Social media today has evolved rapidly into something that one could hardly consider "social." Rather than actually communicating with friends, most teenagers are simply "following" influencers and consuming content. As pointed out in the decline of mental health concerns in the 1990s-2010s, the way that my generation (millennials) used the internet was almost always to actually connect with our peers. There wasn't any way to endlessly scroll content fed to you through an algorithm. Of course, there were still predators and downsides then too. But as far as using most social media to actually be social, I see this less and less with teenagers today (in my observations as a high school counselor over the past 10 years). The exception might be an example like Snapchat, which still poses its own safety problems.
I've been searching far and wide for a simple cell phone with a slide out keyboard for my 12-year-old so that he can be in touch with friends through calls and texts, but without any hazards of the internet. It is impossible to find. Flip phones are still out there, but texting on a flip phone is super annoying as I'm sure many of us remember! Having a simple phone would allow my child freedom to talk to friends and make plans (without me having to facilitate meetups for him). There are kid-friendly smart phones that I am aware of, but with price and extra bells and whistles we aren't interested in right now.
Instead of outright smartphone bans, I really wish that parents and schools would demand going back to these simpler phones for tweens and teenagers. It would eliminate so many of the distraction and danger concerns but still allow kids to connect with each other.
All the same “fear” mongering happened throughout the years over anything new. The problem is we the adults don’t know how to regulate ourselves so we assume child won’t be able to. If we as adults/educators were better role models and more creative in our teachings children would see how technology and other things we deem inappropriate for children (play fighting/gun play) can have a great impact on their lives. How the right tools can benefit. We don’t allow our children to be children make mistakes and learn from them we are constantly protecting them all the while putting them in danger. Phones have a place we need to educate ourselves and our children how to use them affectively. Adults need to lead by example.
Thoroughly enjoyed the read Dr Play, Thankyou! Strongly agree with the conventional schooling missing the opportunity to embrace the kids curiosity with phones in class and show how educationally efficient and engaging they are rather than a ‘danger’ and having to be quiet, sit still, and listen to the teacher say blah blah and more blah. Then they’d have more time for the playground where the real Learning takes place ;)
How about engage students without a phone? They have enough phone time throughout the day (9+hours) and they already all know how to Google! It’s lazy. It doesn’t promote critical thinking, or thinking outside the box. It’s a missed opportunity to engage with students and stimulate them when you rely on phones.
Please try to do a collab witb DrK from Healthy Gamer! He raises a lot of the same points as you, but you have a few pieces of the puzzle I would love for you to share with his audience. His book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer" largely agreed with my own parenting approach and his appendices about how to work towards helping a recovering gaming-addict was pretty much all about how to ask questions and learn from your kids.
I love the idea of using the technology we have. Updating the school model to allow children to use their phones would need some boundaries and rules for sure but overall sounds like a good approach!
In my previous setting, we used iPads but they weren't often charged, they were broken and some of the children were unsure how to use them.
If they were allowed to use their own phones, I'd bet money on them being charged and they'd know how to use them!
Scanning a quick QR code to complete a Kahoot quiz to get an understanding of how much the children have retained in that lesson or series of lessons.
Fortunately, our children grew up in the early years of the internet, and now everybody in our family uses their phones as tools rather than companions: only when necessary, and where they help make everyday mundane tasks easier.
I can imagine a classroom, where asked about Jane Austin, a student raises his or her hand and tells that the author is known: her books are read, and talked about in the family. This could inspire other students to learn more about Jane Austin.
I don't believe, not in the slightest, that the speed of typing Jane Austin's name into a search engine on the phone could inspire anyone.
Is there a place for phones in the classroom? Yes: to teach how to discern fact-checked information from fake news, to learn how to avoid being deceived, which online behaviours are inappropriate. And that's it. School should teach intellectual and manual skills from the vast area of life where phones do not need to be present.
To uncover the true cause of the youth mental health crisis, we must examine a critical factor that Jonathan Haidt’s argument overlooks: the correlation between youth homicide and suicide. Haidt likely avoids this topic because his work builds on Jean Twenge’s theory that smartphones and social media (SSM) are the primary causes of youth distress. In her book iGen, Twenge predicted that technology-induced isolation and loneliness would cause youth homicide and suicide rates to diverge—a prediction that has not held up.
To understand why youth homicide and suicide are correlated, we can turn to the stream analogy of lethal violence by Unnithan et al. (1994), which posits that homicides and suicides are two sides of the same coin—different expressions of lethal violence. Whether they rise or fall together depends on what’s happening in the broader culture. Since Haidt’s explanation, which attributes the youth mental health crisis to SSM, can’t account for the correlation between youth homicide and suicide, this points to deeper societal forces at work and indicates that SSM aren’t the root of the problem.
M. Harvey Brenner’s research shows that lethal violence often stems from economic instability and insecurity. Effects like unemployment, inequality, uncertainty, and social disintegration influence both homicide and suicide trends. For those interested in exploring this further, I’ve written a blog post that presents an alternative theory on the youth mental health crisis and I’ve even gone so far as to make a prediction.
