Image credit: Florian Schmetz on Unsplash
By The Educator Collaborative Associate Member Georgina Castilleja
I have two sons: a monster and a child. They are one and the same–depending on when you catch him. When my pre-teen “baby” doesn’t have his phone, he cuddles with me. He talks to me about what the boy in second period said to the girl with the braids. When he has it, the monster rages at his invisible partners who didn’t cover him and allowed the “ops” to kill him in the game. This “Jekyll and Hyde” phenomenon is not from a bad sci-fi film–it represents the daily life of many parents and teachers struggling with the hold that technology has on adolescent (and pre-adolescent) children.
In schools, the “monsters” are often multiplied. I was a principal at a middle school where we implemented restorative circles and did all kinds of reflective practices alongside positive behavior interventions. The biggest brawl we ever had–and I say brawl because it involved multiple students on both sides–took place at 8 AM on a Monday.
As the staff was slowly preparing for a new week, we had to quickly jump into action to stop a huge fight on the second floor that couldn’t possibly have started at school. Upon investigation, and with the help of a girl we later nicknamed “TMZ” (who had documented and Instragammed Live the event from the moment the two warring groups stepped out of the school bus to confront each other), we discovered that the conflict stemmed from posts and comments made on Instagram over the weekend. No amount of kumbaya preached on school grounds could serve as a defense for what was happening online while at home.
In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, author Jonathan Haidt warns about the impacts of “phone-based childhoods” and how the shift away from “play-based childhood” has hijacked the brains of adolescents and caused an anxiety and depression epidemic. He claims that we have over-protected our children due to our (very real) fears of, for example, child-abduction and sex trafficking, but we have also under-protected our children by giving them devices that provide access and exposure to unimaginable spaces.
Haidt details how advancements in technology and internet speed, along with the growth of social media, have created a generation of individuals who are “addicted” to their devices. As a parent and as an educator, I agree. I will add that we too, are “addicted” and subject to some of the same consequences of leading phone-based lives. However, our brains are developed, and we remember a life before phones and high-speed internet. We have tools to combat self-esteem drains and time-robbing, endless reels (well, some of us still struggle with all of that…).
These devices not only affect the mental health of our students, but their physical health as well. I have seen countless weary-looking students fall asleep in class because they stayed up all night bouncing between social media apps. I have also seen students at lunch in the middle of a game– “raging,” blood pumping, heart bursting, and full of anger at people behind the screen.
How do we fix this? Can we? I say this: like every great change, we have to start with ourselves. We can do this by:
- Modeling boundaries. We need to get off the phone during times we should be engaging with live humans, like during dinner at home or passing periods at school.
- Cleansing our feeds. We must pay better attention to what the algorithm gods are sending our way and protect our well-being! (Each of us would feel very differently if our timeline consisted of, say, puppies and babies instead of true crime updates and food “hacks”!)
- Invite open discussions. Whether it’s with our own child(ren) or with our students, we should discuss the effects of heavy technology use and the importance of digital literacy.
Tips for at home:
- Set parental controls. Kids will still get past some of the more inappropriate sites if they try hard enough, but we should be able to filter most of them out.
- Limit time spent online by creating tech-free times and tech “curfews.” I really think my son is secretly thankful for this, because I become his excuse to get offline while his friends are still egging him on to stay connected.
- Encourage offline activities. This can take the form of family nights or sports and hobbies that require face-to-face interaction–a little return to play-based childhoods!
Tips for the classroom:
- Set clear tech guidelines of when and how tech should be used. A clear visual like a traffic light can help (green and red are obvious; yellow can mean, for example, “Use only if needed to look up information”).
- If possible, collect students’ phones and keep them somewhere safe and visible so students feel more comfortable giving them up during class time. (Perhaps use a clear box or one of those plastic, over-the-door shoe organizers).
- Plan a balance of digital and analog activities. We most likely cannot eliminate technology in the classroom, nor should we, as many schools require usage of online tools for interventions and assessments. Incorporate hands-on or collaborative activities as much as possible, including book and paper assignments that do not require screen time. When using technology, monitor usage and time allotment.
Technology on its own is not evil. There are wonderful uses and powerful tools that can make life easier and help keep us connected. The answer is not to abolish technology, but to create an awareness of the impacts it can have on us–especially on individuals who are still developing who they are and navigating how to self-regulate their emotions. It takes us grown-ups to step in and slow down the avalanche. It is up to us to keep our kids kids–for as long as we can.
References
Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin.
