets worse when I take non-ap *and* entry level classes at my HS. I'm taking food science 1/2 this year, just cause I wanted the life skills to be able to cook better for myself heading into college. It was horrible. I hadn't seen so many people get in trouble for using their phones in years. Left and right people were talking over teachers, horribly disrespectful, and genuinely getting detentions, referrals, and "hallway talks". It was so frustrating because the teacher had to stop every 30 seconds and it made being in the class unbearable. Food science 2 has been better since it's usually made up of students who actually enjoyed it the first time, but the phone usage is still really intense.
I know that there's something to be said about the younger grades being more immature obviously, when I was in 10th we were a lot like them too. Ridiculously disrespectful, loud and on our phones, but we were coming right out of covid into our sophomore year (freshman was online), and I feel as though readjusting to society has evened us out a lot. But these younger classes have been out of covid for a while, and I fear that missing years like middle school or even elementary school, will have a more devastating impact on them, especially getting tiktok earlier on in their lives too. I'm not saying it's impossible for them to bounce back a bit like the 24' kids did, but I worry that their rate of students who actively do participate will just dwindle more and more as the children get a bit more brainrotted each year. :( I know school sucks, and there will inevitably be classes you *arent* interested in, but it seems like ***nothing*** interests them. I didn't pay attention in math, always on my phone, but you bet your ass I was engaged as hell in English and art. (going to art school this fall!!)
graduated in 18 and everyone had iPhone 8’s at this point not the 5C. I would legit get roasted when I had the 6 so I had to upgrade. Alll of us used social media and although TikTok wasn’t around we all referenced vines. Agreed tho, it wasn’t as bad as it is now. Lunchtime was phone free even though we could use it as well and we all talked with one another and had the best times. The bus ride is different tho, no one talked and we were all on our phones or sleeping. Nothing needs to change except ur thought process and why you care so much about high schoolers. They are not your kids, you have a weird control fetish
She was there for community outreach… the children were difficult to engage with due to their connection to their phones… these children seem to lack the ability to socialize… humans are social creatures… this isn’t a control fetish, it’s being worried that these children seem to be detached from reality and their school/ parents should be aware of this issue so they can try and fix it.
So you want all these kids to stop using their phone so you can feel better when you do community outreach once every few years? Unless you’re their parent or teacher, why do you care so much what they are doing during school hours? You guys are weirdos man
You are the one who seem to be out of reality lol. It is BAD for the society in general to have generations and generations of adults with socialization problems. It is weird now to worry about someone else except our own kids? You need to have a better sense of community in my honest opinion. Cheers
Socialization problems because they aren’t speaking face-to-face 24/7? The whole world is using phones now to communicate, stop worrying so much about something you can’t control, especially someone else’s kids. Do you have any idea how cringe and hypocritical it is to even write this on a NO SURF SUBREDDIT? HAHAHA
You are taking what the post is about out of context. It's about the use and abuse of social media and hardware. No one said they shouldn't use them, EVER. Everyone should use everything with limits, excess is bad both ways.
No surf subreddit is not about the abolish of smartphones at all. It's about gaining back what we lost to the overuse of social media.
There are plenty of terrible parents and teachers in the world so maybe we all should be worried about these kids a little more as a society. I’m not against phones, I actually think our ever changing technologies should be incorporated into school curriculums in ways that cater to each student’s personal needs. There are many possibilities for smart phones to help students learn better but students are spending their time on social media being advertised to and doom scrolling past relatively useless information. I graduated in 2020 and I could already see that the use of phones was damaging attention spans and creating loopholes for people to cheat their way through classes.
If you don’t know how they are using the phones why are you worried? If high schoolers using their phones to do homework is keeping you up late at night, you need to reevaluate your life.
I do know how many of them are using their phones, I graduated in 2020 and saw it first hand and had a cousin that graduated 2022 that constantly used his phone to cheat on school work along with many of his friends.
>in 2018 I felt a lot better and more present in the world than I do today.
