What are USCF rules concerning cell phone disturbances ?

Just get electronic boards that record the moves and do away with paper and pencil or other move recording devices.  Easy solution.

It's a solution to a problem that didn't exist. 

Writing down the moves isn't a big deal. Heck, even golfers are expected to keep score properly. Adding technology to a simple task was the big mistake.

We like to dumb things down.  

"The smarter technology gets, the dumber the people get"

Please refrain from making perspicacious, intelligent posts with which I wholly agree. It's a bit disturbing.

SmyslovFan wrote:

It's a solution to a problem that didn't exist. 

Writing down the moves isn't a big deal. Heck, even golfers are expected to keep score properly. Adding technology to a simple task was the big mistake.

It's totally silly to have these grandmasters writing down their moves with a pen when their entire game is being broadcast worldwide instantaniously over the internet.  It's draconian and unnessecary.  Like long division it is worth learning once and teaching to children but when you have to do some math use a dang calculator it's more accurate and faster.  I think someone should make a digital board and clock with Wifi that records moves automatically and then emails them to you so before you even get home from the tournament there is a PGN sitting in your inbox with everyones games in it.  The internet of things!

"The smarter technology gets, the dumber the people get"

How many times have you been playing some patzer and half way through the game they realize they missed a move and have been writing blacks moves where whites moves go and vise versa, and then they look up at you and say "Uh, can I see, your, uh, score sheet?"  and then frantically try and figure out were they went wrong.  I've seen it plenty, and not just kids and new players, but people it really shouldn't be happening to who have been playing for years.  Just like clocks where a technological improvement embrassed by the chess world we need to move into the 21st and adopt digital move recording boards.

This just isn't true, people are smarter than ever.  Modern technology has made information more available and more plentiful than ever before in world history.  You sound like Luddite repeating a meaningless platitude in an attempt to sound clever.

Why would you think people are smarter than ever? Any evidence?

People are smarter than ever ?!  LOL  So why do people have such a hard time making change when their computerized register fails for some reason or you offer to give them a few pennies at the last second so you don't get pennies back and then they have to call the manager to sort things out and sometimes the manager seems as confused as they are ? !  I didnt see this problem back in the 60s and 70s when even high school drop outs could do simple math problems ( like making change ) in their heads !  Probably because they didnt have calculators to use as a crutch ? 

When my golfing companions get their calculators out, I add up the scores faster than they can press buttons. Often fewer errors too.

Nah, there's no reason to learn long division since the invention of the TI-30.

People are smarter than ever, there's been quite a bit of research to back that up.  Look up the Flynn effect for a place to start.

I don't recall ever seeing anyone have a hard time making change so I don't know where you shop that this is a problem.

That Archimedes fella was a dope.

Well , they have computerized registers these days but if it fails for some reason or you give them a few pennies at the last second , ( so that you dont get pennies back ) then you will be more likely to see the problems I speak of and I see it quite often ... Loads of people now that have grown up with the GPS also cant read the old paper road maps .... a skill that has been lost because of technology replacing them ... but what if the gps fails ?  What then ?  

There's abundant evidence that American children know less about math, science, and history than ever before.

Cincinattus didn't have sense enough to pour piss out of a boot.

And you blame technology for this supposed decline?  Not the many other problems facing education today?

And bigpoison, I get it, there were very smart people in the past.  We stand on the shoulders of giants and all that.  No one is claiming otherwise, I am just speaking in general terms.

In my experience as a teacher and tutor of chemistry and algebra, most students are becoming increasingly averse to textbooks and thinking on their feet, and more dependent on the internet.  I must frequently remind them to study their textbooks, advice which they usually ignore.  Putting their textbooks online seems to have made the problem worse ("out of sight, out of mind").  And they are not happy to hear that "problem solving" involves patient step-by-step reasoning, not looking up factoids.  Academics now often use the term "infantilization" to refer this trend.

I teach at an average college, so maybe I'm not getting an accurate overall picture of what's going on.  I hope that there are enough high-achievers at the better schools to balance things out, but I'm not optimistic.

Technology, no. Attitudes towards technology of the sort that you have been expressing here, yes.