Tech Tip: Kids Destroy Computers

[@nestor1208]

When I was in school, i was scared shitless to leave but a dent on any school hardware. Because not only would my parents have to pay for what I've done, my parents would punish me too

[@IanArizpeArroyo]

computers were more expensive though back then, this is the equivalent of destroying a textbook that you keep for 3 or 4 years.

[@ThatLaloBoy]

Are kids just not held responsible for anything anymore? Even in Kindergarten, I was always raised to take care of my things, but to be especially careful with things that weren't mine. I remember back in the day I borrowed a MacBook Unibody laptop from school. They had me sign a waiver saying that we would be responsible for any damage or repairs that may be needed. You can bet your butt that I treated that thing like a newborn child and felt relieved when I finally returned it.

[@SeresHotes25]

@@IanArizpeArroyo But computers are still expensive!

[@擢]

and the crappy Chromebooks they used maybe cost 100 bucks each but they would charge you 350 if you broke it

[@IanArizpeArroyo]

@@SeresHotes25 those chrome books are cheap, some computers can be expensive but not the ones that the kids use

[@tuned2damax1995]

I currently do IT at a Philadelphia inner city school. Can confirm that the children absolutely demolish these Chromebooks and the majority of students totally do not respect the devices what so ever. K-12th grade barely makes a difference. Interestingly, I went to a small highschool in Maine that provided all of the students with Macbooks and promised each kid that if the device survived their time at the school. Once they graduate, they can keep it. I only went to this highschool for one year but during my time there I don't remember a single kid breaking theirs and nearly everyone absolutely cherished them. I don't think that plan is affordable or applicable to all schools and age groups but it definitely seemed like a great solution if your school has the budget and culture to make it work.

[@AstralDragn]

I mean of course if they get to keep the device the students will take care of them. But I am surprised that so many students apparently don't have any dilegence to maintain their devices that they're borrowing. If it weren't for it probably being forced on them to use it (rather than say, one of their home devices or doing it in a more traditional way) I'd say its downright confusing. But having tried using school provided tools to do much of anything, I can fully understand how frustrating it is and how it will continue getting more frustrating as the equipment schools provide and the devices students have access to in terms of performance and usability gap expands.

[@Sandact6]

@@AstralDragn I haven't been to school in ages, but part of me feels that kids who do this are asking for attention or have no respect for themselves (let alone others). Or they have ODD and they're just assholes.

[@Tom3kkk]

@@AstralDragn to be honest kids dont care about the chromebooks and shit because they have a phone and they can watch jake paul film a dead body on it, no matter if the chromebook is alive or not, back in my day going to a school that gave kids tablets to bring home (would have an option to buy them off of the school at a lower-than-retail price) was a huge reason to go to that school (and the only one iirc lul), now nobody goes there because everyone and their dogs have a smartphone.

[@DantesGrill]

I remember my classmates taking care of their phones until their parents promised they'd get a new one if the old one broke. After that phones would literally be flying across the hallway. People just don't value stuff

[@diondicello161]

My school had MacBooks back in the day the school owned them but you kept it. You paid it off over 4 years then it was yours to keep.

[@CptFloppyFace]

I do IT for a school in the UK. I can tell you for a fact, kids will destroy laptops regardless of their cost. I also don't bother buying parts - as I also have a massive pile of broken laptops that I can salvage for whatever I need.

[@drunkenhobo8020]

We had the same kid destroy two laptop screens because he was "frustrated the internet was slow". As you can imagine, the repercussions were severe - he was asked to not do it again!

[@jameshasseriousedoubtsabou560]

As a school IT guy, can you please explain how a large portion of the people in your position seemingly get little to no work done, while still earning more than the average teachers at the school they work at?

[@itsisme1993]

@@drunkenhobo8020 probably a tism meltdown

[@drunkenhobo8020]

@@jameshasseriousedoubtsabou560 Where the hell did you learn that IT school guys get paid more than teachers?

[@ThisWillCharacter]

Huh. Sounds like you actually do something. My school’s IT department does literally nothing. They’re technologically illiterate. My school doesn’t have laptops that are issued out. The IT department never fixes software, never fixes any hardware and takes weeks to fix the wifi. Occasionally they take a fully working PC from the music room and return it an hour later but apart from that they’re just chatting and playing on their phones in the IT room.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

As an ex-teacher I've generally seen younger students be respectful with their chromebooks. The biggest issue is that as kids they're still _learning_ how to be careful, so you get a lot of "oh, my friend said something behind me, let me turn around and talk to them with my headphones still plugged in," and now the chromebooks on the floor, but it serves as a learning moment.

[@custos3249]

And as someone who's also worked in public and private education and seen kids elementary to high school _literally chew on devices,_ ok.

[@mavlnt]

@@custos3249 I've seen more teeth marks on aluminum Macbook chassis' than you would believe, but why tho???

[@I.____.....__...__]

Wait, so am I a child? 🤨 I mean, I do feel young for my age, and I do "move too soon" as Mr. Miagi would say and cause things like cords to yank stuff. 🤔

[@AneitaLT]

​@Mavl NT maybe stemming? I can imagine something that has a nice feeling texture serves well for nibbling on for thinking and stuff.

[@mavlnt]

@@AneitaLT I work in high schools…

[@musturdle_5877]

I still remember my school had an “insurance policy” parents could buy incase the kids broke their Chromebook, but it wasn’t necessary. Turns out, a year or so later when the hinges on these specific models started to fail and break just because they were crap and made of bad materials, suddenly the school starts charging the parents to fix a problem that wasn’t even the students fault to begin with. THEN the next year everyone got new chromebooks. So any parent that paid for the new hinges got scammed out of their money. School systems don’t care at this point and it really shows.

[@APie357]

the hinge problem happened *twice* to my friend, those chromebooks literally snapped in half

[@hockey4lifeish]

I worked at my schools IT help desk for my first hour of my senior year of high school. What I can say from my anecdotal experiences is that the same small set of students were usually responsible for the largest chunk of the overall repairs.

[@jjbarajas5341]

After a certain point I think such students should be forced to use a computer lab where they would liable for broken hardware. Or purchase their own.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@jjbarajas5341 Hmm, what did students do before computers? 🤔 Welp, I guess there's no way to know, so I guess the ONLY option is to let them keep trashing computers. 🤷

[@jjbarajas5341]

@m Back in my day we went to the library or the "computer lab" to use a computer before apparently every student was entitled to one. You even had to wait your turn because classes would block out certain times. Truly caveman times.

[@paulgupta2454]

That's true for all business in a way. Like a 80:20 rule or whatever

[@fnorgen]

That sounds about right. When I was in high school back in the early 20-teens they first gave us these thin and flimsy laptops that broke if you sneezed in their general direction. I'm not joking when I say every single one of them had broken at least once before the first semester was over. The following spring they replaced those pieces of trash with some sturdy HP bricks, most of which lasted until graduation with little issue. However there were a few dickheads who somehow managed to break their laptop every few months, which was almost impressive. Importantly, we basically owned those laptops ourselves. They were partially paid for and maintained by the school, and the school kept some admin features locked, but you never really noticed. Many of us treated it as our main computer, and we got to keep them upon graduating. I still use mine almost daily as a beater of sorts. It's covered in dents and scratches, but still works good as new. I named it The Trooper in 2015, because it just kept soldiering on. Edit: I should mention that those bricks actually had pretty decent specs for the time. At one point I played through Dark Souls 2 on that thing. It made The Trooper cry in agony, but the game was perfectly playable. As opposed to those initial thin and lights, which struggled to run anything heavier than a Sega Genesis emulator.

