Yet another Personal Freedom Thread (was: School bans iPods)

Quicksilver

Quicksilver

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The teenagers' gadget of choice, the iPod, has been banned by a Sydney private school because they lead to "social isolation".

The principal of International Grammar School, Kerrie Murphy, said her decision to ban the palm-sized stereos, which can hold up to 10,000 songs, coincided with the international debate on how "people were not tuning into other people because they're tuned into themselves".


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That's a mixed bag. I agree, iPods, or anything else of that nature don't belong in classes or lecture, but on the bus, or such should be A-OK.

I don't see a need for them in classes, unless a teacher feels its something that can help a student, like in a creative course, like art or creative writing, where you might have periods of time to yourself to work on your creative pieces. I don't think it works in sciences as that could be a potential hazard (ie chem lab).
 
You see them EVERYWHERE at Uni, and they're now infiltrating schools.

I use mine almost half the time for Uni-related pursuits - as a portable hard disk, my timetable... everything.
 
Go3iverson said:
I don't think it works in sciences as that could be a potential hazard (ie chem lab).
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maybe it's a hazard, but when your bench neighbour hates music and doesn't speak for all the day, an iPod could help my safety, avoiding me to literally fall into my experiments....
 
I think the same thing has been said about Sony's Walkman when it came out and spread around the masses.
 
Yeah, exactly. And they damage your ears, too, of course. Also: You don't go to heaven if you listen to Rock n' Roll. ;)
 
Tetano said:
maybe it's a hazard, but when your bench neighbour hates music and doesn't speak for all the day, an iPod could help my safety, avoiding me to literally fall into my experiments....
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Sure, but this is a case where not being able to actually hear a teacher/professor could be dangerous to a student(s).

Then again, when I used to work on some art pieces in college, I'd listen to my iPod while using powertools in the lab, but I was mostly alone in there. :)
 
Hehe, this reminds me of my middle school days when I would velcro my CD player to the inside of my jacket... It was a distraction for me, plus it didn't work very well. :)
 
I've seriously wondered about this myself. I'm a grad student and every time I venture about campus there is an amazing number of people with headphones in while they walk about campus. It seems that no one really talks to anyone. Odd.

At the same time, I myself use headphones when I study and just want to shut out noise. I don't however where them when I'm out and about.

I definately see the concern for "social isolation" and I definately think in a high/middle school setting that banning such devices will increase social activity. Thoughts?
 
I definately see the concern for "social isolation" and I definately think in a high/middle school setting that banning such devices will increase social activity. Thoughts?
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I don't think this banning will increase social activity. If you continue the trail of thought, then they should ban books (belletristic) too, 'cause if you are reading you usually don't interact much with other people.

Secondly, if I am not willing to interact then I usually don't. I see no point in pointless conversations with people I barely know. If I feel there is no pleasure or if I don't gain something with [insert activity here] then I am not willing to spend my (free)time and the school breaks with it.

Besides that it might be that most interests of the students lie outside the school. Schook offers only a limited amount of material which lead to "social interaction." This doesn't mean the students aren't engaged in such a thing.

Most of the conversation takes place in breaks. But there are a lot of people who just want to relax during the break - because they spend most of time "interacting" during the classes.
 
Ifrit said:
I don't think this banning will increase social activity. If you continue the trail of thought, then they should ban books (belletristic) too, 'cause if you are reading you usually don't interact much with other people.
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If you're referring to banning text-books, yeah, that would be dumb. However, (and I'm not trying to discourage reading for entertainment) what about other books? Don't you remember those few kids in high school who simply buried themselves in novels, rather than talking with people? They have a name for people like that... "Book worms." And while they might have higher-IQs than the rest of us, and probably don't want to interact with the rabble, they might remain anti-social because they buried themselves in books. Not that reading is a bad thing. I'm just saying there's an appropriate time and place for everything. Maybe school is for more social stuff, and home is where you can relax with your book and/or music.
 
What I am trying to say is, that I am against forced social interaction.
Everyone expresse him/herself differently and other people have different times when they are social active.
For example: Someone is exhausted directly after the classes other when they arrive at home and there are others which are more active around the night time. Everyone has their time when they are relaxing.

This is something the school administration doesn't understand. There must be phases where the people shut out the noise, just beeing occupied with themselfs. Some people do this by reading books, others by listening to their ipods. Different people have different times concerning "beeing social". And if this relaxing phase happens during the breaks and not during the classes - who cares. Thats what breakes are for.

You can't force social interaction, if there isn't any - then there isn't. Its not like the ipod is anti - social magnet which sucks away any interest in conversation with other people. If I meet my friends or someone interesting I'll put away the earbuds.

Don't you remember those few kids in high school who simply buried themselves in novels, rather than talking with people? They have a name for people like that... "Book worms." And while they might have higher-IQs than the rest of us, and probably don't want to interact with the rabble, they might remain anti-social because they buried themselves in books.
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That sounds a bit ignorant. Sorry I don't want to offend you. But maybe there isn't a "common dominator" for these people within the school time which would lead to social interation. Maybe you got the wrong impressions of them.