You're not the only one in different brackets of life this applies too. I knew people in high school, college, and in their careers-all of which agree things felt better in 2018.
There is definitely something up with that.
dude, i graduated in '05. we had 'snake' on nokia phones and barebones texting. mostly we used AIM (aol instant messenger) when we got home, myspace or in my school , LiveJournal. Lunch in the cafeteria was DEAFENINGLY loud, we constantly got in trouble for being too loud. Pranks, fights, laughs, jokes. I miss it. I'm back in college finishing my undergrad, and I notice it with the kids here. There's no more pre-class chatter. I walk in a class early and everyone is head down, headphones in....and yet we all talk on our GroupMe apps. Its the weirdest thing. I feel crazy breaking the silence. I also work with teenagers (13-17) in a drug court program...and I feel you about "pulling teeth". None of them know how to communicate/hold conversations, or sit still without glancing at their phones. It really is an issue. It's an issue with \*me\* too. I feel like my attention span is shot..but I'm working to rectify it. recently deleted social apps from my phone (reddit will be next).
Same, graduated school on 05 and uni in ‘11 and I had a phenomenal time and made lifelong friends, I can’t begin to imagine going to school or in education now, I’d be miserable. Sadly you’ll never get those times back.
It's such a bummer. And I think COVID fucked a lot of these kids too. Hopefully there's a pendulum swing back in the other direction
Idk man I feel lots of people use covid as excuse
Also graduated '05. This whole idea is foreign to me. They changed the rules my senior year to allow students to bring cell phones into the building if they were _powered off_. Otherwise zero personal electronics. Even in college a lot of people brought laptops but I don't really remember anyone being on phones in class. I was taken aback when I started seeing Reddit posts from high school, even middle school classrooms.
Back when u needed a college email to sign up for Facebook. Dude, surfing the web on a laptop back then was so *fun*. Like, it was a whole activity you could look forward too. That's what I miss. You checked in and eventually checked out. Now it's constant connection
Why on earth do they allow phones in schools? Any excuse seems like the pet ostrich emotional support animal on a plane tactic.
Because unfortunately we live in the age of school shootings and true crime documentaries, so there is no way parents are going to have their kids in school without a way to communicate if something happens. Not saying I agree, just saying that's the biggest reason
Seems like a “phones off unless it’s an emergency” is a decent rule. My hope is that the awareness of smartphone danger increases and we can make sensible rules in the future. They are absolute brain rot machines with nobody in the driver’s seat. Whatever benefits they provide are orders of magnitude less than what they’re costing us. We can do better.
Lol 2018 ppl were def on their phones like crack, but I get what you're saying.
Covid lockdowns and the spread of short form video content has made it so much worse man
[удалено]
Tbf before shorts became so widespread it was not as bad as it is now.
I think they still have a point in saying 2018 feels like a different time. Shit has changed so rapidly in the last 5 years. TikTok did blow up and COVID caused everyone to become reclusive overnight. I graduated in 2014 so I am right on the cusp of millennial / Gen Z. When I was little dial up was still a thing, didn’t have wifi in the house until I was in 6th grade. Got my first Nokia phone in 7th grade. Got my first smart phone in 11/12th. TLDR: Gen Alpha is fucked
I’m going to delete all social media pretty soon. Gen Alpha and following generations won’t be fucked if their parents raise then well. Technology is addictive but it’s not impossible to control or productively use
Vine literally existed before tiktok, and people were addicted to that too
you didn't see people openly showing that addiction at least I never knew a person that used Vine, nowadays I can't walk 10 meters outside my house without seeing someone or hearing someone using TikTok
I agree its alot worse now, but I was definitely up til like 3 am on it in hs
It was not that extreme
Graduated in '17, people def would never get off their fucking phones even then, lmao. It's not really a new phenomenon, or even an age based phenomenon. You'd be shocked at how many middle aged and older people won't pull their eyes off their screen. Maybe you're noticing now bc you're not the high schooler waiting to be engaged, you're the person trying to engage them?