[@cyrusvile6622]

As a kid I never broke them, infected with 800 different malware and viruses and key loggers from all dodgy free games I played. That's the school's problem now

[@WitchMedusa]

That would be fun, purposely try to infect as many as possible as resistance against them

[@imeverywhere9633]

@@WitchMedusa resistance? its just unnecessary sabotage

[@Dero_Zero]

Bro this isn't a human body

[@steelfalconx2000]

Meh, easy factory reset on a Chromebook. Takes two minutes.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@steelfalconx2000 I'm reminded of scam-baiters who think they're fighting scammers by hacking into the scammers' computers and deleting their files even though we've seen many of them using VMs and thus able to reset it with a couple of clicks. 😒

[@DanStormVO]

"You could buy a Thinkpad that's ten years old on eBay, 2nd-gen, 3rd-gen and that would be very usable today" As someone using a ten year old Thinkpad as my daily working laptop, can confirm this is true. AND IT'S COMPLETELY USER SERVICEABLE. I stuck a beefy i7 CPU in this thing and I've not had to worry about anything performance related at all.

[@Leo-gl4lb]

Hah! SAME!

[@Techfanatic73]

It's a moot point. You think that windows computer would last with a school kid? No they wouldn't. windows with all its updates and security issues for schools to implement is a nightmare.

[@mahdi9064]

what gen is the i7 tho...

[@mahdi9064]

this comment is so ramdom

[@main_rouge]

@@Techfanatic73 You don't seem realize most people slap some flavor of linux on their old thinkpad

[@Furware]

I work at a large amount of districts. Kids destroy the Chromebooks usually before they hit natural expiration. This is for standard public schools and various alternative programs.

[@Trgbdrsx]

This. I want SOMEONE that works at a school to SHOW me the hypothetical EE Chromebook THAT lasts the full 8ish years these people are dreaming in their heads. EE Chromebook’s are lucky if they last 3.

[@NJdaniels96]

My program just got a Chromebook cart maybe two months ago and one already has a busted screen. And these ones stay at the school and barely get used 4 hours a week

[@Happy-df4yi]

Do you guys not make the kids/parents sign a contract saying they would repair any damage caused? Or are these little children? Genuinely curious

[@Happy-df4yi]

Do you guys not make the kids/parents sign a contract saying they would repair any damage caused? Or are these little children? Genuinely curious

[@JoSephGD]

Eh, it depends on the age of the student. I'm a high school junior, and the worst I've seen across my classmates is a burnt corner caused by a chemistry-related incident.

[@SyphistPrime]

Oh god, that imagery of shoving trash in the disc drivers brought me back. I remember kids doing that all the time.

[@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou]

The power of Hollywood and television to influence the masses is immense! *Weird Science* almost certainly led to that. Sorry, teenagers cannot create their own _Lisa_ by jamming magazines, paper and other titbits into accessible orfices and slots.

[@joshallen128]

They would remove the rubber bands

[@JBug20]

I work at a school and it's not that bad, we replace keys, screens, daughter boards, and we charge the kids because them and their parents signed a contract that said they have to pay for it, we only salvage the Chromebooks when the motherboard dies, and when they expire we just buy more and sell the expired ones to a salvaging company and get money from it

[@JBug20]

Also we get ADP on dell ones so we just have it be their problem to fix it

[@drunkenhobo8020]

Woah, you can get replacement pieces? We've found it next to impossible. And replacing individual keys is doubly impossible.

[@JBug20]

@@drunkenhobo8020 we get the parts through a third party vendor called Arey Jones they also do warranty repairs and ADP repairs for Lenovo, dell, and HP Chromebooks. We only replace the keys if they haven't destroyed the circuits and the rubber piece

[@DrKosmos]

Could you flash the OS and get something else going on a Chromebook? I think it would be pretty handy as a pseudo steam link.

[@JBug20]

It will die if you try to play games on it

[@Dr.Coconut1245]

As someone who both used school chromebooks and worked at the school IT desk fixing them, not only where they so incredibly cheap manufacturing wise, but those $200 chromebooks had the most barely capable pc components as well. They are fine enough for basic web browsing, as long as you have

[@bobsprock]

I recently won a Chromebook and legally speaking it's probably the bare minimum for "computer", though definitely overlaps on the spectrum with "potato". I think they're meant to be more optimised, running Linux and all but still, nothing but now RAM will satiate Chrome.

[@Dr.Coconut1245]

@@bobsprock Yeah, I always found it interesting how well optimized they made chrome OS memory wise only to use the most memory intensive browser. I feel like chrome OS without chrome would be a significantly better computing experience.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@Dr.Coconut1245 Chrome was sooo good when it first came out. It's a shame it devolved into a pile of fetid feces. After sticking it out for years, I finally abandoned it several years ago and never looked back. 😒

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

@@Dr.Coconut1245 that's literally just Linux

[@Dr.Coconut1245]

@@My_Old_YT_Account I mean chromeOS is literally a linux operating system that has been chopped up to make it easier to manage and hard for users to tamper with

[@trevorcallahan6106]

I work for a school district as a substitute teacher and I've noticed a massive change in how kids treat the tech given to them by the school. I graduated from high school in 2018 and the chromebooks were treated like trash by students cut forward to now at the same district and students are required to take home their laptop/ipads (depending on the school). What this means is that students are using school provided tech for almost all aspects of their education and that translates to a more responsible owner of that tech. I've seen students treating their tech like trash but you can't always use generalizations for an entire age group when only one or two students in a shcool of 2000 do that. And that is only at one school in the district.

[@peesafpayper9688]

Well I'm happy to finally hear a positive account of this topic

[@WitchMedusa]

If the devices do ANY data collection it should be illegal for publicity funded schools to require kids use Chromebooks or other technology. The device signs be purely as a tool like a virtual typewriter or a digital library where no user activity can be tracked by the school. Any school that doesn't abide by this should lose all public funding.

[@AstralDragn]

I think its very important if its the education medium that the student has actively chosen to pursue or understands is required for them to pursue it. I wouldn't expect a student that just expects to go to school and do paperwork and whatnot to always be interested in 'upgrading' to doing work digitally, especially considering they might use the digital enviroments they already have access to to actually unwind from school. This is inadvertantly breaking a comfort barrier most students might have.

[@thecon_quererarbitraryname6286]

Well I treated the books I carried around for school very well because most of them I actually really liked 😅. I didn't use personal PCs in my school career and that means I'm old I guess 😂

[@JJFlores197]

@@WitchMedusa How do you factor in CIPA? If a school district receives ERate funding, they're required to install content monitoring software on the network and/or device. Us in IT don't snoop around student data, but if our filter catches students searching potentially dangerous things, it will flag and notify the appropriate personnel.

[@crushert]

Adults aren't much better probably. I used to be manage the devices for a company I worked for. Some of the people really did not seem to care, throwing them around roughly, leaving them visible in their parked car so they got stolen, getting them so dirty you'd think they worked in a kitchen instead of an office, or vacuuming the keyboard at full power causing the keys to get "lost". It were always the same people too that had trouble. Yet some people were somehow able to return their laptop after using it daily for five years and it'd be in perfect condition, except the battery would be useless and the keys would be shiny instead of their original matte finish.