Social media today has evolved rapidly into something that one could hardly consider "social." Rather than actually communicating with friends, most teenagers are simply "following" influencers and consuming content. As pointed out in the decline of mental health concerns in the 1990s-2010s, the way that my generation (millennials) used the internet was almost always to actually connect with our peers. There wasn't any way to endlessly scroll content fed to you through an algorithm. Of course, there were still predators and downsides then too. But as far as using most social media to actually be social, I see this less and less with teenagers today (in my observations as a high school counselor over the past 10 years). The exception might be an example like Snapchat, which still poses its own safety problems.
I've been searching far and wide for a simple cell phone with a slide out keyboard for my 12-year-old so that he can be in touch with friends through calls and texts, but without any hazards of the internet. It is impossible to find. Flip phones are still out there, but texting on a flip phone is super annoying as I'm sure many of us remember! Having a simple phone would allow my child freedom to talk to friends and make plans (without me having to facilitate meetups for him). There are kid-friendly smart phones that I am aware of, but with price and extra bells and whistles we aren't interested in right now.
Instead of outright smartphone bans, I really wish that parents and schools would demand going back to these simpler phones for tweens and teenagers. It would eliminate so many of the distraction and danger concerns but still allow kids to connect with each other.
All the same “fear” mongering happened throughout the years over anything new. The problem is we the adults don’t know how to regulate ourselves so we assume child won’t be able to. If we as adults/educators were better role models and more creative in our teachings children would see how technology and other things we deem inappropriate for children (play fighting/gun play) can have a great impact on their lives. How the right tools can benefit. We don’t allow our children to be children make mistakes and learn from them we are constantly protecting them all the while putting them in danger. Phones have a place we need to educate ourselves and our children how to use them affectively. Adults need to lead by example.
Thoroughly enjoyed the read Dr Play, Thankyou! Strongly agree with the conventional schooling missing the opportunity to embrace the kids curiosity with phones in class and show how educationally efficient and engaging they are rather than a ‘danger’ and having to be quiet, sit still, and listen to the teacher say blah blah and more blah. Then they’d have more time for the playground where the real Learning takes place ;)
How about engage students without a phone? They have enough phone time throughout the day (9+hours) and they already all know how to Google! It’s lazy. It doesn’t promote critical thinking, or thinking outside the box. It’s a missed opportunity to engage with students and stimulate them when you rely on phones.
Please try to do a collab witb DrK from Healthy Gamer! He raises a lot of the same points as you, but you have a few pieces of the puzzle I would love for you to share with his audience. His book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer" largely agreed with my own parenting approach and his appendices about how to work towards helping a recovering gaming-addict was pretty much all about how to ask questions and learn from your kids.
I love the idea of using the technology we have. Updating the school model to allow children to use their phones would need some boundaries and rules for sure but overall sounds like a good approach!
In my previous setting, we used iPads but they weren't often charged, they were broken and some of the children were unsure how to use them.
If they were allowed to use their own phones, I'd bet money on them being charged and they'd know how to use them!
Scanning a quick QR code to complete a Kahoot quiz to get an understanding of how much the children have retained in that lesson or series of lessons.
Fortunately, our children grew up in the early years of the internet, and now everybody in our family uses their phones as tools rather than companions: only when necessary, and where they help make everyday mundane tasks easier.
I can imagine a classroom, where asked about Jane Austin, a student raises his or her hand and tells that the author is known: her books are read, and talked about in the family. This could inspire other students to learn more about Jane Austin.
I don't believe, not in the slightest, that the speed of typing Jane Austin's name into a search engine on the phone could inspire anyone.
Is there a place for phones in the classroom? Yes: to teach how to discern fact-checked information from fake news, to learn how to avoid being deceived, which online behaviours are inappropriate. And that's it. School should teach intellectual and manual skills from the vast area of life where phones do not need to be present.
To uncover the true cause of the youth mental health crisis, we must examine a critical factor that Jonathan Haidt’s argument overlooks: the correlation between youth homicide and suicide. Haidt likely avoids this topic because his work builds on Jean Twenge’s theory that smartphones and social media (SSM) are the primary causes of youth distress. In her book iGen, Twenge predicted that technology-induced isolation and loneliness would cause youth homicide and suicide rates to diverge—a prediction that has not held up.
To understand why youth homicide and suicide are correlated, we can turn to the stream analogy of lethal violence by Unnithan et al. (1994), which posits that homicides and suicides are two sides of the same coin—different expressions of lethal violence. Whether they rise or fall together depends on what’s happening in the broader culture. Since Haidt’s explanation, which attributes the youth mental health crisis to SSM, can’t account for the correlation between youth homicide and suicide, this points to deeper societal forces at work and indicates that SSM aren’t the root of the problem.
M. Harvey Brenner’s research shows that lethal violence often stems from economic instability and insecurity. Effects like unemployment, inequality, uncertainty, and social disintegration influence both homicide and suicide trends. For those interested in exploring this further, I’ve written a blog post that presents an alternative theory on the youth mental health crisis and I’ve even gone so far as to make a prediction.
Clueless. Way more addictive (8+ hours/ day AVERAGE) and predatory than your moldy comparables.
Do you have any idea where that number comes from? And if it is known what particular activites are happening during that time?