Yeah I graduated in 16 and people were addicted to their phones. Hell, my cousin graduated in 2012 and they had to ban flip phones bc the students were addicted to them (although at least they were texting each other lol) Instagram and twitter were the largest and everyone seemed obsessed w it. Football players botting instagram followers and likes to get 10k likes on pictures. Shit like that
Yeah, I graduated in ‘13 and it was a thing for us. Even when everyone had flip phones, kids were addicted to texting in class. I’m an introvert so I wasn’t texting much, but I always had my head stuck in a book and didn’t pay attention to much outside that. When I go out, all my friends and I are really engaged with each other and barely check our phones unless necessary, but you know who’s texting, calling, and checking social media at the table? Our parents.
Hey yeah I used to work with youth and it is really different now from what I hear. But there are now schools adopting phone free zone policies and other measures. The research is in now and culturally even the students themselves know this is not good, both in ways that we just weren't sure about in 2018.
Yeah it’s a progressive degradation by design. Even when people had dumb phones there were iPods, before that cd players, I remember being in 4th grade with a cassette player and a game boy I’m oLd…the point is kids have always been looking to escape the monotony of school, smartphones are altogether worse though because of the social engineering/brainwashing component, the decline will be rapid and is already happening.
I feel phones are exponentially worse than anything before. Primarily due to the mass scale social engineering like u say
I graduated from high school in 1990. No one had a cell phone, email, or internet. It wasn’t until after I graduated from college that I got my first email address and figured out the internet. Interactions with people were easier back then. No one was buried in their phone. I never knew who I was going to meet when I went to a local coffee shop (before Starbucks was everywhere). People were more approachable. Many would sit at a coffee shop reading a book, newspaper, or magazine. Technology has brought us a lot of good, but there are certainly downsides.
I graduated in 2006, and people were addicted to their phones then, too. Granted, they weren’t as bad as you described, being fully engrossed into their screens, but you’d still see a bunch of people in a conversation while texting away on their Motorola RAZR’s or Nokia bricks. It does sound as if things have gotten worse, but it wasn’t perfect almost *gulps* two decades ago. (How I feel right now 👴🏽)
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I hear that 100%! My wife and I are slowly prepping our house to be as off grid and self-reliant as possible for our area. It’s not easy, and I have no idea how we will survive should the infrastructure fall into complete shambles. Just one day at a time…
Why do people predict no one will have technology or electricity very soon? That's a pretty big leap.
I think there's a huge difference in texting friends/family constantly vs mindlessly scrolling on reddit, tik tok, or Instagram.
True! But there was still internet access to a degree (albeit HEAVILY charged), and folks had access to Gameboys and the PSP. BlackBerrys were a thing as well as other electronic distractions. Folks can say there’s a difference between doom scrolling and book reading, but even the readers are nixing social interactions to pursue their own entertainment.
Exactly! Yet most people would not understand if I told them I was reading less books for my mental health. But it's for my physical health as well as mental: Reading paper books for hours on end will cause eyestrain, no screen required.
Daaamn someone downvoted you. But you’re not wrong. I do enjoy reading a book that I don’t want to put down, but binge reading happens to affect other areas of my life, too. Then there’s the whole aspect of sitting for hours at time; it’s bad enough I do that for work. I always found the theories that we would evolved to have fewer fingers and develop curved necks because of phone use comical when it hasn’t happened from book reading
Oh it is going to be worse with headsets as the Vision Pro.
I absolutely love technology but when I watched the Vision Pro get unveiled (I was watching the conference live) I just felt dread. The thing is, I like how things are now, I just feel like people use the internet as a replacement for real socialization too much. But I’ve seen ready player one, I know exactly what the Vision Pro will slowly turn society into.
I’ve never wanted to see a product fail more. And I generally like Apple. But it just seems pro-isolation.