[@matasa7463]

That's how you find out the differences between the troglodytes and the civil people.

[@mnxs]

And this is why it'd make good sense for a company to keep track of their employees handling of equipment, personally issued and otherwise, as part of their performance record. In my experience, negligence and lack of care in one area of responsibility is very often, although not always, indicative of the same in other areas...

[@kwyj]

Adults are NO better, guranteed.

[@mattalford3932]

The device doesn't expire. Its a computer not produce. These companies are intentionally making them unsafe to use by refusing to do security updates. 4:09

[@blisphul8084]

I wonder if they can just install Linux on it and just keep using it like normal?

[@adamofblastworks1517]

Yeah, what the heck is up with that?

[@chainingsolid]

My same thought, also the only real software that needs to still support the hardware in the device for a Chromebook is the the OS & Chrome. Ya know some of the most well funded and supported software on the planet.

[@chrisdt2297]

If the users are willing to pay, there will be (third party) companies stepping up to maintain the update. Like the old old infrastructure/ power plant systems But I doubt people are truely willing to pay for these survice.

[@shadik1998]

​@@chrisdt2297 >maintain the update. >uh oh sowwy we don't allow SSL for you past 4 years of service That's called planned obsolescence, buy more chromebooks. They immediately follow with another very interesting design choice of incompatible bezels (guess why? so it's harder to repair that garbage and you need to buy a new one) Google is milking those chromebooks as hard as it can

[@CoalitionGaming]

As a school district computer technician...so much this. And the physically broken ones that are still in the support window, we have now switched to repairing their screens and keyboards in-house. Prior to that, we were outsourcing the physical repairs because there was just too many to do. This was costing us 200-300k per year, so saving that now is good but man I hate working on the physical repairs lol. It is insane how many Chromebooks being broken purposely and accidentally come from middle schools. It's not a huge issue with the elementary schools. My district doesn't have high schools so can't really speak to the breakage rates of them though.

[@JJFlores197]

I have the same issue at one of the schools I work at. Over the past few months, I've noticed that a kid or a group of kids are targeting a particular key on the Chromebooks. Its the lock screen key. I initially didn't think much of it, but it became too much of a coincidence when multiple Chromebooks from different classes were missing that key.

[@I.____.....__...__]

If only there were a cheaper alternative to Chromebooks. Maybe some sort of book made of paper or something. 🤔

[@dualCalibur]

The district I work at did the same thing. I do nearly all of the chromebook repairs for 3 elementaries, 1 middle school, and 1 high school and every day I pick up several broken chromebooks and repair them. We have only about 3500 students in the district. I can't imagine how much work it is in larger districts. The middle school is also by far the largest contributor to my repair pile.

[@Monsuco]

The district I work for has about 3 IT workers who's job it is to repair Chromebooks. Not really a big problem all things considered. Over 29,000 kids, a 1:1 program that pretty much ensures there's at least 1 device per kid and it takes about 3 or 4 full-time employees to deal with all the broken devices.

[@Tantaku]

i work at a university and typically the professors get their laptops paid for by grants, one professor in particular goes through a brand new laptop every year. The last one that came in from that user looked like it was dragged behind a car, and was missing the ram by the time it got to us (users are definitely not supposed to be opening them up)

[@noob_of_doom]

As a former student who is into tech I am/was always super gentle with the tech that I have (school or personal) but I saw so many students giving completely no regard to the tech that is given to them.

[@matasa7463]

They often don't even respect stuff they own. My buddy's hardware is in a sorry state, and he often breaks them... I was wondering how he went through so many keyboards until I saw the sheer state of his game station... it was dirtier than a school cafeteria after lunch.

[@janemba42]

I often go to my local e waste to salvage tech. A few months ago there was a massive purge of Chromebooks. It's ridiculous seeing 50+ laptops in a bin that couldnyeven be upgraded. It should be a crime to be that wasteful. That is the kind of thing that's going to make people suffer somewhere along the line.

[@TheAnon03]

I was going to say I never destroyed tech as a kid, but now that I think about it I'm remembering at least one broken laptop and 2-3 56k modems that "got thumped" and in one case thrown against the wall due to being so slow. Yeah I had a hard time keeping my temper in check as a teen.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@ts757arse Hard-drives weren't. My roommate learned that the hard way. 😒

[@Valery0p5]

Flashback to that orc of my dad throwing the tv remote from the balcony

[@stephencolon2760]

My everyday/personal computer is a ThinkPad from 2011. Still works just fine for all my non-work use cases (paying bills, budgeting, plugging into my TV to watch a movie, that kinda stuff).

[@debleb166]

I go to a high school where kids use iPads for a lot of stuff like textbooks and when I tell you some kids' iPads look like they've been shot...

[@Dumb_Killjoy]

I think I was the only kid at my middle school who cared about the hardware. I was in charge of ensuring that the Chromebooks were charged and working whenever i could be. I also struck up a deal with the lady in charge of IT at my high school that she would send me old computers that were going to be thrown out.

[@gljames24]

In high school, I made an electronics club and to get funding we would repair chromebooks with replacement parts. It was easy to repair, but it was surprising just how badly kids would destroy them.

[@Replyingtoclowns]

No company should be forced to adjust their designs to allow easier repair, I’m not look for some thick ugly device

[@Monsuco]

@@Replyingtoclowns It's a Chromebook not a Macbook. Chromebooks are pretty utilitarian and practical. They aren't there to look pretty, they exist to be able to do basic web browsing and document editing.

[@jackdono5673]

My daughter respects her chromebook, but to be fair they provide cheap cases and the kids are forced to carry them in their backpacks that are often very heavy. I wouldn't be surprised if SOME of the damage is related to being in a dropped backpack.

[@yesser6215]

this. even I in my 20s and only got a backpack to carry my computer in I've had it get scratched and even pieces of the cover broken from just lil mistakes when moving around especially in public transport

[@person749]

Are the backpacks still heavy? I though these things replaced textbooks.

[@trueNahobino]

@@person749 No a lot of schools still give out tons of physical papers and books and such. Pretty ridiculous since they could probably get stronger computers that could open all those textbooks online easily if they just stopped spending money on physical textbooks (which can get expensive sometimes).

[@gqqggq7127]

@@trueNahobino e-Textbooks can be just as expensive now as physical textbooks, sometimes more, because physical textbooks are recycled, but access keys usually are made to expire and require resubscription. Pearson and textbook companies are the scummiest things to ever exist, and they milk the hell out of education systems.

[@light-master]

I must have been very lucky then. When I worked as an IT intern for my high school back in the mid 2000s, about the worst user damage we got from the computer lab was liquids spilled on keyboards. That's mostly accidentally/careless damage, than intentional/malicious damage.

[@aeriumfour6096]

It says a lot about Google that one of their few non-axed hardware projects is just junk. I had to convince my company to not invest in these things as dumb terminals for connection to our servers. They were arguing that, because the server hardware would be used that they were fast enough. Had to show them their track record with longevity to show them not to go with it. These things, even in the presence of adults, are just awful. It's manufacturing at it's worst.

[@Noah-lj2sg]

Did you not listen to the video? Chromebooks are the PERFECT solution for kids. Cheap, shitty, but gets the job done. Affordable for public schools and not a huge hassle.

