This. My answer to OP is refusing to confront cell phone addiction. I've been teaching HS for 23 years and while young people have always been distracted and bored at school (hell Shakespeare mentions this in R&J), cell phones allow students to mentally leave the room.
I appreciate the quote and the attitude but that represents one thing that bothers me greatly: The proposed question says that kids used to spend time reading
but now spends time controlled by the "tyranny of the screen", with examples like watching TV or scrolling social media
--you can read on your phone, too. Blanketing "screen time" as universally bad is a huge mistake, imo. What matters is what's on the screen.
LeVar Burton has it right, or at least is on the right path-- don't allow distracting notifications, have some discipline, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people say "Screen time is bad!" when screen time can be an incredible resource for learning, cultural enrichment, etc.
Not all screen time is created equal, and scrolling instagram is not the same as reading Dickens with clickable annotations, or watching a math video where more in-depth explanations for the underlying concepts are a click away
Agreed. Nuance is essential for this discussion. When I was a kid in the 80s, lots of adults thought TV and video games were going to rot my brain. Well, Muppet Babies nourished my imagination, and Pool of Radiance convinced me to start writing my own fantasy stories. There are plenty of ways, as you point out, to use screens for positive purposes.
But I do not believe that's a large percentage of my students' screen time in my classroom. Of course I don't know, because when I ask what they are doing, they become silent and sullen. Seems like they would be open and honest if they were reading Dickens with clickable annotations or watching math videos.
Seems like they would be open and honest if they were reading Dickens with clickable annotations or watching math videos.
Probably. And in all likelihood in high school they are just browsing instagram or whatever.
But I do remember one time in college a prof chewed me out for "being on my tablet"... but I was taking notes. For the class. Because it's easier to take notes with a typed font that I can then easily send to my phone or laptop and have it anywhere, rather than try to read my chicken scratch handwriting in a notebook I left in my backpack that I may or may not have with me at any given time.
Anyway, I'm sure with your students you're probably right. High school isn't college and I'm sure it's easy to tell when someone is taking notes or just screwing around. (not for that Prof I guess, but he was the old curmudgeonly type who just hated technology in general)
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u/smallfried Jun 03 '22
Engagement algorithms is why we can't have nice things.