Are you good at maths?

I have always been hopeless at maths. Slow, and easily confused. English was another matter, I was tested for IQ more than once and according to the school psychologist, scored very high, though I was never told what this score was. I was three or four years ahead of my classmates anyway and was also considered gifted at languages, though somehow I did not reach the levels of proficiency I could have hoped for. My comprehension skills always seem to lag, do speak at varying levels, four other languages. 

So my skills were uneven and the trouble with all this is still that for every gift, there seems to be something I am slower at that will trip me up.

I have always been fascinated by small gadgets and loved my very first Sharp pocket computer, graduating to Psion, then a Mio 550. But then one ofy students came to class in 2006 with her i-phones.....

No I don't programme or anything like it, I do find smartphone technology exciting, less thrilled to see how terminally it distracts some of the kids in the classes I teach. 

nexus9 said:

less thrilled to see how terminally it distracts some of the kids in the classes I teach. 

Yes.  I was reading that Melinda Gates's children don't have smartphones and only use a computer in the kitchen. Her husband Bill spends hours in his office reading books while everyone else is refreshing their homepage. The most sought-after private school in Silicon Valley, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, bans electronic devices for the under-11s and teaches the children of eBay, Apple, Uber and Google staff to make go-karts, knit and cook. Mark Zuckerberg wants his daughters to read Dr Seuss and play outside rather than use Messenger Kids. Steve Jobs strictly limited his children's use of technology at home.

I have to own up and say I hate what the technology has done to society in general. People now seem to be permanently distracted by the devices.  It interferes with concentration, work, etc.  My colleagues at work are nearly all of the generations who've grown up with the technology and can't live without it.  We're not supposed to use our phones at work, but that doesn't stop them.  They're not doing their job properly.  It needs the managers to come down hard on them, but they tend to turn a blind eye.  They're meant to be there to do a job, not spend much of the day - as several of them do - fixated on social media, or checking dating apps.

On the other hand - the technology is designed to be addictive, and it certainly works.  Even some older people I know, in their 40s and 50s, are lost without their phones.

If I am reading something interesting or working on a painting I can leave the phone alone. But I know how tempting they are. 

There was an experiment done in the States with a group of kids, 14-25, same age I teach: they were asked to go cold turkey for eight hours off their phones and computers. They had to abandon the experiment. Only two boys could stay off it for more than 3 hours because they were painting their planes. The girls though were starting to threaten suicide. 

If I am reading something interesting or working on a painting I can leave the phone alone. But I know how tempting they are. 

There was an experiment done in the States with a group of kids, 14-25, same age I teach: they were asked to go cold turkey for eight hours off their phones and computers. They had to abandon the experiment. Only two boys could stay off it for more than 3 hours because they were painting their planes. The girls though were starting to threaten suicide. 

They have all had the phones since they went to senior school, year 7 so that if they had any problem getting home etc they could contact us.  They have never been told not to use them but it hasn't been encouraged and they don't see us on them very much. 

I think the pressure on parents must be tremendous.  I know my niece, who resisted with her two boys (9 and 14) for a long time has now given in.  She insists on rationing their use indoors, though - and absolutely no use at family mealtimes.  Maybe some parents have no quality time with their kids because the kids are always on their phones or computers.  Anything for a quiet life. 

Uh-oh!!!

To coin a phrase. Are theparents giving g the phones out to their kids as pacifiers or chimdmi details!

Just reading a piece in a news magazine. 

1 in 4 children under the age of 6 now own a smartphone, according to a survey by the digital retailer MusicMagpie.  Almost half of those that do spend over 20 hours a week on it.

It could be the ones who cannot keep away from them have other issues at home, parents who have no quality time with them and so on. 

My children have phones but they are hardly ever on them. The 2 youngest 16 and 19 both girls probably have left them in their bedrooms and at least one of them will have no charge. They have face book accounts but very rarely use them and you are more likely to find them reading, making something or playing a board game than using any thing electronic.