[@jrshaul]

They're built to be disposable.

[@aeriumfour6096]

@@Noah-lj2sg Yeah, my point exactly. In a time when we're being told we have to sacrifice in every facet of life for the environment, Google is producing laptops like disposable vapes!

[@jjbarajas5341]

Some of the new ones are pretty good but hardly my first choice for a lightweight snappy word processor/ web browsing machine.

[@aeriumfour6096]

@@jjbarajas5341 Yeah, we're just rocking loads of cheap ThinkPads now for our mobile workhorses. So much better and can actually survive the extreme turbulence of someone sneezing within 30 feet of it. Given my experience with ThinkPads (had them since my dad gave me my first laptop), should last about as long as an old Nokia phone.

[@michaelcashin6523]

The only time I ever tried to have a repair done to my chromebook in high school was three years into 'ownership' where I was immediately accused of trying to steal it since I had accessed developer mode when I first recieved it

[@MasicoreLord]

at least the latter is supposed to be technically impossible, as Google stopped allowing managed chromebooks to officially enter developer mode.

[@leonidas14775]

It is possible to bypass the developer mode block, but you'll get caught. Accusing someone of stealing it for this is ridiculous.

[@michaelcashin6523]

@@leonidas14775 I was part of the first trial year of giving high school kids chromebooks in my area, when they first rolled them out they were essentially off the shelf chromebooks with no school board software, so it was pretty much a free for all for the first few months until they realized that might not end well.

[@michaelcashin6523]

@@MasicoreLord I can't speak to weather or not this is still possible, but this was a few years back when schools had just started giving out chromebooks and we were given essentially off the shelf chromebooks with no school board software

[@roxifellian]

One time during my highschool days, I put my chrome in my locker and I either dropped it just a little too far up or something landed on the lid while it was closed. It happened so much so lightly that I didn't think anything of it. I was generally pretty careful with them, but I opened it to find the screen broken. They are so fragile it's insane.

[@christopheryeung]

So you dropped it and it broke?

[@TheDuckPox]

I think most low budget laptops are that fragile. Try an old thinkpad, they're built like tanks.

[@Freak80MC]

The first two comments are like: "Have you tried living in 0g so you can't accidentally drop things?" Or you know, manufacturers could build devices that work in a gravity environment and will survive getting dropped sometimes...

[@Zach-qs2bw]

​@@Freak80MC sure but it'd cost more because of research/development and materials these things are dirt cheap because schools are used to kids breaking things so they favor that more into how they buy things than how durable it is it'd be interesting to see how these schools are making there judgements on what to buy

[@cheezymoser]

Windows 11 requirements are going to kill way too many perfectly usable computers. I find it highly disturbing. With win10 reaching its end of life so soon.

[@AnT508]

Linux to the rescue! If it's mostly a Web browser, it should be fine :)

[@JustMatchmaking]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a public project that ends up being put together to keep Win10 going, I know a crazy amount of people (including myself) who still refuse to convert to 11.

[@Refi_Van]

Ppl will be forced to try Linux, so it's good in a way 👌 The major problem will be the compatibility issues, but nothing much can be done about it anyway.

[@Eunostos]

I have donated tens of barely functional PCs with ChromeOS flex to the local community centre. thankfully most people seem to be looking to find somewhere for them before the ewaste. (screw linux for donating, it's a load around the necks of *most* recipients when you're not going to be offering support. Though i'll add it/provide an ISO if someone knows enough to ask.)

[@wanderingwobb6300]

IT departments are going to deploy Windows 11 on unsupported hardware most likely. I find it unlikely that they'll won't bother doing that. It's the individual users on older PCs being left out to dry by MS. It is stupid because of that.

[@tsulkalu4589]

If you want long support use Linux, because open source companies don`t sell you hardware, so they have no need to make system expire.

[@TheThursty100]

SteamOS is Linux. And the steam deck is selling rather well last time I checked

[@arahman56]

And PLEASE use LTS, you only need to update the OS every 2-4 years.

[@tsulkalu4589]

@@TheThursty100 But Vavle can`t make steam deck expire, like Chrome book because you can always install new kernel. So you can probably use it for 30 years, because Linux support ancient architectures.

[@franspai7415]

​@arahman56 You still need to update, but you dont need to version bump it, depending on the distro you are using, rolling release distros are my favorite for workstations personally. I just run paru -Syu once a day and Im always on the newest bleeding egde software.

[@Thelango99]

@@tsulkalu4589 You can even use Linux on the PS2 (albeit a rather old version).

[@porschepal7932]

I can remember back in my elementary school we had laptop carts and our classroom would have to go get the cart from the computer lab if we wanted to use laptops. Otherwise we had about 5 desktop computers in our classroom.

[@livipup]

The cost of ownership thing is a great point. I've gotten six or seven years of us out of my phone, but it stopped getting OS updates about a year after I bought it. Thinking of replacing it now because the OS is so out of date that modern apps don't all work properly anymore.

[@WitchMedusa]

Thinking this same thing, I wanna keep using my phone cause I like it (G-S7) but I'm worried about the lack of security updates lately.

[@livipup]

@@WitchMedusa I didn't notice 🤔 That's the same one I have

[@livipup]

@@TheDuckPox I considered forcing a new version onto my phone to meet the minimum requirements for some apps I have installed, but I don't feel like risking it with something as important as my phone.

[@StreetPreacherr]

I STILL have an iPhone 4 that works great as a device just to listen to 'podcasts'. Unfortunately since Apple stopped providing updates, it's almost impossible to find APPS that still offer their 'legacy' versions that will run on the old versions of iOS... So the HARDWARE is fine (last hardware that Steve Jobs influenced), but it's ONLY the lack of software support that makes the STILL BEAUTIFUL LOOKING hardware almost completely useless...

[@gqqggq7127]

@@StreetPreacherr "Just recycle bro" "planet is running out of certain metals bro" - meanwhile literally expected to retire perfectly good devices every couple of years

[@DoctorX17]

I do IT for a school, and while the kids are generally pretty careful, most of the Chromebooks end up in the “damaged”; not because they were rough, but because they all have the same flaw - the left hinge fails in the screen half, the plastic holding the screws just rips apart from the opening force. These are all Acer, and 3 generations have this flaw, the latest being the C871-C85K. They also have keyboard issues, but the hinge failure is HUGE, and so I have a LOT of spare parts, but I usually can’t fix things now.

[@ultraali453]

For most of us, old phones aren't really something we worry about. As long as they do what we want, we're okay.

[@Asis2036]

This, as long as the apps still run there is no reason to upgrade. Security? Same as pc, just don't open links you aren't sure of and don't go to sketchy sites, easy.

[@Joshua17891]

I wanna add on to this with insight as I'm pretty young (an adult, but pretty young lol). I had a LOT of friends break their chromebooks on PURPOSE because you get 1 free Chromebook replacement (in some schools its 2). If you were very nice to your chromebook, you could snap the screen in half or maul the hell out of the whole bottom plane (destroying the motherboard in the process) and because of school policy, they were required to give you a new one right away, even if it was obvious you did it just so you'd graduate with a fresh chromebook you'd be allowed to take home. (because we were allowed to keep our chromebooks) Big asterisk. Ofc I am not one of those people. I treated my chromebook nicely throughout all 4 years of my high schooling and only now an undisclosed amount of time after graduation (over a year) am I modifying it in funny ways. But even then I just rooted tf out of it and replaced the firmware and os with coreboot (firmware) then windows.