If I remember back in my schooltime - I was highly "interactive" (sounds like a bad "multimedia" 1995ish video game to me :D ). But that wasn't the case during the school time. I had my hobbies and friends who had (and still have) the same as me and there were lot of things we were talking about.
 
At my school we had 5 minute breaks between classes. This was to get your materials for the next class, use the bathroom, and get there. Lunch was what I'll call "social time". I'll address these two times

If people are popping in their earbuds during those 5 minute breaks, I would argue that it isn't to simply defuse, but instead to block out the "social interaction" that occurs in the halls. Some may view this as a good thing, but I do not. You learn a lot about people in 5 minute informal meetings. Consider this...

Some kid drops books on your feet. If you have earbuds in you get a bit crabby nudge the books off and walk away in a pissy mood. Take away the earbuds. You hear the kid start to go "Oh shiiipppp" as the books slip, and you reach out and help him grab them. You then exchange a few pleasant words and you have "something" with that person.

Now I know this is far fetched and only 1 of many ways such an interaction can occur. I'm even aware of the opposite: the earbuds keeping you from letting a bully get to you or something, but I have to believe that isolating yourself like this every day is not a good thing.

Now I have mixed feelings about the lunch period. This is a time when I could see the person actually using music, novels, whatever, to "get away" from things. But even still, this must be done in moderation. If you need to relax every day by hooking up your ipod at lunch perhaps you could do well to talk to a counselor as you probably have much on your mind and I think most folk would agree that talking about your issues is much healthier than bottling it up.

Yeah. Thats what I've got.
 
I always listen to my iPod during some classes that i know i can get away with it in, music helps me feel more creative, espically when i am doing projects on my laptop :D

but i know in sociology i can't get away with it, lol.
 
Hi!

I'm a high school teacher, and we've banned iPods and other MP3 players completely, to stop the isolation "thing" and also to stop the students trying to listen to them in class. If they do, they all know it will be confiscated and returned to their parents when they come in to collect it.

Quite a harsh policy, but it works for us!


Andy
 
I'm also a teacher and we don't allow portable music players during the day. It is very hard to enforce since the staff is a mix of ex-pats and Egyptians and the nationals will not stand up to the kids.

There is an interesting twist on it in Egypt however as almost all the kids listening to music share the headphones. Wildest thing, because they don't seem to understand they only get half the music... :-\
 
We have the same thing with shared headphones. I could never understand it at all. It's quite funny when they forget they're sharing, and try to move away from each other!

Andy
 
Ifrit said:
You can't force social interaction, if there isn't any - then there isn't. Its not like the ipod is anti - social magnet which sucks away any interest in conversation with other people. If I meet my friends or someone interesting I'll put away the earbuds.
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Well, I think you're a human being with some sense. COngratulations. However, not all of us have that, and I'm sure there are some who it does detract from. I know I have used lame excuses like iPods to isolate myself. Not everybody has such control.

Ifrit said:
That sounds a bit ignorant. Sorry I don't want to offend you. But maybe there isn't a "common dominator" for these people within the school time which would lead to social interation. Maybe you got the wrong impressions of them.
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Alright. So it may have been a bit of an exageration. But I do a few people who were bookworms, and are still not very social with other people.
 
Good points cfleck. If I take these points into account it changes my view a bit.

Maybe there is another factor. "Overuse" of technic and "status symbol". We are still talking about childrens or teens aren't we?

It might be that some kids don't know when to put the ipod back. But this behaviour is still dependent on the kid's education ( <- I mean the "education" that he/she got from his/her parents) But kids, teenager are still more influenced by technic and often don't know when it is an inproper time to use it or simply overuse it (the "new" factor)

Its less administrative efford to simply ban the ipods instead of enforce a "only at lunchtime" only a "this and this person isn't allowed to use their ipod in school" (<- which would be somehow unfair regarding this persons)
And somehow I see the reasoning of the school administration.

Intead of simply enforcing the rule, it would be a good idea to discuss the banning of ipods with the school administration and the students at school. This way they have material which lead to social interaction.

If people are popping in their earbuds during those 5 minute breaks, I would argue that it isn't to simply defuse, but instead to block out the "social interaction" that occurs in the halls. Some may view this as a good thing, but I do not. You learn a lot about people in 5 minute informal meetings. Consider this...
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Extreme case:

If he/she is blocking out social interaction that much, I am sure that "taking away" the ipod by banning it doesn't help that much. There are other ways blocking out social interaction as I already argued in my former posts. Maybe the teacher who knows about it should do their job and talk about this issue with the student.

Some kid drops books on your feet. If you have earbuds in you get a bit crabby nudge the books off and walk away in a pissy mood. Take away the earbuds. You hear the kid start to go "Oh shiiipppp" as the books slip, and you reach out and help him grab them. You then exchange a few pleasant words and you have "something" with that person.
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I have to agree there, there are times if you don't get all the accustic informations then there are misunderstandings. - and those little helpfull (for the personality) "social situations" don't occur.
 
It's actually very simple. You shouldn't "ban iPods" (or similar actions) in order to help the kids socialising. You should help them socialising. Create more spaces and occasions where it'll happen. Teachers should know that from _their_ education training... *sigh*
 
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