NBC's Today Show ran a piece this week where 10th grade students at a school in Tumwater, Washington watched Screenagers and then had the chance to do a one-week digital detox and be filmed for TV. Only some kids agreed to do it and the results were unexpected. Watch this with your kids! My kids thought it was really well done.
We hear from teachers regularly about their frustration with kids using cellphones during class. Some teachers are happy that at least there are school policies and systems in place to address this issue, while others feel that policies are not well defined and they don’t have the support they need.
Whether or not a school has a cellphone policy, kids often find ways around it. I heard of a middle school girl who cut a hole in her book so she could use her phone during "reading time." My own daughter Tessa struggles with the temptation and sometimes goes on her phone during study hall, or even other classes. From time to time I set my OurPact app to block Tessa's social media sites during the school day. We talk about it before I do it and I explain to her why I'm doing it. Basically, I like to see how the day goes—I ask her if it was better not being pulled by her phone. More recently she does not seem to be going on social media very much during school and she is not that bothered when OurPact is on....but I know in this game, things can change quickly.
In Screenagers, Sherry Turkle refers to a study that found: “If you’re in a classroom where someone next to you has his device out, your performance degrades as well.”
For Tech Talk Tuesday this week let's talk about how often we use our cellphones at school:
December 6, 2016
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
NBC's Today Show ran a piece this week where 10th grade students at a school in Tumwater, Washington watched Screenagers and then had the chance to do a one-week digital detox and be filmed for TV. Only some kids agreed to do it and the results were unexpected. Watch this with your kids! My kids thought it was really well done.
We hear from teachers regularly about their frustration with kids using cellphones during class. Some teachers are happy that at least there are school policies and systems in place to address this issue, while others feel that policies are not well defined and they don’t have the support they need.
Whether or not a school has a cellphone policy, kids often find ways around it. I heard of a middle school girl who cut a hole in her book so she could use her phone during "reading time." My own daughter Tessa struggles with the temptation and sometimes goes on her phone during study hall, or even other classes. From time to time I set my OurPact app to block Tessa's social media sites during the school day. We talk about it before I do it and I explain to her why I'm doing it. Basically, I like to see how the day goes—I ask her if it was better not being pulled by her phone. More recently she does not seem to be going on social media very much during school and she is not that bothered when OurPact is on....but I know in this game, things can change quickly.
In Screenagers, Sherry Turkle refers to a study that found: “If you’re in a classroom where someone next to you has his device out, your performance degrades as well.”
For Tech Talk Tuesday this week let's talk about how often we use our cellphones at school:
December 6, 2016
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
I recently sat down with middle school principal Zach at his school in Washington State. We talked about the challenges Zach and his team faced in his early years as principal when students used phones during school, and how he brought about a powerful transformation by having phones and smartwatches put away in locked pouches for the whole school day. In today’s blog, to raise awareness of the challenges, I share five real examples from Zach of the troubling ways students use phones at school to be unkind.
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It is with great pleasure that I share with you today a piece that Lisa Tabb and I did for Jonathan Haidt's (Author of The Anxious Generation) and researcher Zack Rausch's Substack blog — After Babel. In it, we discuss the rise in use of smartwatches in elementary schools and the problems they pose. There is a real cost to arming (pun intended) our kids with these devices and sending them to school. Now is the time to stop and fully address this topic and ensure that schools become smartwatch and phone-free.
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Today, I’m sharing an excerpt from the podcast we released yesterday because it really captures all the points I want to make in this blog. It covers the introduction to a conversation I had with a high school principal who made the bold decision, mid-year, to start locking away all smartphones, smartwatches and other devices during the school day, eliminating them from the learning environment. Learn how this went (spoiler: really well) in today’s blog and the full podcast episode.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