[@DarthCiliatus]

Senior year of highschool (2019) some of the kids I was in an engineering class with made a blowgun and shot a dart made of a 2in piece of steel with duct tape wrapped around the back half through the screen of one of their chromebooks when the teacher was out of the room. Another guy ran his over with a car. Another one threw it off a building. Several threw them out of moving cars. My school had one free repair per student. They did not offer free repairs the next year.

[@Monsuco]

I work in IT for a school district. The students sign a form that basically says they're liable for these things as part of our 1-web program. Yeah, sure, we'd repair it but we'd charge for the repair.

[@13bMSP_FC]

The high-school I went had a program where you could apply to career test programs for class credit and when i helped out with IT the amount of broken Mac book air that I had to process was probably 30 a week all with various issues from non working wifi to literally torn in half

[@patchgatsby9138]

My wife teaches 6th grade. She numbers all of the Chrome books and each kid gets the same computer each day. She tells the kids when they come in to check to see if there is anything wrong with the computer. If there is she calls the kid from the last class to her room to explain. She has very few problems with the computers. Other teachers don't do any accountability on the computers. Their computers are constantly getting broken. If the teacher treats the computers like they are valuable then most of the kids do too. There is no excuse for them not supporting the computers past 4 years.

[@charginginprogresss]

9:20 Except that "not receiving major android updates" does not equal to planned obsolescence. You don't have a personal hacker trying to get into your phone. You can still use an unupdated 7 year old android phone just fine. But not an iphone because they will intentionally brick it.

[@Pasi123]

My phone is still on Android 8.0 and it's rare to run in to an App it can't run. Google Play services still support everything from Android 4.4 and up

[@franspai7415]

Not defending Apple here, but Apple does not brick old phones, if you wanted to nothing is stopping you from using an iPhone 4 right now. Yes it would be slow, and the battery would be terrible if not replaced, but in no way bricked.

[@Pasi123]

@@franspai7415 The main problem is installing any apps on older iOS versions. Even if the apps used to be compatible you often can't install the old compatible versions

[@franspai7415]

@@Pasi123 but thats the devs fault for not supporting older iOS versions, not Apples, not to mention there are still many apps that support iOS as low as 10, so you could still be rocking an iPhone 5 with them. Android is the same, even youtube now requires at least Android 8 for the newest youtube app to work, only advantage here is that Android supports side loading so you could in theory download an older version of the youtube app, but then again the iPhone should get that soon as well, at least in the EU. But my point was that according to OP Apple bricks older devices when that is clearly totally not true.

[@Seraph.G]

I've tried to repair individual keys. Can confirm it is completely unviable on most laptops. I've also had the same laptop for 6 years, and that thing is falling apart from years of being disassembled and shuffled around in backpacks (I'm clumsy, and I know it) but it still works! I have no warranty, but I am my own warranty.

[@yemin_it6113]

IT Admin prior experience working with MANY schools. My pitch on this always was ; Either buy the Police Department's old ToughBooks (Because those things are damn near bullet proof and even into their twilight years are very snappy machines when they are reset), put Linux or something lite/easy to operate on there maybe swap out the SSD's. Help them get the website/portals/software installed and boom. Last few times around it actually ended up being i7 ninth gens with Linux because all of their resources were through web portals. So all the kids needed access to was a SEVERELY limited and island-locked browser lol. Yeah they're heavy but they also have carryin handles and a lot of the kids thinks its freaking awesome to be doing their school work on officer's former laptop. For those who don't, good luck doing something about it, turd. Oh, and I should probably mention. ANYONE who didn't agree with me, or would stand their ground for something fancy and shiny because that's what they want to walk into the class and see the kid sat behind, whatever their reason was - I pulled myself from the bid. It's way too logistically challenging and costly to associate myself with. I only work at pique efficiency. I'm a premium listed service for a reason.

[@recklesssquirel5962]

When I left school, there were rumors floating around that they were going to be bringing in MacBooks. No idea of it happened though.

[@JoseLgamer05]

I like the Idea of buying older toughbooks, you can get a 5th gen i5 one for 250€, which is still pretty usable, I still have a core2quad rig that's usable.

[@jjbarajas5341]

Nintendo should make laptops for middle schoolers. Gameboys were always tough buggers.

[@uis246]

Carryin handles sounds like joke about Soviet Union

[@Monsuco]

@@jjbarajas5341 Yeah but the Switch isn't near as sturdy, hence the Joycon drift problem.

[@DistrosProjects]

In my current high school, most of the computers are fine (people steal stickers but whatever). However, in one particular classroom, there are a few that are just awful, including a Chromebook with 5 missing keys (including the scissors switches and in some cases the plastic membrane(!!), so you can't just stick them back on), a missing metal brace for the space bar (so you have to press it really hard in the middle) and one key that was improperly replaced.

[@JessicaFEREM]

I know many school districts will use their computers for 10+ years or more, 4 years is pitiful and school systems are starting to feel regret.

[@Likely_Alucard]

I worked in a repair shop when chrome books were just coming out. At the time the schools used iPads.... There was mountains of them at our shop, since we had contracts with the school districts... My fingers ache thinking about it. All the shattered screens....

[@dendonflo]

My 2011 Thinkpad is still plenty useful, I even installed W11 on it, it should be illegal to manually restrict usage of hardware YOU BOUGHT after a few years.

[@Eunostos]

you can still shove Flex onto them.

[@BillTheScrub]

As a K12 CETL certified ed-tech, these points are 100% fact. I have about 100 broken Chromebooks sitting on my shelf that are NOT EOL but are only useful for spare parts.

[@TheFallingFlamingo]

I've taught technology classes at an elementary school. I've never seen anything done to a Chromebook that compares to what children will do to the desktops. Go ahead and give them a laptop with actual I/O when you're ready for every port to have a pencil jammed and broken off into it.

[@toothlessblue]

0:32 Chromebooks literally expire? How is this acceptable?

[@nicole46980]

i have a google pixel 4 that was only supported for three years and its extremely annoying seeing a perfectly good piece of hardware no longer support security updates especially because of the changes to google photos and them grandfathering in their old phones

[@HapppyMann]

Amazing throwback to when someone stole like 20 sets of ram out of the computer lab PC's at my HS. They only noticed a few months later that all the PC's had only half the RAM

[@spacecadet2663]

My Chromebook experience was the Lenovo 2 in 1s we had in middleschool (we were the first school to get Chromebooks for each person) had the touchscreens just fall out of the frame. The device didn't even need to be dropped, it would just sometimes do that. Of course being the little sh*t I was I pulled mine out once it started breaking and would twist it 180 degrees around the flexible cable but that's besides the point.

[@wizthewitch]

Worked IT at a local school district, and that part at 1:58 is the extent of actual technical work they had me do, everything else was just moving the goddamn things from building to building

[@chrissolace]

My brother brought home a school laptop and I was surprised it was a MacBook. It was old enough to have the magnetic charger, the glowing logo, large, white borders, and a worn down charger cable, I could only compare it to the one I currently have. But as you said, it’s going to be used by kids and years… and from my experience of using school owned iPads, it seems managing them with iCloud is beneficial as well. My brother just browses the web, creates PowerPoints and Word documents for class, so it doesn’t need to do top of the line stuff. He’s even been using it to browse the web in his off time, since it’s completely usable still. So I’ve realized to really not underestimate hardware, since it’s gotten really good.