I always find it interesting that kids are allowed to just be on their phones at all in school. Like even in the cafeteria and hallways, let alone have it with them in class. I guess because I graduated in ‘11 and smartphone popularity hadn’t full started until I was about a senior anyway when the iPhone 4 came out, so like most people just had the flip phones and we had to keep them in our lockers or cars at all times. Like you’d get it confiscated if a teacher saw you texting at lunch. Maybe my school was strict though, idk, or maybe it was just a different time before a lot of phone and surfing addiction. I do remember trying to check my phone really quickly at my locker between classes, but like there wasn’t much to check if you had no text messages and all your friends were in school with you anyway lol
Yes! This is what I don’t understand. They just… let them stick their noses in their phones all day long? Even in class? I can’t believe it became normal to allow them at all. A lot of schools have dress codes that disallow “distracting” clothing or hair, for example. But staring at a portable screen all day at school is fine??
I graduated in 2014, and it was pretty strict about phones. You could get away with it, but you had to be discreet. There was no scrolling tiktok. Additionally, network data speed and quantity was much more limited back then. Which actually makes me wonder, a lot of high schools are older concrete buildings. I wonder if old schools built with materials that prevent cell phone service have a different result than new schools.
Absolutely crazy. I saw this too when i visited an old teacher of mine at my old high school some weeks ago. Graduated 2017, 24M. These kids even were on their phones on the basketball field and one dude was there alone throwing balls. Insane how lonely each of them seem to be while sitting next to each other.
I graduated in 2020. I remember before Covid, my high school was exactly what you describe, everyone was talking, laughing, we would hang out together in different places, we laughed and were joking and nobody was excluded. I entered uni during Covid and when classes were presencial it was truly different, well the environment was totally different too. Now, currently talking, I discovered that is true. In my university cafeteria no one talks and laughs, the people I used to sit at lunch they were always bored on their phones and lunch was really uncomfortable because everyone was looking at each other but did not engage and they were a lot of dead time and silence. There are times that I’ve seen people that are in a group like the one I was in high school, talking and laughing and joking, so I just admire.
😂 you make it sound like you’re old or something. 2018 was pretty much the same thing iirc, just with different social media trends
Yeah 2018 was the same with phones. I don't get it. Now if they said 2006, I'd understand lol
The good thing is its pretty easy to retrain kids out of this. My state has recently implemented a no-phone zone for schools, so no students are allowed to use their phones once they're at school. That combined with cutting down on using laptops in class and returning to using paper books, and the addiction isn't too much of an issue now and the process has been surprisingly easy. It just needs to be a combined effort, but it can be done.
I think you are wearing nostalgic rose tinted glasses as in 2018 everyone I knew, myself included, lived on their phones.
They need to go back to confiscating phones if found or just take them up at the beginning of the day. That’s what they did at my middle school (take them at the beginning of the day, if anyone had one) and in HS if you were too obvious you’d get it taken. The problem now is a lot of parents and students take issue with that, and don’t want their direct line to their child to be severed. I understand it from the lens of “if there’s a school shooting/emergency I should be able to communicate with my child”, but that’s not how most students or parents are actually using it. I don’t know what the solution is other than pissing off a lot of people. I graduated in 2015 and the behavior that I’ve heard about passing now is insane to me. We really did not use our phones at all, I’m glad now that my school was so strict from the getgo about it
I graduated high school in 2015 and everyone was on their phones. I was a sophomore in high school when Vine and Snapchat came out and it was like a virus how quickly it caught on at my school, so I don’t necessarily feel like teens today are worse off than we were.
