How I Got My Students to Stop Staring at Screens
“Why are you so tired?” I asked Robbie, one of my third graders, who was slumped over his desk with bed head. Were you up late last night?”
He nodded.
“What were you doing?”
(Pause.) “Playing Fortnite.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this conversation with one of my students. In fact, I was having it more frequently. “How late were you up?”
He hesitated. “Three.”
“On a school night?”
I hate that game.
In today’s digital world, screen saturation is an increasing concern for parents and teachers. The American Heart Association urges parents to limit screen time for children to a maximum of two hours per day. And yet, a large-scale studyby Common Sense Media found that children 8- to 12-year-olds average close to five hours a day on screens and teens about seven and a half hours daily, not including use of screens at school. It’s a mind-boggling statistic. When COVID-19 swept the country and kids parked in front of their computers at home, these numbers soared. Screen time went on steroids.
Too much time with digital devices has been linked to a host of problems, including sleep disorders, obesity, mental health issues, low self-esteem, depression, aggressive behavior, and poorer academic performance. The more time kids spend in front of screens, the less time they are outdoors, being physically active, and developing social skills. It has been suggested that too much screen time can impact children’s imaginative play by stunting their senses with a constant stream of entertainment.
It’s no secret that tech products are designed to be hyperarousing. The use of technology increases dopamine levels, the neurotransmitter most involved in addiction. Some digital health experts call screens “electronic cocaine.” And our kids are overdosing. If you have children or work them, you’ve surely it. A friend of mine’s seven-year-old has a meltdown when asked to stop watching his favorite shows on the phone. It’s pretty much a daily occurrence. Another friend got a call from her daughter’s school saying that they had reason to believe she had stolen an iPad from the tech cart. Sure enough, her mom found it. In his clinical work with teenagers, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, one of the country’s foremost addiction experts, has reported that in some cases it was easier for him to treat crystal meth addicts than video gamers or social media addicts.
Teachers also see the problems with devices firsthand. We see the students who resist pen and paper but can’t resist the YouTube videos that are only one click away. We observe the trancelike expressions on kids’ faces when using educational programs that resemble video games.
We witness the children who can’t focus, have wandering attention spans, aren’t able to finish a book, and don’t want to write about anything else but Minecraft.
We see the students who are apathetic and uninterested unless they are plugged in.