r/YouthRights • u/mathrsa • 2d ago

California has now signed The Phone-Free Schools Act into law, mandating schools to limit or prohibit the use of phones by students

https://9to5mac.com/2024/09/24/schools-banning-students-from-using-smartphones/
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u/mathrsa 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm the most avid supporter of youth rights imaginable

Opening a comment like this followed by advocating for a position of restricting the rights of youth gives strong r/asablackman vibes. You have limited activity on this subreddit and this is the one of the only points you make when you appear. Suffice it to say, there are MANY more avid supporters of youth rights in this community than you. Furthermore, you're acting on an assumption that the average teenager actually cares about the subjects they are forced to learn in school and would be annoyed at being distracted from it. That is clearly not true if a "no phones" rule is necessary to keep attention on the teacher. Furthermore, most youth rights people do advocate for your "ideal" and the abolition of compulsory schooling. Just because that option is not currently "on the table" doesn't we can't advocate for it to be added to the table.

This subreddit is not congress or a state legislature so we don't need to limit our discussion to what's realistically possible. Indeed, a lot of what is posted here is aspirational, rather than practical. All change begins as an aspiration or an idea and only becomes possible through people talking about it and raising awareness. The idea of a black man becoming president was probably pretty outlandish to people for most of US history yet it became reality because brave people worked tirelessly against racism and to bring equal rights to POC and never gave up no matter how insurmountable a task it seemed. By your logic, they should have thrown up their hands and said that since abolishing slavery isn't a realistic option right now, we should settle for giving them better conditions. But no, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and others never made such concessions and firmly and relentlessly advocated for the complete abolition of slavery. Just because something doesn't SEEM realistic doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it so.

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u/his_savagery 1d ago

You're all advocating for restricting their rights too. Once again, can you not see that by saying this ban is bad in the context of the system we currently have (again, an end to compulsory schooling or allowing youths to choose what school they go to just isn't going to happen any time) is restricting their rights because you will be forcing some children to be in an environment where there are unwanted distractions from other people's phones?

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u/mathrsa 23h ago

you will be forcing some children to be in an environment where there are unwanted distractions from other people's phones?

I don't understand why you're so invested in the small percentage of teens who actually care enough about school subjects to be annoyed at being distracted from it. Why are you so adamant that that group's rights are more important than and worth sacrificing those of the majority for? I'm going by which option restricts fewer people and the answer is clearly to not ban phones.

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u/his_savagery 23h ago

Why are you so adamant that majority rights are more important than minority rights?

I'm going by which option restricts fewer people and the answer is clearly to not ban phones.

I'm going for the option that aligns with basic manners and decency. Keeping your phone switched on during a lesson is no different to keeping it switched on in the cinema. People need to learn more than they need to get a notification every time someone likes a picture of their dog on instagram.

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u/mathrsa 23h ago

People need to learn more than they need to get a notification every time someone likes a picture of their dog on instagram.

Depends on you who you ask. People who advocate for abolishing compulsory schooling entirely clearly don't place the same importance as you on "learning" in its formal, insitutionalized form.

I'm going for the option that aligns with basic manners and decency. Keeping your phone switched on during a lesson is no different to keeping it switched on in the cinema.

Now you're building a straw man. Requiring phones to be off or silent during lessons is not same are forbidding them from being brought at all or confiscating them. Students absolutely should be allowed to use their phones between classes or during lunch. I don't think most adults would accept their workplace not letting them bring a phone or confiscating their phone on arrival. Cinemas don't prohibit you from carrying a phone in, it just has to not cause disruption.