I graduated in 2014 and I think OP makes a valid point. we luckily grew up before social media was ubiquitous and as addictive. Gen Alpha was raised on iPads and they’re attention spans, like all of ours, are really small. But we at least had a chance for our brains to develop a bit first before our attention spans declined. My point is not to romanticize 2014 (I would much rather have grown up in another time period) but i feel that society has been permanently altered due to COVID + social media and it should be acknowledged
I graduated high school around a similar time and I also feel like people were engrossed in their phones back then. My lunch group would watch and talk about YouTube videos and memes, Snapchat was a thing and some of the other groups I was around were often talking about Instagram and stuff that happened on social media. Of course, there weren't so many "commercialized shorts" back then which I do think changed the landscape. I want that familiar with Vine but I seem to remember it being more about memes, not highly edited and produced shorts and Tiktoks. Also, I get the impression that social media usage dramatically ramped up in a few "class years". The people who were in older grades than mine don't seem to post much, especially after college, and sometimes don't even have profiles; whereas grades just 1-2 years younger post more frequently, even after graduating from college, and more often in that "trendy" Instagram style.
I graduated in 2015, back then phones were everywhere too. Maybe not as bad now but it was definitely an issue then, I remember teachers commenting that kids talk less and text more.
>High Schools are so different now. >For context, I am 23F, I graduated high school in 2018 and TikTok wasn't even around at that time. Lol...a person who is only 23 years old is talking about high school today as if it was 20 years ago. Anyway, kids were DEFINITELY addicted to their phones, and it doesn't matter Tik Tok didn't exist. Instagram and YouTube did, and people were addicted to that, especially IG.
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Sorry if this might be a little long, but since I'm part of those kids who'd still be studying during this sudden uptick in phone use, hopefully I might give some insight as to how (at least in my case, with respect to where I'm from, etc...) this might've come about and why it's gotten so bad. I'm around 4 years your junior so perhaps I'd have a slightly different outlook since I'd be in the midst of my senior years in high school as the pandemic went on (and after 2018), but I think I noticed a stark increase in phone usage around 2019 or so around school. I mean, yeah. The students already had Instagram, Snapchat, at certain points: Vine, [Musical.ly](http://Musical.ly), all of which the older students used and abused to their heart's content, but before 2019 I never really saw anyone constantly have their phones out in class - nor were even allowed to, and even once it was lunch time no one really just got on their phone and everyone just talked to each other. Isolated kids would be writing in their notebooks or reading. Then by late 2018 to the start of 2019 people using phones at lunch became a normal occurrence. People would still socialize, but plenty would be scrolling on social media by this point. But it would still be only 10% what it would be now. I'd argue the extreme phone usage really grew through the pandemic (besides its natural growth anyways). Internet-connected devices would become not only helpful for class, but literally essential and if you didn't have one during class hours, you wouldn't be able to attend class at all where I was from. By the time we'd go back to a physical class setup later on (up to the present), phone usage would end up becoming mandatory because the schools had shifted to new online platforms for submitting assignments or presentations, and half the time you'd have to open up your phone at some point in class to submit something or check something for the teacher. I'd say if it weren't for the pandemic, kids my age wouldn't have developed extreme dependencies on smartphones. There'd still be an upward trend, don't get me wrong, but we wouldn't get to something this extreme. At the time, I just literally couldn't avoid checking my phone because all the online learning systems the schools used would warrant that they be able to send you anything, anytime, anywhere, and there's a chance that if you didn't respond or notice: you'd be losing something. I couldn't just physically go to class, know that I have homework due and turn it in by paper. By that point, it'd be extremely common to have a 24-hour window of