New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced that his government would soon ban the use of phones in all schools so that students can concentrate on their studies. Luxon said he wanted children to learn and teachers to focus on teaching. Last year, New Zealand charity The Education Hub warned of a “new illiteracy crisis,” with more than one-third of all 15-year-olds struggling to read and write.
When Apple cofounder Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in 2007, he said: “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.”
Sure enough, the iPhone is designed to manipulate dopamine-driven feedback loops to deliver a fresh, exciting and satisfying thrill that truly lures the user into a trap. Jobs said he limited the time his children spent playing with high-tech products — but what about other people’s children?
Modern people nearly always have their cellphones with them and many feel anxious and uneasy when they do not. This condition is known as “no mobile phone phobia,” or “nomophobia” for short. Cellphone addiction includes having to check social messaging apps such as Facebook and Line every few minutes so that you can promptly reply to any messages.
There is also a brain power problem. Smartphones replace many functions of the human brain, so that you no longer need to memorize phone numbers, you can write without using your brain and you do not need to know your way around. In other words, cellphones create a new kind of “illiterates” with diminished brain power.
When I travel by public transport, the bus or train is always full of people playing with their cellphones. While going down the street, I see many shop staff with their eyes glued to their cellphones instead of inviting passers-by to look at their products. When teaching in class, I see some students unable to resist playing with their phones, or trying to disguise this behavior by using tablet computers.
In October, the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation published a survey on how university professors view their students, in which 80 percent of professors at state universities and 90 percent of those at private universities felt that their students play with their mobile phones or indulge in other distractions during class.
In March 2018, a fifth-grade elementary-school boy in Taipei jumped off a building, apparently because his parents had confiscated his cellphone. Such a reaction is comparable to drug withdrawal syndrome. In June 2018, the WHO recognized Internet gaming disorder as an illness, listing it alongside other addictive psychiatric disorders such as drug addiction.
Kaohsiung Medical University professor Ko Chih-hung (柯志鴻) has found that the brain activity reactions observed by functional magnetic resonance imaging of Internet addicts show craving arousal and poor impulse control. This “digital heroin” is invading the brains of the future masters of our country and could end up shaking its very foundations.
The characteristics of addiction include prioritizing the addictive thing over other things and impaired control, which in turn leads to interpersonal and other impairments. Modern parents might be addicts themselves, so how can they teach and guide their children? No wonder some students say they wish they could become their parents’ cellphones.
Teachers need to have an answer to the question: “What can I do when I put my cellphone down?” They need to practice the concept of guiding technology to improve life instead of harming it. Government authorities must also intervene to turn the tide, as they are doing in New Zealand.
Lin Ji-shing is a university professor.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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