There's this misconception among non-parents (or even parents of well behaved kids) that kids are robots and they will automatically listen to whatever "lessons" you give them. That may or may not happen, depending on the kid, and you really have little to no control over whether it does happen.
And gaming, social media, etc, companies aren't making any of this any easier, unfortunately. This is something we'll have to pay a heavy price for in 10 years or so, that much is pretty certain.
My 17 year-old cousin is flunking school because (in his parents' eyes) he was "addicted" to online gaming, yet strangely when with other family members his "addiction" symptoms would disappear and he would be helpful, diligent and talkative. He'd even listen to advice and help out unprompted. As in, you literally take a phone call and come back and he's doing the dishes. Not playing Fortnite, not watching YouTube, scrubbing plates.
The reality of the situation, that's painfully obvious to everyone except his mum and dad, is that a) there is some sort of breakdown in the relationship that has nothing to do with online technology (he has his iPhone on him 24/7 and will go hours without using it outside the home) and b) he fully understands that dedicating himself to his studies will help him follow the path his parents want for him - it's just not what he wants.
Drug addicts disengage from society well before they become addicted. I don't see any reason why "Dopamine addicts" are any different.
In contrast, growing up in rural Russia I had no coattails to ride on (and my father told me this countless times), so I'm a rather extreme example of social upward mobility.
To me, it sounds like the school is either bad or the match with where your son is right now is wrong.
I've always been curious, also as a kid, but I do remember most of the class mates spending most of their time staring blankly out in the void. The only reasonable conclusion is that those lessons were wrong.
Just like if you design a UI and 70% of your users can't use it. Then we blame the designer, not the laziness of the users.
As an adult, I've since learned that large parts of the establishment doesn't regard people as humans. They don't care.
There is still a pretty big subset of students that without the threat of enforcement or bad grades leading to parental action, will do almost nothing. It's especially visible now with some of my students being remote-- it's a constant battle to avoid previously engaged, excited, and interested students from just popping a Fortnite window open and escaping the class discussion.
I can make 75% of my class time fun; I can make it pretty obvious why the skills we practice are extremely valuable stuff in both the near term and the long term whether or not they decide to be an engineer one day. But I can't make every minute of class time more immediately rewarding than playing Fortnite.
There's another reasonable conclusion: some kids just don't give a shit no matter what you do. That much is plainly obvious to any parent who has such a kid.
You haven't earned the trust of your children.