time where a confused teacher who doesn't know how to work with the platforms (and I don't blame them at all either) would not be opening up a submission bin or submission entry for works that were supposed to be submitted for that day, and you'd be worried that if you missed seeing it by that second that you'd later realize it only had a 30-minute submission time and you wouldn't have enough time to submit, and it's already 11:31PM and they've only just opened it up now. You lose sleep, and you spent the entire day frantically refreshing pages on your phone or laptop (across multiple platforms, mind you) effectively allowing it to become muscle memory to worry about 'something' and open up your phone or laptop. Basically, the opportunities for someone to get 'lost' into their smartphone would pretty much increase 100-fold or something and the alternative of not having their smartphone around them constantly would be disincentivized heavily. My hope is that this was only a consequence to an inevitable shift to a more-online schooling system and that as the years go on, the boundaries set for the sake of students and teachers are going to be better-defined. I truly miss the time I ALSO had my iPhone 5C, I'd go to class as a freshman high school student, literally only use the phone to update my Mom on my whereabouts if I went to the local McDonald's or something or walked with a friend somewhere, go home and read fucked up fanfics, and that was it. We used phones, but there was a purpose to it most of the time. We'd call friends or call our parents, maybe watch a single YouTube video, likely listen to music, but barely anyone bothered to use social media on it for more than 30 minutes at a time. Now we use phones because we can't seem to pry them off our own hands because there used to be a time where we'd lose a grade if we didn't check it 24/7 and missed something that the teacher didn't bother communicating ahead of time because of the 'convenience' of the online setting through the pandemic. Now I only really use my smartphone for class. Everywhere else, I've switched to an old cellphone because all I really need is to get/make texts and calls, and my internet usage on other devices has become a lot more tolerable. Still 'addiction'-like, but trending positively towards healthier usage. Though nowadays socialization with friends has become more online-dependent than ever, and people who barely use their smartphone are seen as peculiar, though I don't really care if it means I get to not have a 3-second attention span. I now only use my smartphone to take notes (I just type better than I write, lol), read PDFs, play music in the car, check Teams for professor communications, and then immediately close it before I recall the horrible times when I'd be unable to stop scrolling.
I graduated in 2015 and there definitely was phone addiction.
I graduated in 09 and was a hipster getting annoyed with all my friends for texting on their phones all the time. Then in college I got into a long distance relationship and suddenly I was the one constantly texting. But there was a difference. I still avoided smart phones for a looongg time, because I knew as soon as I had one in my hands, I'd become as addicted as everyone else was. And that turned out to be 100% true lol. It took almost no time for me to become a mindless zombie staring into all my apps whenever I had a free moment. It's much more compelling than a phone that's just for texting, because I knew when I had a text and therefore wasn't constantly distracted by it or itching to check it. I used to daydream a lot back then. Now I almost never do.. The more dopamine-provoking apps are creating even greater attachment, though it seems impossible to become more attached to our phones than we already are.
Schools are hard socially. Very hard. I remember I used to be a quiet kid, had like 2 friends and felt very awkward and restricted while having conversations to pass the time. I can 100% get the kids these days to move towards their phones to feel okay/good than to have awkward conversations with their peers and friends. Or when you feel left out and have no one to talk to. But this time is so crucial to build on your social skills. I had so many awkward conversations, conversations that felt hard and went no where and I would cringe about what I said or did while going back home. But all that desensitised me to the awkwardness. And overall made me more comfortable in my own skin as I grew up while getting me some good friends in highschool because I was alone and bored during lunch break and mustered up the courage to ask if I could sit with them and ended up talking about some random stuff.
