Spend any time with young people and you will quickly realise that one of the most dominant forces in their lives is digital technology. Innumerable minutes and hours are spent seemingly glued to some device, whether it is a phone, laptop or tablet, clicking, swiping, liking or posting.
According to the recent research, 63 percent of young people said that they would not mind if social media had never been invented, while 71 percent admitted to undergoing ‘digital detoxes’ in an effort to wean themselves off the technology. If we look more closely at these findings, we can see where these feelings have come from. More than half of the young people questioned admitted to receiving abusive comments online or reported that social media made them feel less confident about how they look or how interesting their life is. 56 percent said they felt that they were on the edge of addiction to social media.
This is sobering reading if you are a parent or work in education. Parents hand over the daytime responsibility for their children’s welfare to school staff, trusting them to make wise judgments about the ways that students are engaging with technology and how they are learning to use it most effectively. Today, teachers are also voicing concerns about the effects of Internet use on the cognitive abilities of students growing up with access to the World Wide Web. In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 87% of the middle- and high-school teachers surveyed felt that widespread Internet use was creating an ‘easily distracted generation with short attention spans’ and 88% felt that ‘today’s students have fundamentally different cognitive skills because of the digital technologies they have grown up with’. Although teachers and other adults who spend their time with children and teenagers possess valuable observational knowledge about generational trends, it is unclear whether current scientific evidence supports these claims.
The naturally malleable period of adolescence makes this a time of concern to adults. Many cognitive skills improve during early adolescence, but skills such as navigating the social world continue to develop throughout the teen years. Likewise, the human brain undergoes profound changes in both its structure and its function during this time. We know that our experience partially determines what connections in the brain are kept and strengthened during this period of development, and consequently, some adults are concerned that Internet use could be ‘rewiring’ the brains of individuals growing up online. Constant use of technology such as smartphones and tablets is making today’s children display borderline “autistic” behaviour, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist has warned. The former Oxford literature teacher, who retrained as a doctor, said that children as young as five are becoming increasingly unable to read facial expressions or show empathy, compared to children in previous generations. He said he had heard of increasing numbers of teachers who have had to tell their pupils what different facial expressions mean. He added that he had spoken to some teachers who now find that around a third of their pupils have problems with maintaining attention or understanding others’ emotions or facial expressions - a problem which he says is due to the increasing presence of technology in children’s lives. There are concerns that spending lots of time in the ‘virtual’ world may blur lines of morality within the real world.
“63 percent of young people said that they would not mind if social media had never been invented, while 71 percent admitted to undergoing ‘digital detoxes’ in an effort to wean themselves off the technology.”
Based on all the research on social media, and digital technology more widely, restricting access to screen time would seem to be a very good way to help young people to thrive – or at least to remove some obstacles to their wellbeing and development. In fact, the potential damage caused by over-exposure to digital media runs deeper still, with studies suggesting that there is a clear link between screen time and screen dependency and issues such as anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation and problems concentrating in class. Approximately 4 out of 5 adolescent mobile phone owners report sleeping with their phones in or near their beds (Lenhart, 2012). The majority of adolescents send text messages after they go to bed and many reports keeping their phones under their pillows in order to avoid missing important messages at night (Lenhart, Ling, Campbell, & Purcell, 2010). The use of mobile phones during the night increases the odds of being ‘very tired’ by two to four-fold the following day (Van den Bulck, 2007) and there is some emerging evidence that the light emitted from the screens of devices themselves could interfere with sleep patterns.
Learning the right habits
That is why I believe young people need to learn the right habits regarding digital technology if they are to flourish. Schools and parents must work collaboratively in managing students’ engagement with technology, ensuring they strike an appropriate balance between realising its potential and mitigating its risks. My experience working with young people has shown me that a wall of separation needs to exist between using digital devices for educational purposes and using them for pleasure or recreation. If a student wants to research a project using the internet or use the latest software to produce a stellar presentation for their next talk on their project, schools should certainly ensure they have access to a suitable device. It also helps to teach them self-regulation and a commitment to balance.
I also believe that students should be given some space to use the internet in the way they will undoubtedly do so as adults, albeit with appropriate controls: roaming from site to site, using search engines to follow their interests, and discovering new things about the world around them. It is that carefree mode of inquiry that yields some of the most exciting moments, when a new connection is made, or some fascinating knowledge acquired.
While mobile devices may be creating an additional distraction at night, they are also providing new contexts for adolescents to access information, explore sensitive topics and develop their identity. Adolescents use mobile technologies to get information for schoolwork, understand changes in their health, and learn about the news and current events (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). Adolescents do not typically go online to ‘be someone else’, and instead tend to experiment on online platforms to improve their social skills and strengthen their offline identity (Valken- burg, Schouten, & Peter, 2005). Online spaces may be especially valuable for some adolescents, such as shy adolescents using online tools to practice social skills (Bardi & Brady, 2010) or for those wanting Information on mental health problems they may be experiencing (Burns, Durkin, & Nicholas, 2009). Thus, while mobile platforms may be keeping adolescents up at night, they are also providing easy access to important information and a context for healthy identity exploration and skill development.
School-Parent Partnership
Advice given by the neuroscientist and psychologist Dr Aric Sigman, someone I have met and listened to on a number of occasions, indicates that a blanket ban on the use of digital technology during students’ downtime is not the way to encourage healthy habits. It is far better to have a balance between appropriate usage and periods of social media blackout; even better is to set out a contract which means they have a say in what constitutes the right degree of engagement. Young people can be very mature in their response to this challenge. Asking your child to put their phone, laptop, and iPad away or on charge about an hour before bedtime allows them to have time in the evening to read, talk, play games and interact with you and the family before they go to bed. It is crucial to secure buy-in from everyone when creating family rules relating to the use of technology and to be clear about the continued encouragement to engage with it.
To thrive in the 21st-century, our children need to be digital natives who can communicate using the very latest technology but no one wants their life to be dominated by a screen. By developing the right strategies with young people we can work in partnership to support them to thrive in a world of opportunity. Then they will understand that, as with all things, moderation is the key to the appropriate consumption of the latest technology. As a school, we at Whittle take this responsibility to support our students and parents in this area very seriously.
About the Author
Allison Spillman
Dean of Student Life
Before Whittle School & Studios, Allison worked at Wycombe Abbey School in the UK as Head of Boarding and Safeguarding Lead.
She was also the Housemistress of Junior House (75 11-year- olds) and has been Housemistress of a Senior House (50 12 to 17-year-olds).
A graduate of Exeter University, Allison teaches Psychology and Mathematics. Before moving to Wycombe Abbey,
she was Deputy Head of Sixth Form at Caterham School, another leading UK independent school.
As an expert in Safeguarding and promoting the well-being of students, she now has overall responsibility for
the pastoral care of students in our Shenzhen Campus. She also supervises the organization and management of the Boarding House.
