School of Hard Blocks

Chris, both you and I have kids in high school, and I think we have both been thinking a lot about back to school stuff because that is the time of year.

It starts early

in California.

Yeah.

It's already happened.

It has already happened.

I have one kid in high school and one in middle school.

And somehow in where we live, the high school and the middle school are in different districts.

which means they have different schedules.

And so they started at different times and different weeks, which has been bizarre, but my kids are back to school as are yours.

And so we've been thinking about the back to school and technology side of things.

So you found a story that you thought was interesting worth talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

So my 16-year-old went back to high school in Oakland and came home with a new set of restrictions on their devices.

And there had been some restrictions last year.

But this year, there was a new California law that effectively makes it so that kids cannot use their devices all day long.

And in fact, from the start of school, they have to put them in these little pouches.

That's one of the things that my team is most annoyed by.

It's like, why are they spending all this money on these stupid pouches when kids are just finding ways to get around them? But it sort of brings to light, I think, the real world implications of a lot of the topics that you guys discuss here in terms of when these bans go into effect, how they affect kids, whether or not these things are actually effective.

As you and Ben have discussed, how kids find a way around these types of prohibitions.

I've heard that even some teachers in the schools are actually giving their kids who go to these schools burner phones to put into the pouches.

because there's no verification.

And that effectively, these little pouches, I guess, are magnetized.

And so essentially, you put the device in the pouch.

It's magnetically sealed.