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Professional advice is – put a large screen computer in a living room with the screen visible to multiple people and let kids use that. If it is a laptop, bolt it.
n0mesorah,
“But the hanhala was told by the technology experts that it is all because of the phone. And they became conditioned to only see the phone issue and not the real issue. It got so bad, that these boys couldn’t ask for help. Some of them even knew that the phone was stopping them from worse things. It was like the biggest mitzva to get the phones out of yeshiva. Even if it killed a whole winter zman and half a dozen bachurim.”
This reads like hyperbolic arguments a teenager who doesn’t want limits on his phone would make. It’s a fairly limited perspective.
1.) Sure there can be a bad hanhala, but I wouldn’t assume a hanhala is stupid, shallow, and brainwashed because he made a decision regarding phones you disagree with.
2.) What was “so bad”?
3.) How was the winter zman “killed”?Always_Ask_Questions,
“It’s the Phone, Stupid: Mobiles and Murder Lena Edlund and Cecilia Machado
NBER Working Paper No. 25883 May 2019
New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago”Yes, I already mentioned finding this paper above. But it says nothing about smartphone distractions being the potential cause of the link between cell phones and decreasing murder rates. The rates decreased starting in the late 1990s, which was a decade before Steve Jobs walked on stage. The study authors posit that the decreased murder rate was due to cell phones changing the illegal drug economy from street corner dealing to pre-arranged meet-ups, thus reducing the incidence of turf wars. And the Brazil paper seems to refer to a change in the number of phone number digits, not the introduction of cell phones.
Dear Avram,
First of all, I wasn’t in that yeshiva.
1) Some people in chinuch dropped their own nuanced hands off approach when it came to yeshiva bachurim and their phones. The fall out -even today- is tremendous. The yeshiva staff did not see anything from the angle of the student body. They were continually at war with some talmidim.
2) The boys that were not committing to permanently giving up their phone, had no one to talk to. Half the yeshiva was put on a pedestal for not having a phone even though it wasn’t a sacrifice. And the reaction to this group was that if you were interested being better off, you would join them. So the yeshiva wrote them off as not intersted and overlooked them for everything.
3) Bachurim had to get rid of their phones within a week. They had to figure out if they should cancel or not. They had to put all their info somewhere else. Some had to figure out new travel arrangements. It disrupted a lot of the routine. And it encouraged face to face encounters that were not desirable.
Avram,
what I understand in this paper that it is not just a notion of correlation by year – but correlation by county, correlating to the number of cell towers there. They also looked at a couple of competing factors and found them lacking. This seems like a reasonable correlation, not yet causation, but enough to take it seriously. I agree that the drug relationship does not seem to have data behind it.
Maybe, it is so clear to them that murders relate to drugs – something that is not obvious for, B’H, outsiders like you and me.I understand that they are focusing on murders and not drug-related arrests, because the latter number is less reliable and more prone to be correlated to some hidden factors (police presence, politics). This makes sense to me.
I personally would suggest a more general explanation – teens are sitting in front of the screen (possibly doing computer crimes or aveiros) rather than with other human beings. We know recommendation to make a potential murderer a shochet. Not sure, whether a conversion of a potential drug dealer into a cyber-criminal is a good deal, maybe it is.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Maybe, it is so clear to them that murders relate to drugs”
I’ve seen other studies at a glance that suggest that drugs play a role in a substantial percentage of murders… perhaps up to 50 percent in some areas. And a disproportionate number of drug-related murder victims are young.
“I personally would suggest a more general explanation – teens are sitting in front of the screen (possibly doing computer crimes or aveiros) rather than with other human beings.”
So asking עוד פעם, please explain to me how smartphone screen time distractions played a role in the reduction of murders in the late 1990s, a decade before the first smartphone was released. I’m not sure that your generalization is valid or follows from this study.
n0mesorah,
“Some people in chinuch dropped their own nuanced hands off approach when it came to yeshiva bachurim and their phones.”
Hands off is not the same thing as nuanced. And in your previous post you wrote essentially the same thing, but attributing it to brainwashing from an overarching anti-technology movement. Maybe the menahel or yeshiva staff decided to give smartphones the boot after witnessing firsthand how disruptive they were, or after parents pulled their kids out because other kids were showing them inappropriate images.
