‘Delaney's parents, who had given up wifi to keep their daughter offline, were squeezed. For a time, they took her to the library each night, to use the internet connection there, but the drive was thirty minutes each way, and finally they wer...
‘Delaney's parents, who had given up wifi to keep their daughter offline, were squeezed. For a time, they took her to the library each night, to use the internet connection there, but the drive was thirty minutes each way, and finally they were forced to restart their wifi, and to dance again with the very addiction they'd successfully snuffed out. It was like curing their child of a meth dependency only to have her school require that its students maintain, at all times, a low-level high. Meanwhile, the school continued to warn about social media and the black hole of screentime. They prohibited phones in the classroom while allowing laptops, which the students easily jerry-rigged to show porn and pet videos. The educators lamented the diminishing attention span of their students and the obsessive digital contact from parents, while requiring that students have internet access to complete even the most basic tasks, and issuing every parental permission slip and directive through digital-only conduits. On Tuesday her parents would attend a school-sponsored evening devoted to teen tech addictions and how to break them, and on Wednesday her algebra teacher would assign two hours of homework that had to be done online. At an all-school assembly on Friday, a guest speaker would exhort the students to spend the weekend offline and away from all devices, and throughout the day, Delaney's instructors would each assign weekend homework that could not be completed or turned in without looking at a screen.’ submitted by /u/Unique-Plant-3260 [link] [comments]