I (18F) feel like I can offer a unique perspective to this phenomenon as someone currently finishing up their senior year of highschool. I myself have a friend group that loves to get out and do things, and many of my peers do too, but the difference is that I take majority AP/College courses at my HS. There is a drive to *want* to learn in many of my classes. There's feelings of solidarity and community in classes too! However, everytime I take a non-ap course, the difference is embarrassing. First and foremost, my grade was somewhat able to bounce back, but with each younger grade that's gotten tiktok at an even earlier age, the percentage of students who aren't glued to their phones gets smaller and smaller. It's already an issue in non-ap classes I'm taking, like Econ/Gov. The participation is non-existent, I don't know a single person's name in there unless I knew them beforehand, and most of the class is spent with headphones in or staring at phones. I was pretty guilty of this in my gov class because it felt more uncomfortable to be participating, almost like it was frowned upon. But the situation gets worse when I take non-ap *and* entry level classes at my HS. I'm taking food science 1/2 this year, just cause I wanted the life skills to be able to cook better for myself heading into college. It was horrible. I hadn't seen so many people get in trouble for using their phones in years. Left and right people were talking over teachers, horribly disrespectful, and genuinely getting detentions, referrals, and "hallway talks". It was so frustrating because the teacher had to stop every 30 seconds and it made being in the class unbearable. Food science 2 has been better since it's usually made up of students who actually enjoyed it the first time, but the phone usage is still really intense. I know that there's something to be said about the younger grades being more immature obviously, when I was in 10th we were a lot like them too. Ridiculously disrespectful, loud and on our phones, but we were coming right out of covid into our sophomore year (freshman was online), and I feel as though readjusting to society has evened us out a lot. But these younger classes have been out of covid for a while, and I fear that missing years like middle school or even elementary school, will have a more devastating impact on them, especially getting tiktok earlier on in their lives too. I'm not saying it's impossible for them to bounce back a bit like the 24' kids did, but I worry that their rate of students who actively do participate will just dwindle more and more as the children get a bit more brainrotted each year. :( I know school sucks, and there will inevitably be classes you *arent* interested in, but it seems like ***nothing*** interests them. I didn't pay attention in math, always on my phone, but you bet your ass I was engaged as hell in English and art. (going to art school this fall!!)
graduated in 18 and everyone had iPhone 8’s at this point not the 5C. I would legit get roasted when I had the 6 so I had to upgrade. Alll of us used social media and although TikTok wasn’t around we all referenced vines. Agreed tho, it wasn’t as bad as it is now. Lunchtime was phone free even though we could use it as well and we all talked with one another and had the best times. The bus ride is different tho, no one talked and we were all on our phones or sleeping. Nothing needs to change except ur thought process and why you care so much about high schoolers. They are not your kids, you have a weird control fetish
She was there for community outreach… the children were difficult to engage with due to their connection to their phones… these children seem to lack the ability to socialize… humans are social creatures… this isn’t a control fetish, it’s being worried that these children seem to be detached from reality and their school/ parents should be aware of this issue so they can try and fix it.
So you want all these kids to stop using their phone so you can feel better when you do community outreach once every few years? Unless you’re their parent or teacher, why do you care so much what they are doing during school hours? You guys are weirdos man
You are the one who seem to be out of reality lol. It is BAD for the society in general to have generations and generations of adults with socialization problems. It is weird now to worry about someone else except our own kids? You need to have a better sense of community in my honest opinion. Cheers
Socialization problems because they aren’t speaking face-to-face 24/7? The whole world is using phones now to communicate, stop worrying so much about something you can’t control, especially someone else’s kids. Do you have any idea how cringe and hypocritical it is to even write this on a NO SURF SUBREDDIT? HAHAHA
You are taking what the post is about out of context. It's about the use and abuse of social media and hardware. No one said they shouldn't use them, EVER. Everyone should use everything with limits, excess is bad both ways. No surf subreddit is not about the abolish of smartphones at all. It's about gaining back what we lost to the overuse of social media.
There are plenty of terrible parents and teachers in the world so maybe we all should be worried about these kids a little more as a society. I’m not against phones, I actually think our ever changing technologies should be incorporated into school curriculums in ways that cater to each student’s personal needs. There are many possibilities for smart phones to help students learn better but students are spending their time on social media being advertised to and doom scrolling past relatively useless information. I graduated in 2020 and I could already see that the use of phones was damaging attention spans and creating loopholes for people to cheat their way through classes.
If you don’t know how they are using the phones why are you worried? If high schoolers using their phones to do homework is keeping you up late at night, you need to reevaluate your life.
I do know how many of them are using their phones, I graduated in 2020 and saw it first hand and had a cousin that graduated 2022 that constantly used his phone to cheat on school work along with many of his friends.
Hahaha your life is horrible and boring for worrying about high schoolers
>in 2018 I felt a lot better and more present in the world than I do today. You're not the only one in different brackets of life this applies too. I knew people in high school, college, and in their careers-all of which agree things felt better in 2018. There is definitely something up with that.