“The fall out -even today- is tremendous. The yeshiva staff did not see anything from the angle of the student body. They were continually at war with some talmidim.”
You can’t really have it both ways – arguing on the one hand that the specter of smartphone addiction is overblown, but then catastrophizing the impact of their removal from the Yeshiva.
“2) The boys that were not committing to permanently giving up their phone, had no one to talk to. Half the yeshiva was put on a pedestal for not having a phone”
Were they banned, or were they not? This makes it seem like they were not banned, but rather those who opted to keep their phones were treated differently?
“and overlooked them for everything.”
What does this mean?
“3) Bachurim had to get rid of their phones within a week. They had to figure out if they should cancel or not. They had to put all their info somewhere else. Some had to figure out new travel arrangements. It disrupted a lot of the routine.”
These are reasonable points. It sounds like the Yeshiva should have been more judicious with the timing of the ban; maybe instituting it bein hazmanim to give students more time to adjust or decide what to do, and providing more resources and support for the logistical impacts of the policy. But these impacts are different than the vague and ominous “fallout” you’re referring to above.
“And it encouraged face to face encounters that were not desirable.”
Please explain.
Dear Avram,
Hands of and nuanced is not the same thing. I stopped fighting the crusaders when a Rebbe told me that this was his first time going along with a broad movement after fifteen years in various yeshivos. He wanted to do it slowly case by case, but he had to many people willing to run him out of town for it.
The yeshiva with that group of boys, never understood what they were doing and the bachurim had a big impact on the ruach of the yeshiva. Then one of the staff decided that he is going to force his will on the yeshiva, no matter the price. Coincidentally, it was after he was challenged to have a tech free yeshiva. (PS People who strongly believe in zero phone policies, think this yeshiva did everything wrong.)
My argument is that the learning is more of a measure of any bochur than the phone. While addictions can ruin a bachur, it takes the hanhala to ruin a zman for everyone. The tremendous impact to today, is that made many yeshivos even more deaf to their bachurim. I wasn’t referring to just group. Though most of them wasted a lot of their capabilities.
The phones were banned. The pedestal group were those that signed to not touch a smartphone. there was a group that didn’t need phones, but thought the whole thing was a joke. Others hid their phones. This group was I’m only not having a phone because I can’t. So they bent the rule as much as they could. They were told things like your not coming on time to seder so we are giving your chavrusa away. Unless you sign the paper.
Instead of being occupied with their phone on the yeshiva campus, they went to where they had phones or to other people who had phones. And one bachur had a bad relationship that he was keeping at arm’s length. Some of the hanhala agreed that in theory he should have an exception, but those that wanted a tech free yeshiva wouldn’t hear of it.
I hope there is a purpose to reporting this horrible chapter. A smartphone on a yid is not a kasha. A yid wasting his time is the kasha. If you see a serious learning yeshiva bachur with a smartphone, there is no kasha at all. But yet, ………….
n0mesorah,
“The tremendous impact to today, is that made many yeshivos even more deaf to their bachurim. I wasn’t referring to just group. Though most of them wasted a lot of their capabilities.”
This is disingenuous. Above you stated that this yeshiva “killed … a half dozen bachurim”, and now you’re retreating and making some sort of vague complaint about how yeshivos don’t listen to kids these days and it’s all the anti-smartphone movement’s fault?
“While addictions can ruin a bachur, it takes the hanhala to ruin a zman for everyone.”
Better a ruined zman than a ruined bachur.
n0mesorah,
“They were told things like your not coming on time to seder so we are giving your chavrusa away. Unless you sign the paper.”
Nope. Sorry, I don’t buy it. Something seems very off with this description at first blush, and I would love to hear the other side’s perspective of the conversation. Repeatedly coming late to the learning seder harms one’s chavrusa, so giving him away may well be the right call in those circumstances. And tying in some sort of evil smartphone blackmail angle seems like an attempt to whitewash irresponsible behavior.
“Better a ruined zman than a ruined bachur.”
I could get behind that. But here a we multiple bachurim that got ruined, so it’s a non starter.
“Not buying it.”
They weren’t interested in dealing with these boys. They saw them as in the way of what the yeshiva was trying to do.
