• School will never be as interesting as a phone. Your teacher will never be as entertaining as an influencer. Your textbooks will never be as entertaining as your feed. What families and teenagers have to understand is that education is a choice. If you want to learn, you’ll probably have to put your phone down for long periods of time to actively listen and learn. It’s difficult. It tires you out. It’ll frustrate you. But you will eventually learn.

    Then again - when I look at home prices and inflation, I understand young people’s feelings of futility.

    Good luck young people. I’m really rooting for you to figure this out.

    • As a former young person that came from poverty and is finally buying a house in a high cost of living area, go read “so good they can’t ignore you” it might help with the figuring out!

    • When I look at home prices I know that school never has been good. People don’t understand what they have to do to drive down prices.

      Why can’t Tiktok be used to find the best courses? There is no need for teachers to teach when Tiktok can do it better. Let teachers become mentors.

    • I don’t think it’s just a feeling of futility - it’s true phones can be distracting and offer more potential entertainment, and it’s true learning can sometimes be a slog. At the same time, learning can be fun and engaging, and phones can offer access to a wealth of information (of highly varying quality, admittedly).

      Concentrating too hard on mere academic success as gauged by metrics like school grades is undoubtedly discouraging for a student who only goes to school if they are told they must.