[@SamuraiMerrick]

Except the schools all make the parents sign waivers that say if it breaks the parent has to pay. Ridiculous

[@Channeldyhb]

I have a $200 Lenovo laptop from 2017, still works relatively fine the bottleneck is actually the hdd, by a very wide margin

[@nezu_cc]

The thing with software support on Android phones is that even if the manufacturer doesn't provide you with the latest software you can almost always flash a fully up-to-date AOSP ROM. Try doing that on an iPhone lol. Flashing a custom ROM onto my older phone extended the battery life to the point where an already degraded battery could still last me an entire day.

[@thecon_quererarbitraryname6286]

I think Linus deliberately missed that. Sure the update support on my Redmi is shitty, but one just had to unlock the bootloader and install pixel experience on it... (I'm now on Android 13 with the official Xiaomi support I would have been stuck at Android 11...)

[@Reiikz]

when it comes to phones, it stops getting support you install linage os in it and keep using it. I had Android that was like 5 versions ahead of the rom provided by Samsung and I was getting security updates every other month. so yeah. Supporting old devices doesn't actually cost that much, it's a matter of them wanting you to buy another one.

[@myface6739]

i used to have lineage on a cheap s4. that phone didnt last long in the hands of my siblings however. they arent horrible with taking care of their tech, but somehow they always have the wierdest issues that nobody else in the world has.

[@Engiduck]

yeah but not all devices are supported so you have to wait longer

[@jamielias2673]

currently working i.t in a school in the uk where all of our kids have 8th generation ipads. as one of two people who can repair the ipads i can tell you kids don't care at all about the cost of a device when they break it unless they have direct consequences. i will say the ipads have a similar issue to the Chromebooks in that they will be unsupported in a limited time frame. the main upside of the apple devices is unless theres major damage (ie: bent chassis, broken board, punctured battery) the fix in most cases is a screen or home button replacement which we can do fairly quickly. that being said we have had supply chain issues with replacement parts so you'll still run into issues with parts availability.

[@jeanfrancoisdutremble9022]

me using my thinkpad as bodyarmor and it still work perfectly

[@ssdd4424]

I work for the IT department for a local school system. We currently have over 10,000 broken chrome books in our shop that we can’t fix because of parts. we are also not allowed to part out broken chrome books to repair others because of policy. The models that we have, we can generally repair the keys depending on the damage. I love how they didn’t even mention the Wi-Fi issue that we’ve been dealing with since we’ve got them.

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

Low-cost devices and grumpy users. What a perfect match made in the heaven.

[@tonyfweb]

Used to work as a break-fix tech for an MSP that mostly dealt with school districts a couple years ago in the middle of the pandemic. Most counties had upwards of 50K Chromebooks. And about 10k in for repair at any given time

[@CalcProgrammer1]

This timed support shit is one of the biggest strengths of the open source world. You buy hardware and you run the software you want on it for as long as the hardware is viable. There's no corporate overlord setting an expiration date for your software. You can run Linux quite easily on 10 or even 15 year old hardware at this point and it still runs quite well. My 2008 laptop I got when I graduated high school was amazing at the time and still works fine on Linux. The PinePhone uses a pretty ancient SoC as far as the crazy fast rate that ARM has progressed in the smartphone space but it's supported by the latest Linux 6.3 kernel and as it's just another ARM64 processor should not be losing that support anytime soon. Artificial expiration dates create pointless e-waste and also waste your money. This is just one of many reasons I'm daily driving a Linux phone. I'm done with the shitty corporate technology overlords and their shitty ad-filled spyware. The dystopian nightmare that is Google- and Apple-certified state test sites is insane, why have we as a society let these corporations become the standards when they do everything they can to not accept actual standards?

[@UCPBWxsArHSvqoebTT7ykfGw]

I remember people being upset because Linux had dropped support of i486 last year, and that in itself shows this strength. That CPU is older than I am, and it took that long to drop support. Android actually makes me extremely angry because of copies of Android losing support. They don't get to use the excuse of "it would cost us too much to support old hardware" while also putting that much effort into stopping users from things like LineageOS, which would fix the issue entirely. Open source just keeps things alive until the device is unable to function properly, so I can upgrade when I'm ready, not because a company forced a security risk into a device

[@StreetPreacherr]

Won't it be GREAT if these hardware/software producers end up 'painting themselves into a corner'? On the software side they want to make EVERYTHING 'subscription based', so you pay a monthly fee and the software runs 'in the cloud' and can be accessed through any INTERNET (Chrome) BROWSER. Meaning ANY hardware that can run Chrome should be able to run the LATEST versions of software, since it's 'cloud based'. However, they ALSO want to force consumers to buy NEW HARDWARE, however if you access ALL SOFTWARE through a WEB BROWSER, then WHY would you ever NEED 'better' hardware? And the 'SECURITY' argument is just BS. What's the worst that'll happen, the kid gets a virus that 'eats their homework'?

[@CalcProgrammer1]

@@UCPBWxsArHSvqoebTT7ykfGw Seriously, Android is a terrible design for longetivity. Having to build the OS image tailored specifically to every phone means that it's a lot of work to support a phone. If you divide your OS up into manageable packages then the vast majority of said packages end up being hardware-agnostic. Then, if you put the parts that are hardware-specific into a format where they can be easily shared across devices as much as possible, there's a lot less maintenance overhead. Then, if you actually push this code to an actively maintained project rather than letting it die in "because we had to" GPL compliance .tar.gz releases, it would stay up to date. The shittiness of Android's design is built deep into its core and into the core of how Android hardware vendors "contribute" to the Linux kernel they built on top of. If you design an OS that is difficult to maintain, you build yourself a "reason" to obsolete devices quickly. It's a "feature".

[@CalcProgrammer1]

@@StreetPreacherr Unfortunately, if Google is allowed to dominate the browser marketshare, Google still has control of the software :|

[@Thurrock2]

I did IT Support in a school quite a few years ago, kids would carry them around at the base of the screen/keyboard with their thumb on the screen, they were forever coming in broken, always in the same place too. As well as the amount that came in because kids were walking around with them, dropping them, hitting them off desks with their bags etc.

[@WrexBF]

I think I'm the only one who's still using an LG G3 from 9 years ago.😂 It's kinda slow but I don't really use my phone often. I mostly use it for listening to music at work. The rest of the time it's sitting there waiting for that occasional call.

[@JJFlores197]

I bought a broken LG G3 from eBay about 8 years ago. I bought a replacement screen for about $80 and used it for about 2-3 years. I then gave it to my dad and he used it up until 4 years ago when it was starting to get warm when not doing anything and would frequently loose service. It had a good run and was a pretty decent phone. The only downside was the Verizon software. It was unlocked, but it wouldn't let me use mobile data tethering unless I had a Verizon SIM which made no sense to me. I flashed a custom firmware and everything worked well.

[@tarvest]

I was an IT intern a couple of years ago for a school in the US. I recall several broken Chromebooks coming from the same student, and many Chromebooks had damage that was obviously intentional. It was only for one class period but it became an issue of physically not being able to report and ship out enough of them on warranty to keep up with the backlog, and that was partly because of how tedious it was reporting those things to Dell.

