Did you know the social media panic of today isn't new?
As we took a walk in our city, we noticed what probably used to be an old school building in the Netherlands. We noticed it had higher windows than typical, which my mom and I thought to be "to prevent kids from looking out the window". Back then, the designers of school buildings KNEW that sitting down for hours on end, and doing exactly what the teacher tells one to is so incredibly boring and stressful that one might rather look out the window, something that happened to me countless times. And thus, they made this impossible instead of thinking what they were designing. This sounds EXACTLY the same as the "justification" for the phone and social media bans that are showing up in schools left, right and center. "ph0n3s ar3 t00 d15tract1n9 fr0m class, so let's ban the phones from class." school rule makers say. And I'd rather say: "Why not just stop forcing kids to sit down for hours on end and do exactly what a teacher tells them to, rather let kids pursue their true interests and intrinsic motivation?".