“There was a time, not that long ago, when people actually got into arguments because they didn't want to answer the phone,” the very funny and mostly clean comedian James Gregory once said during a performance. “I guess it’s like, ‘Okay, I get it.’” The other day I got it! ”
Boy, the world has certainly changed. At the time, Gregory continued, phone calls were a distraction and took time away from what he really wanted to do. Now that's what people want to do.
In fact, “screen addiction” is a real phenomenon, with researchers even calling electronic devices “digital heroin.” As a result, the movement to ban the use of mobile phones in schools is gaining momentum. But there was also a backlash. Many people are reluctant to live without continuous digital fixes.
Disconnect and reconnect
Therefore, teenagers spend more than seven hours every day, and teenagers spend nearly five hours using screen media for entertainment. Of course, some of this screen time is spent at school. In other words, it's a no-phone initiative. As TAG24 reported last week, such restrictions also have positive effects.
Banning smartphone use in schools measurably improves students' social well-being, according to a recent meta-analysis of five international studies on the issue.
Klaus Zieller, a co-author of the analysis and a professor of school education at the University of Augsburg in Germany, said: “Children feel better because they talk and play with each other more during recess, which makes them feel better at school. It's become even more fun to go there.”
…When students use smartphones and social media at school, they are also at risk of cyberbullying, Zieler said. “So banning smartphones makes schools a safe place for smartphones.”
Banning smartphones could also have a positive impact on academic performance, he said, but that was difficult to measure in the studies reviewed.
No one needs to convince The Independent's Emma Reid of this. “My kids can't live without their smartphones,” she lamented this week. “It's about time we ban smartphones from school.” It's happening, too. Seven of America's 20 largest school districts have already banned or plan to ban phone calls during school hours. In Greece, a country-wide law requires students to keep their devices in their bags during class.
Reason — or rationalization?
Additionally, there is resistance to not citing research or developing valid arguments. It may also come from carefully selected teens themselves. For example, The Nation published an article by Ushoshi Das, a student at Stuyvesant High School in Brooklyn, New York. Das is certainly smart (he has to pass a test to go to Stuyvesant). However, his defense of the status quo gives the impression of rationalization rather than reason.
Das admits that “past generations of teenagers survived without devices and their parents didn't have to worry.” But, he added, they “didn't grow up in a world where school shootings are common.” No, they weren't, and neither was he.
High-profile school shootings that make the news are horrifying, but they don't happen often. (In fact, the two leading causes of death for actual children between the ages of 1 and 14 are car accidents and drowning.) And what about the “hundreds” of “school shootings” each year? . They are usually gang shootouts that happen to happen on school grounds after hours.
By the way, the top MSN responder to Das' article wasn't fooled. “Kids don't want cell phones for safety,” he wrote. “That's just a lie that kids use to get their way.” But if security is truly a concern, compromise. Children can have cell phones at school.
However, it must be a simple device that can only be used to make phone calls. transaction?
digital drug
Part of the problem is terminology. Why call a device a “phone” when talking is the least common thing that people, especially children, use it for? Perhaps we can better understand the problem by calling them portable entertainment devices (PEDs). . After all, years ago, parents might not have wanted their children to have a TV in their bedroom, knowing that it was harmful. So why are they now so oblivious to the fact that their children have TV10 in their pockets every waking hour?
Again, consider what psychotherapist Dr. Nicolas Caldalas warned in 2016: Brain imaging studies show that these iPads, smartphones and Xboxes affect the brain's frontal cortex “in exactly the same way as cocaine,” he said.
But too often parents themselves are peddling digital drugs. Reid cited a British study saying, “25 percent of 3- to 4-year-olds own a smartphone.'' Plus, “50 percent of children under the age of 13 use social media.” Of course, the device is a handy babysitter, right?
wise head
So, as I reported on Wednesday, is the threat of PED addiction part of the reason why even many “elite” college students “can't read”? That's certainly why, as Dr. Caldaras wrote, “Silicon Valley tech executives and engineers enroll their children in no-tech Waldorf schools.” After all, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, they know something that most people don't?
But this is something students under the tutelage of Cyberwise co-founder Diana E. Graeber often learn. Earlier this year, Ms. Graber wrote that she was requiring her seventh-graders to “avoid all screens for at least 24 hours.” Many people don't like it. Some even suggest that such missions are cruel and “illegal.” But what was the result? Graeber says:
The essays students turn in at the end of this “brutal” assignment tell a different story. Almost all students wrote that being away from screens makes them feel more at peace, more relaxed, and less anxious. And many people beg me to give them this homework again. The essay always reminds us that this generation has never known a world unencumbered by devices, and that providing them with examples of such a world is the “vacation” they really need.
give them a break
Back in the 1600s, French inventor and philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity's problems stem from its inability to sit quietly alone in a room.” . Being “connected” to a device is the opposite of an empty room. It is an addiction that destroys peace. Interestingly, many children feel this. I know a teenage girl who goes to a true Catholic school. There are no electronic devices in this educational institution, only pens, paper, and books, and traditional education is carried out. It's a real education and she's happy to be there.
According to research from the March Pew Research Center, she's not alone. They found that a majority of teens, 38 percent, admitted to spending too much time on PEDs. Even PED advocate Das essentially concedes the same thing toward the conclusion of his article, writing, “It's true that cell phones distract us.” But like all addicts, these young people need help to kick the habit.
So adults have a choice. They can go this far, or they can continue to make excuses and continue to give free rein to digital heroin promoters.