[@ManyPearTree]

It's 2001, I'm 5 years old, and my dad just brought home a new $300 DVD player for his prized home theater system. I became so mesmorized by the automatic disc tray opening mechanism that I shoved half a package of sliced bologna into it because I didn't have any discs. GOT MY AZZ WUUUPPPPED

[@thecon_quererarbitraryname6286]

Haha 😂 Well as a little child I "fed" the VHS tape player a slice of bread because I thought it is hungry 😂😅 Luckily my dad could remove it carefully and it still worked but he obviously wasn't happy either...

[@matasa7463]

Good lord, I am happy I was so careful with stuff as a kid... being a good boy got me my first laptop at age 10. Window 95 IBM laptop. Still got it and it still works.

[@stinky59]

i did nearly the exact same thing except it was sliced ham that i shoved into the disc tray. i also somehow managed to get my hands on my moms wallet and i put all the credit cards into the vhs player.

[@tardisboy1]

I go to school with school loaned chromebooks and (speaking from experience) the chromebooks my school bought were just bad.

[@kevinagostinello9968]

Imagine not being able to install windows on a cpu because of its age even though it has plenty of performance left in it. Oh wait…

[@SimonBauer7]

well you can. there are workarounds.

[@kevinagostinello9968]

@@SimonBauer7 tbh I thought using Rufus instead of the windows media tool would do the trick but nah, I know there’s gotta be a workaround but it shouldn’t be this complicated

[@NascarRacingFan5]

When I was in middle school our district started their 1:1 laptop initiative. We didn’t get Chromebook’s we started with NOBIs as their Chromebook for younger grades, those things were actually pretty durable. But the older kids got Lenovo thinkpad T430 which batteries didn’t even last 6 hours but were super tough. My class got accer aspires and those got destroyed within 2 years. Luckily they started giving out thinkpad yogas when we got to high school and those were much more durable. So yeah kids will find the weakness in any laptop and obliterate it

[@nikm5628]

And that's why I always kick somebody out when they want me to build for a kid. I'm sick of the headaches and blame games from parents who can't understand their kids fkng did it and will do it again.

[@cszero2109]

Right. Then all your electronics clapped

[@aliencatmeow]

and everyone clapped

[@yeahaddigirl]

Literally listening to this as I enroll new Chromebooks. Can confirm, old Chromebooks piled sky high, broken. Probably going to send 100+ broken back when lease is up in a handful of months

[@brandonwhitaker8900]

Kid's destroy everything* My gf's son somehow bent an ipad.

[@Alex-zm8ss]

Stop dating single moms.

[@youngpros14]

I bet you she brought him another one 😂

[@brandonwhitaker8900]

@Nardi Nardstrums Nope, that was her old one. He definitely wants a new one but it's not happening lol

[@mentalish9417]

The new ones especially the M1 and M2 pro as well as the M1 air are easier to bend since the spot where the pen goes is a weak spot.

[@wolfgangkoeppen52]

I can relate to what Linus said at 9:00. I bought a Samsung J7 something in 2018 after working for a few months, it was a around $330-360 USD iirc. i didn't get a single update the entire time i had that phone, and after 2 years i bought the iPhone se (2020) just beacause of how they got continuious updates for years on end

[@franspai7415]

The J7 wasnt a flagship and Samsung likes throwing their mid tier/ buget options under the bus when it comes to updates. Even the flagships had sub par software support, I got an s9+ in 2018, and in 2020 all major updates where halted and I got a security update once every 4-5 months until late 2021 when pretty much all updates ended, it was pretty bad compared to iPhones that get updates for 7 years and sometimes longer. Its nice to see that Samsung does at least 4 years now. Then again a cool thing was that I was able to get android 13 working on my s9+ with a custom ROM, which would be imposible on an apple device.

[@wolfgangkoeppen52]

@@franspai7415 I still paid 300+ for it, so i was pretty pissed about the no updates, especially when it still had the Bluetooth security hole that Samsung had at the time. I have had 4 other androids before my first iPhone so i know the differences they have, but after 6 years I got tired of the customization and openness. I only used sideloading once, had launchers and skins and rooted them to tinker with performance, but in 6 years i went through 3 phones (stolen, Modem failure, and rapid performance degradation in 2 years) I just wanted something that'll work and I could just "set and forget"

[@sketch2002]

Wait... Luke used to have a "tool" top manually pop out an optical drive? Me too, it was called a paper clip.

[@touma-san91]

I used sewing needle

[@nikm5628]

Toothpick, usually had to shave them a bit thinner

[@realFoxBox]

When I did IT at my highschool a common thing the seniors did was flip the voltage switch on the back of the computers from 110 to 220. It wouldn't hurt the machine but the teachers could not figure out why it wouldn't turn on. No matter how many times we told them how and how to check.

[@thecon_quererarbitraryname6286]

Would be worse the other way around (setting 110 while having 230V 😂😅)

[@wistals3deniks]

They glued those things into position at my school.

[@sortacasual]

Computers destroy kids when you think about it.

[@royalguard007]

I thought that was the title...

[@Lianpe98]

Destroy compute kids when you think about it.

[@pockitsune6347]

deep

[@Mrich775]

​@@royalguard007Same here, took me a couple of looks to read it correctly 😅

[@SplendidKunoichi]

Bottom line is that kids think about computers, and should be destroyed for it.

[@DankyMankey]

Working at the tech department at my High School (that I recently graduated from), I repaired so many chromebooks that I lost count. Mostly salvaging the parts from ones with busted motherboards.

[@Cecil97]

students should be responsible for any damaged equipment, and they don't get a new one if its broken. You jack up your screen, you're stuck with a jacked up screen until you pay for repairs.

[@GageEakins]

I only think that should be the case with malicious damage. Accidental damage happens all the time and if things weren't built to be not repairable it would be a lot less of a problem.

[@Cecil97]

@@GageEakins its impossible to tell intent so you can only hold them responsible for it as if it was their own.

[@GageEakins]

@@Cecil97 I can assure you it's not. Companies have very similar policies for their employees.

[@Cecil97]

@@GageEakins i would argue that a employees position and mindset would not be the same as that of a student. Employees NEED to think about their own standing within the company and not piss people off by breaking things, students do not have that kind of built in incentive of trying not to get fired/get a raise.

[@GageEakins]

@@Cecil97 you have clearly never worked for an employer that provides a laptop or phone. Employees break shit all the time. I work in IT, I would know.

[@itsmejacobw]

High school senior here! In my district, the policy is if you break the device, the cost of repair is $100 at minimum to the full price of the device at maximum. I remember just two or three kids broke theirs, as they were required to have them, in working order, each day in class.

[@pieterrossouw8596]

Call me old but do young kids even need to use laptops? Computers yes but why individual laptops? We had a computer class we went to a couple of times where we learned foundational computer literacy and then did some math and language "games". What's wrong with that? Having kids have a dedicated laptop with internet access seems kind of wild to me - how good is the content filtering on those anyway?

[@fui4825]

the cost of ownership section was pretty insightful. Worth its own clip and could help and inform more people imo

[@Zach-qs2bw]

Totally agree, could even be a good future topic.

[@leospeedleo]

I mean... Kids are kids, right? Like I am and always have been a very sensible person when it comes to things. I never break stuff. But yet when I was a kid my Gameboy Advance SP also fell down stairs. It's normal 😅

[@youngpros14]

Well then kids don’t deserve tech. Simple solution.

