Like hunting animals into extinction, global warming, and growing technology to near AI singularity, we get what we want as we evolve. Now, it seems our good governor, Phil Murphy, is trying to stop our natural evolution. And he’s going to do it through our kids.
From this most recent report, I learned that in a state address Gov. Murphy just gave, he called for a ban on cellphones in New Jersey’s classrooms. Not that he is alone in this idea. There have been critics of cell phone use in classrooms for a while now, claiming they impede a student’s concentration and that using them so often is a detriment to a young person’s mental health. None of which I would argue. It could easily be proven that cell phone use is a detriment to everyone’s mental health…. both the person using the phone and even the person not.
(To be complete in my reporting, Murphy stated in this most recent address that he also wants state workers to receive their full pay when they use the state’s parental leave program to take care of a new child, and he proposed expanding pre-K to a full day as well…and a bunch of other stuff. No mock on Murphy, the piling on of changes is what all politicians do.)
But back to the cell phone ban…
I would argue that it is precisely the increase in mental health problems and the lessening of student concentration that we surely need. In fact, society demands it. We have evolved to this point, as with my starting examples of climate change, extinct animals, and AI encroachment, here in this place and time in society, enjoying all we have, because we want to be here. As old Captain Jean-Luc Picard famously says in his Star Trek seasons, “Make it so”, we have indeed made all this stuff so. We need to keep our kids as uneducated while getting educated as we can, keep them as mentally ill as possible, scared to interact with their fellows other than through text and email, consistently ‘triggered,’ growing into grown ups that need support animals at every turn. Really, how else will they function in the world they are growing into and will someday rule?
Please Governor Murphy, during this last year you have, don’t do such a disservice to our youth. They are counting on you.
