Thousands of college students in the United States are being bribed to ignore their phones during class with free food and store discounts. Students at colleges including Penn State and California State University, Chico, have downloaded an app called Pocket Points that tracks how long a smartphone is kept locked and gives out points accordingly. The app — first developed by a student at the Chico university — encourages students to earn points by ignoring their mobile devices, rewarding them with treats for paying attention to the classes they pay thousands of dollars for.They should keep their phones put away because not to do so is rude to both the instructor and to their fellow classmates. If you're going to be distracted and to distract others, leave the class.
They're too old to be bribed to do what they're supposed to do anyway. If the instructor insists on having phones put away then there's no excuse at all for having them out. In the absence of such a policy, though, they should be kept away in order to be polite. If I'm wrong and there's no politeness/distraction issue at all, then what is the point of bribing them?
Eight years ago, when helicopter parenting was in its early stages, my daughter was an RA. She would get daily calls from parents asking her to do things like make their kids go to class, wake them up or remind them to do their laundry. It seems to me if you are going to send your child away to school, you should make sure that they want to be there, that they intend to participate in education and that they know basic self-help activities like doing laundry, cooking and paying bills. Sadly, that's not the case.
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