[@leospeedleo]

@@youngpros14 then they don't deserve anything. Because kids will always break things by just being kids.

[@quentenburnett7296]

I guess I just don't understand why kids needs laptops in any form. Do schools not have computer labs anymore? Who doesn't have some sort of internet capable device these days at home? Or (God forbid) we make kids write with a pen and paper. I get that laptops can have conveniences but they can easily be done away with if they aren't worth the money. I also don't agree with Linus that security updates are the be all end all in determining value. It's not like if you aren't on the latest security patch that your device stops working. It's not even like it automatically gets a virus or gets hacked. It will still work just like normal 99% of the time. "Updates" are a dirty word to most people who aren't techies; it doesn't mean prolonged life to normies. Updates mean "they went and changed how my device works now I have to learn how to use it all over again." I know tons of people who never update their devices for that very reason: they DONT want them to change. Understand that with Chromebooks in schools it's not just a 10 year old kid who has to know how to use them: it's the 60 year old teacher too. And the parents of the kids. If an update comes along and changes the function of the thing, it's going to cause more headaches if anything.

[@touma-san91]

There is plenty of reasons why.. And I think it's better for them to have lot of experience with using a computer of some kind as most likely their job in the future will require them to use some sort of computer

[@Amtyk]

Kids still destroy computer labs and most schools in the US are only given one tech budget. If you have to pick, a grounded computer lab verses an organic mobile device setup makes sense (especially post pandemic). All public sectors look for the lowest bidder and barrier to entry. Furthermore, there is very much a divide from social groups where kids who have access to things like the internet do better than kids without. So much information is on the internet it's not really reliable to do research without it. Schools save a hell of a lot of money moving away from books (that become outdated within months) that they can add to their tech funds. You also have the same issues we did of "well I left my assignment at school on the desktop computer so I'm screwed." With a mobile device you have for yourself that's less likely to happen. Then you also have the problems of teachers in the US also spend easily 20 extra hours a week (unpaid) doing things like grading even with automated grading software. Plagiarism is becoming huge in the worlds of K-12 academics too. Hell colleges can't even keep up.

[@GageEakins]

Force them to use pen and paper for all those times when they will have to hand write things later in life? Younger kids should learn how to write and then once they are competent wh should start them on typing and computer etiquette. You should prepare them for the world they will be living in, not the world you used to live in. This is the same stupid logic of math teachers telling kids they would never have a calculator with them everywhere 20 years ago.

[@ThatLaloBoy]

This is certainly a take. The first point is debatable. However, I completely disagree with security updates not providing value. The whole point of security updates is to patch holes and vulnerabilities in software before they are discovered or exploited to the end user. Hackers are always looking for ways to break into OS that if they find an access point, they will absolutely run with it and cause a lot of damage. It doesn't matter if you are running Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Chrome OS...every piece of software has vulnerabilities. And it just takes a tech illiterate person or a child to fall for the prince of Nigeria scam or fake Roblox to have long lasting consequences.

[@JJFlores197]

At the school district I work at, we have largely decommissioned most computer labs district wide. We do have a few Windows labs at the high schools and some middle schools for certain classes that need Windows-only software. Other than that, we have Chromebook carts in each classroom that more or less take the place of a Windows computer lab. Its easy to think that everyone has access to internet all the time. Yes, a good chunk of the people do have internet, but there are many people who don't. The pandemic definitely showed us that. We checked out over 10k Chromebooks to students almost 3 years ago and several thousand mobile hotspots for familes who didn't have internet or didn't have access to fast internet.

[@jsnipn]

I'm going to make my k-8 students pay for parts/ replacement chrombeooks starting next year

[@iankern1011]

Fun fact, in year 11 of high school, I was issued 3 separate devices because they would not function period when I got them. Plus we were first issued them back in my 9th year, but with how they were set up, they required an internet connection to even log in. The issue is where i am in the States, so many kids did not have internet access, defeating the entire purpose of the devices. Then the coof hit in my 10th year and they figured out how to make it work for them, but even then as a student they sucked because for some of these kids, if you didn’t have the insurance from the IT department and yours crapped out because it was a re-issued laptop, that was about $130 USD down the drain

[@ScribeAwoken]

As far as things go with certain models of chromebook continuing to be sold as they approach end of life, my neighbor bought a chromebook at Best Buy brand new that, at the time she purchased it, was only six months away from end of support!

[@DarthCiliatus]

Senior year of highschool some of the kids I was in an engineering class with made a blowgun and shot a dart made of a 2in piece of steel with duct tape wrapped around the back half through the screen of one of their chromebooks when the teacher was out of the room. Another guy ran his over with a car. Another one threw it off a building. My school had one free repair per student. They did not offer free repairs the next year.

[@lordjaraxxus5418]

I worked a summer it job at my local school system. Normally, the busted chromebooks come from the middle schools mostly. The end of update chromebooks are usually given to grades that don't have standardize testing.

[@Mastealth]

I used to do some of my high schools IT work after school and its amazing how many macbooks could get broken in less than a week after they were issued.

[@cris-ih5vt]

here in europe we get business/enterprise thinkpads on really advantageous prices (i got mine for around 300 euros while the msrp is like 1000). i think the fact its owned by the students motivates them to take care of their laptop, i know people who still use their secondary school laptops in college

[@goldenfloof5469]

When I was in high school, and they started distributing laptops to take home, they offered a $25 insurance which meant you didn't have to pay the $350 if you broke it. Despite never having scratched it, I obviously took the insurance.

[@DrAnimePhD]

I’m so thankful when I was in school our school used iPads instead of Chromebooks. What absolute pieces of garbage. I hate everything about their designs

[@spoofyman]

I worked in IT in NJ and this is back when they were just coming out. We Ordered 150 chrome books for the school and never had a problem with them for the time we used them.

[@ventilate4267]

I used to have a MacBook air back in school. I took pretty good care of it i even bought a case for it. The rest of my classmates not so much. I was probably the only one who never dropped mine. No one ever broke one but they did get dented and scuffed. Im sure my IT was probably shocked at how well kept mine was compared to anyone elses.

[@ventilate4267]

in conclusion, yeah they'll get destroyed either way but the build quality will help

[@captiannemo1587]

Looks at the slow laptop that is from 2007. Battery is dead. But everything else runs just fine for the basics.

[@tbuk8350]

I'm a high school student, and I've only broken a school-issued device once, and it was a few weeks ago. Our school has iPads, and I was using mine in band for displaying sheet music when the stand gave up and dropped my iPad multiple feet onto a solid concrete floor, shattering the screen instantly. It really sucks.

[@craigc5879]

The Aussie school I worked at we purchased the laptops for the kids and resold to them at cost. Students had the same laptop and were responsibly for damage and were replaced every three years

[@Tomcat115]

When I went to school, the laptops that were loaned out to us were so old and slow that nobody wanted to use one in the first place. I think they were some ancient laptops running XP (this was during the Windows 7 days), but I can’t remember the brand though. Only good thing about them was that they were built like tanks, so breaking them wasn’t a big issue. If you did manage to break them though, it came out of your parent’s pockets.

[@kevinlimin83]

I live in a tropical area, and ACs are god's blessing towards us during very hot days, and somehow for some reason someone in the class next to me managed to shove a steel based ruler into the AC unit and destroyed it, as punishment the entire class is going to have no AC until they all graduate lmao.