After the ongoing teacher shortage, which is, in my opinion, a real national tragedy, one of the major and urgent challenges of this school year concerns the management of cell phones and screens at school. I say at school, but this also applies to higher education institutions, as we will see.
What we know
The work of the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shed important and now essential light on this whole question.
Generation Z (roughly speaking, those born after 1995 and before 2012) is experiencing an unprecedented and significant mental health crisis, partly caused by the widespread use of cell phones and the rise of social media and online gaming. Together, these technologies are addictive and cause effects like anxiety, depression, and other problems. Add to that, as Haidt does, overprotective parents (sometimes called helicopter parents), and we have what Haidt calls a moment of great rewiring, great transformation, of childhood.
The credible data and research produced over the years strongly converge with what he cited to support these ideas. Here are two more, all recent.
New documents in the file
The first one appeared in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. It shows that tablet use by 3 1/2-year-olds is associated with greater expressions of anger and frustration by age 4 1/2, and that a child’s predisposition to anger/frustration at age 4 1/2 is associated with greater tablet use by age 5 1/2. The authors write: “These findings suggest that tablet use in early childhood may contribute to a cycle that is detrimental to emotion regulation.” Talk to your friend who teaches preschool or elementary school, who will probably have a lot to tell you. But most importantly, talk to the couple who just had a baby.
The second comes from Science Direct and focuses on high school students and reading. It compares reading on paper and reading on screens. I’ll spare you the details and say nothing about the beautiful eye-tracking technology used in this work, but the authors conclude that “one of the main findings is that reading on screens leads to more superficial processing and can hinder comprehension of what is read.”
What to do? Haidt and others suggest solutions to apply at home and at school. But before recalling them, a word on the effects of the virtual world at higher levels. Because these effects are not felt only at school and on children.
Handwriting or typing your lecture notes?
Over the past decade, there has been a growing body of research comparing the use of computers to take notes in lectures by university students.
A research published last month in Springer Link summarizes what they teach us. Key takeaway: “Taking and reviewing handwritten notes leads to better results […] Handwritten notes are more useful for studying and memorizing.
What to do?
Haidt suggested four broad courses of action.
These are: no smartphones until high school; no social media until age 16; more, much more unsupervised real-world play, freedom, and opportunities for kids to explore; and finally, and most importantly for our purposes, cellphone-free schools. Schools. Not just classrooms.
You should know that in Quebec, since January, cell phones have been banned in classrooms, except for educational use requested by the teacher.
This approach is one of the so-called limited cell phone use strategies. Others exist and require, for example, that students, upon entering the classroom, place their cell phone in a designated holder and pick it up upon leaving; another is to only allow cell phone use in designated areas and at specific times; yet another is to use locked pouches called Yondr: the phone is placed there and is unusable until the pouch is unlocked.
But we are far from a school without cell phones. The minister is reportedly considering it, given the little impact of the current directives. How to do it?
A school without cell phones?
It is certainly not easy, but solutions are being put forward and are increasingly being practiced in various countries. For example, we can decide to start by making certain days phone-free at school; we can install lockers in which all phones must be deposited upon entering school; we can accompany these directives with educational programs on the dangers of cell phones and screens, on online safety and other similar topics.
I will be keeping a close eye on what is happening in our area. In particular at Oka High School, in the Mille-Îles School Service Centre, where a resolution was adopted by the school board that prohibits “as of September, the use of cell phones inside and on school grounds.” To be continued…
Happy new school year.