PS I wasn’t retreating. I was thinking about the fallout to the yeshiva scene in general. As we got more specific (I don’t know why you think a specific story would prove or disprove a movement.) I focused more on this one yeshiva. My statement still stands. Instead of just saying don’t get caught up in today’s nisayon (phone addiction), tell them what they can achieve instead (growth in Torah).
Avram,
agree with your correction on the 1990s. According to the paper, cell phones, before smart phones, fit the pattern, so just ability to communicate, rather than play games, was the main factor. They do seem to mention that 2000s correlation explain only part of the pattern, leaving place for others.n0mesorah,
“I wasn’t retreating. I was thinking about the fallout to the yeshiva scene in general. As we got more specific (I don’t know why you think a specific story would prove or disprove a movement.) I focused more on this one yeshiva.”
You brought the specific story into this discussion as a proof of the evils of the “anti-tech” movement, not me. I asked some specific questions about the story because not everything you wrote was clear or made sense, and your response has been to pull back into more generalized statements that have already been made. And the specifics that were pried out seem to indicate that this example story is an outlier (e.g., even the anti-tech advocates say this yeshiva messed up), and what actual harm was caused remains unclear.
My statement still stands.”
Your approach to this debate has been to throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. I still do not understand what your reasoning is. Our impasse seems to be:
n0mesorah – leave me alone about my smartphone, because I learn better than you and spend my time better than you.
Avram in MD – you are likely a rare exception to the rule. Smartphones are addictive by design, and purposely throw unsolicited content at users.
n0mesorah – learning is the metric of success, and bitul zman is the measure of failure. So stop talking about smartphones and tell people to learn more and waste time less.
Avram in MD – bitul zman is greatly exacerbated by smartphones by design, and furthermore it is only one of the dangers of smartphones. They present a serious spiritual danger.
n0mesorah – advocating for people to get rid of or filter their smartphones is a spiritual danger. Just look at what happened at Yeshiva X! The fallout was horrible. (we had a round 1 circuit involving kids jumping into drugs and violence just because meanies took their phones, but the course of discussion was similar).
Avram in MD – what happened at Yeshiva X?
n0mesorah – learning is the metric of success, and bitul zman is the measure of failure. So stop talking about smartphones and tell people to learn more and waste time less.
Avram in MD – no really, what happened?
n0mesorah – they killed a half dozen bachurim!
Avram in MD – what happened?
n0mesorah – lots of complaining and bad feelings and logistical inconvenience and teachers being mean. Even the anti-tech advocates say this yeshiva messed up!
Avram in MD – ok, it does sound like they were inconsiderate in how they implemented the policy. But how were the bochrim permanently harmed?
n0mesorah – I mean the yeshiva system was harmed. Teachers don’t listen to their students anymore.
Avram in MD – that’s not what we were talking about.
n0mesorah – learning is the metric of success, and bitul zman is the measure of failure. So stop talking about smartphones and tell people to learn more and waste time less.
“Instead of just saying don’t get caught up in today’s nisayon (phone addiction), tell them what they can achieve instead (growth in Torah).”
Are we talking about the same species here? That’s simply not how human beings work. Somebody should tell Hashem how much time He wasted (chas v’shalom) repeatedly saying to not get caught up in the nisayon of avodah zara, arayos, etc. The Torah could have been a much shorter and more positive book! I know so many people, myself included, who know they can achieve great things, but let nisayonos get in the way. What you are advocating puts a stumbling block in front of the blind.
Dear Avram,
I am really impressed by your ability to organize your (Mine as well.) thoughts. But what are we disagreeing about? My point was to the posters before that see a removal from technology as a defining achievement. It’s not. And to think so is complacency. I think you admit that smart phones are not inherently evil like AZ and GA.
n0mesorah,
“I am really impressed by your ability to organize your (Mine as well.) thoughts.”
Please call out any strawmans I may have put in if you want.
“I think you admit that smart phones are not inherently evil like AZ and GA.”
I see them more like the path that leads past the women washing clothing. … With screaming billboards designed by psychologists to distract that jump up out of nowhere saying “HEY LOOK AT THIS!” … And a moving sidewalk that’s going the opposite way you’re trying to walk 🙂
Dear Avram,
I was being sincere. You are a very good online poster.
So I think we agree that letting go of the smartphone is not by itself a success. It is on the path to success.
