Hello. Welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, technology news editor at Guardian US.
I’m taking over TechScape from Alex Hern. In this newsletter I would like to introduce myself and my ideas.
Blake Montgomery, new TechScape writer. Photo: The Guardian
A little about me: I started working for the Guardian the day Sam Bankman-Freed went to trial. My first break from my new job coincided with the shock firing of Sam Altman at OpenAI. A story I often tell at parties is how I was arrested and imprisoned while reporting on lethal testicular injections.
New newsletter: TechScape immerses you in the influence of politics, culture, and technology. We analyze the importance of the week’s most important technology news, explore weird niches, stay up to date with Guardian coverage and give you helpful tips from time to time. My version of TechScape is a newsletter about technology and the people who make it. Technology, both as a product and as an industry, is the biggest driver of change in our time. It intersects every aspect of our lives and changes our daily behavior. Think of TechScape as your guide to the future and future present.
Thank you for your participation.
This week on iPhone
Yu-Gi-Oh! There’s a lot to explore in Master Duel. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Average viewing time per day: 6 hours 2 minutes.
Frequently used app: Yu-Gi-Oh! master duel. This app, which I just downloaded last week, is stirring up nostalgia for my teenage trading card days, for better or for worse. Quite a lot of things in the game have changed since then, so there’s a lot of digital territory to explore.
Silicon Valley’s elite schools are testing temporary bans on technology
There is a popular opinion that mobile phones are bad for everyone, especially children. Photo: The Guardian
Leaders in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe are debating whether students should have cell phones in their hands during class. A growing number of people in power, from presidents to school superintendents, think they shouldn’t do that.
California’s governor last week signed a bill requiring schools to reduce screen time for students, and the Los Angeles School District, the second largest in the United States, passed a ban on public high school phones on campus starting in 2025. The UK is not making this decision piecemeal. Similar to the US, ministers announced plans in February to ban phones in schools across the country. Hungary now requires schools to collect students’ devices at the start of the school day. France is in the midst of trialling a ban on the use of phones for students under 15. The Netherlands has banned the use of phones in schools from January 1, 2024.
Consensus is growing. Taking up arms against screen time is a popular stance among both conservatives and progressives. There is a popular opinion that phones are bad for everyone, especially children. One of the problems is that it is a universally acknowledged fact that everyone living in our time must have a smartphone. How can we prepare students to balance the two competing needs of screen time and screen-free time?
Will going tech-free help students learn better at school? Photo: The Guardian
An elite school in the heart of Silicon Valley is asking students to put down their devices and rethink their relationship with technology. Castilla, an all-girls private school with annual tuition of $62,400, has banned cellphone use on campus in Palo Alto, Calif., for as long as middle school principal Laura Zappas can remember. Also smart watches. The school has 185 students in grades 6, 7, and 8, aged 11 to 14.
Zappas instituted a completely technology-free week last school year, requiring all Castillaja students to lock their devices, including smartphones, smartwatches, tablets and school-issued laptops, at the start of the school day for one week in March. I instructed him to do so. The girls took notes, filled out all assignments on paper, and recorded data from their science experiments in graph journals. They wrote down the homework they needed to complete on paper planners that Zappas personally distributed. They complained of cramps because they handwritten more lines in a day than any other grade.
“We found that students with laptops had several screens open at the same time,” Zappas says. “They may be texting or playing games instead of taking notes. Or, a student’s urge to start class may be replaced by waiting for instructions from the teacher or what they are doing. Instead, I wanted to open my laptop as soon as I entered the classroom. I was constantly drawn to my laptop.”
The initiative, simply named “Tech Free Week,” served to reset digital-first educational practices during the pandemic, Zappas said. “I think before coronavirus, we were using a combination of paper and technology. And I think my own education has changed pretty dramatically with coronavirus, with all assignments now having to be submitted electronically. And since COVID-19, it has become our daily life.”
What does Unplugged look like as a way for students and teachers to think more deeply about our relationship with technology?
Administrators described Tech Free Week as a pause for rethinking. How can we participate as a community without screens?”
A recent study from Tech-Free Week found that 42% of students improved their ability to concentrate after returning to paper and pen. Photo: The Guardian
The results were positive, with 42% of students reporting improved concentration in class and fewer distractions during schoolwork, according to a survey conducted by the school. Almost three-quarters of teachers asked Zappas to repeat the effort. She is in discussions with administrators at the 9th- through 12th-grade high school to implement a technology-free week for older students.
Zappas emphasized that advance notice and careful preparation made Technology Free Week possible. She notified school teachers of the initiative four months in advance and pitched it to parents six weeks in advance. She asked both teachers and parents to consider how they can build healthy relationships. That a week without technology required so much planning shows that devices can be an inseparable part of modern life, even for 11-year-old students.
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We have a French teacher and we gave them all the dictionaries and she said they had never seen a French dictionary before.
“We have a French teacher and we gave them all the dictionaries and she said they had never seen a French dictionary before,” Zappas said. “And it took a long time for them to figure out, ‘Okay, what’s the right word that I want to use here?’ How do I find that?”
Educators recommend balancing screen time with non-screen time. Photo: The Guardian
Rather than giving up your devices completely, Zappas suggests striking a healthy balance with screen time. She feels that the debate over Jonathan Haidt’s “Anxious Generation,” which advocates banning children from having smartphones until high school, is becoming rather heated.
I think it should be referenced rather than just prohibited. Because we all need to interact with technology.
“I don’t think there’s one way to think about it. I think we need to refer to it and not just ban it, because we all need to interact with technology. That’s how students… “It prepares us to live in the world we live in,” she said.
Zappas is not alone. At the local level, among America’s elite private schools, conventional wisdom has shifted toward allowing access to devices, albeit only in supervised educational settings, and what Zappas calls Technology is cast as “a school tool and a school tool.” The source of creation.”
We want to ask parents in the United States: What is the biggest challenge facing you and your children?
opt out
Companies still collect personal information to train their systems. Photo: Thomas Imo/Photothek/Getty Images
Welcome to opt-out. This is a semi-regular corner that shows you how to navigate online privacy and say no to surveillance.
Companies developing AI-powered technologies are using your posts. We’ve compiled a list of ways to opt out of AI training for all major social networks, even if you haven’t intentionally opted in. Companies still collect your personal information to train their artificial intelligence systems.
Most companies offer more complex solutions than others, but there is one notable exception. That’s Meta. If you live in the United States, you can only request that the company delete your personal information included in your chats with Meta-generated AI machines. There is no button that reliably shuts off vacuuming of AI data.
For a complete list, see the complete column by Johana Bhuiyan.
Wider TechScape
Elon Musk shares the stage with Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
Elon Musk also took part in the theatrical return to the scene of former President Donald Trump’s first assassination attempt. He also seized Twitter/X’s @America account for his pack.
Meanwhile, Musk has spent tens of millions of dollars funding conservative causes, including anti-immigrant and anti-transgender ads. It started much earlier than previously known.
The Washington Post reports that police departments across the country are using facial recognition to identify and arrest suspects, without disclosing the technology’s role in investigations.
Some California police departments are already using AI tools to generate reports, and experts are concerned.
OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in funding at a staggering $157 billion valuation. That’s about as much as Uber is worth.
Speaking of Uber, a couple has been prevented from suing the ride-hailing company over a crash that left them with serious injuries. reason? My daughter has accepted the Uber Eats terms of service.
What’s old is new, and Instagram dumps are like Gen Z’s Facebook albums. Dump, post, repeat.