More accurate would be, the path that avoids total failure.
n0mesorah,
“So I think we agree that letting go of the smartphone is not by itself a success. It is on the path to success.”
Yes and no. I think it has a lot to do with intentions.
Dear Avram,
I think that saying, I got rid of my smartphone is only half of a success story. I got rid of my phone and am smore available for my family, I got rid of my phone and am learning more, I got rid of my phone and my davening improved, is something I can get behind.
But the populism of the movement is just emphasizing getting rid of the smartphone.
n0mesorah,
“I think that saying, I got rid of my smartphone is only half of a success story. I got rid of my phone and am smore available for my family, I got rid of my phone and am learning more, I got rid of my phone and my davening improved, is something I can get behind.”
Ooh, I think maybe we’ve distilled the discussion down to the fundamental disagreement. I think if someone gives up their smartphone or puts safeguards onto it because of Hashem – i.e., out of a desire to avoid sinning, that in itself is a tremendous accomplishment. A single Jew standing up to the armies of the tech companies who are besieging his home, and winning against them all. I don’t think I’m exaggerating – in pirkei avos we learn אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: טוֹב אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם מִגִּבּוֹר, וּמוֹשֵׁל בְּרוּחוֹ מִלֹּכֵד עִיר! Of course we should never rest on our laurels, and should put the newfound free time away from the devices into proper use, but that’s a separate discussion.
“But the populism of the movement is just emphasizing getting rid of the smartphone.”
I’m still not clear on what “the movement” is, but so what? Should we ding the kashrus alerts from the Star-K because they only tell us to avoid mislabeled product X and don’t also exhort us to learn more and spend quality time with our children? I think it’s a double standard you’re applying to “the movement” because you don’t like their message.
Dear Avram,
Let me absorb your take. I”ll comment on it later.
Great analogy! What the Star-K does is beneficial for us because they do all the necessary research and Torah Knowledge. But if somebody would just put out alerts without really knowing what is behind them, we absolutely should ding them for not having the clarity of the Star-K’s approach. This is my opinion. You can disagree with me on this scenario as well as the smartphones.
An actual scenario that bothered me was when a newly smartphone-less fellow came into beis medrash to talk with someone. This someone’s chavrusa got annoyed because he had this chavrusa squeezed into his schedule. The fellow responded, the longer I keep you here the better. Because when you leave beis medrash, you”ll be looking at your smartphone.
For the public’s benefit, all the people in this story were and still are on very friendly terms. What bothers me is that a lot of people think that there is some truth to the retort. I completely disagree. Get your priorities straight. A guy’s time to learn is the most irreplaceable thing he has. If he was in middle of the Amidah I don’t think they would let him be interrupted just to keep him away from his phone.
To me, this is the soft part of the anti-Tech movement. They don’t put enough emphasis on what a Yid could really get out of breaking his phone addiction. You pointed out that these are not exclusive to each other. That could be. But I sense that the dominant focus on ridding the temptation, has clouded the overall purpose. Maybe it’s because I was in Yeshiva at the time, and there was a lot of collective and communal pressure directed at us to not have phones. When it should have been to be fully immersed in Torah.
It still seems like it is presented backwards to Yeshiva Bachurim.
n0mesorah,
“But if somebody would just put out alerts without really knowing what is behind them, we absolutely should ding them for not having the clarity of the Star-K’s approach. This is my opinion. You can disagree with me on this scenario as well as the smartphones.”
I think how I see the scenario is closer to when laypeople forward on or talk about the Star-K alerts they received, not laypeople developing the alerts themselves. I don’t think, for example, that the technology asifa a number of years ago was done haphazardly.
“The fellow responded, the longer I keep you here the better. Because when you leave beis medrash, you”ll be looking at your smartphone”
Was this fellow a teenager or young adult? What he did sounds immature, or more likely in jest.
“What bothers me is that a lot of people think that there is some truth to the retort.”
I don’t think so, especially in the mature adult world.
“It still seems like it is presented backwards to Yeshiva Bachurim”
This seems like a salient point.
I agree that much thought was put into the asifa. I’m not talking against the leaders of the movement per se. Though maybe they could be more open to feedback.
Not even so young adults. Not the most mature group of guys. But people today think that something is defective with a serious learning guy having a smartphone. Why? A serious learner is obviously not a phone addict.
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