Sometimes You Have to Get Off Track...

… to discover a better track. That is the quote I am focusing on this week and it was written by Robin Sharma. This lesson was awesome. The students and I had a really good conversation about media balance, what balance looks like, and how they can maintain balance. I find it really disheartening how many students have personal devices, phones, televisions, etc. at their discretion in the evenings. Many students said they weren’t monitored and were allowed to regulate their own amount of time on their devices. That is why this lesson was so important.

After teaching this lesson it made me look into what could be recommended by medical professionals in order to advise parents and even students on how often they should be using media. The beginning of the lesson focused on having students respond to what their perfect day would look like. When I had students sharing out it was AMAZING to hear how many students said they did not use technology in their perfect day. This was, of course, a lie. So I told them I didn’t want them to say things that would make me happy or make me think they don’t use technology I wanted the 100% truth. It was amazing how much television time, Fortnite time, gaming time, YouTube time, and TikTok time was reported after that. Students seem to be on their devices for upwards of three or four hours a night. Some not even going to bed until 9:30 or 10:00 and then going to bed with their devices or media turned on and in hand. This led into a conversation about BALANCE. I explained to them what my evenings looked like when I was a child. I didn’t have an internet connected device, or a TV in my room. I wasn’t able to play a song I wanted to hear at the drop of a dime, or load a video or movie with a quick click of my finger. I wasn’t even able to hold a phone in my hand unless it was attached to the wall and I was sitting nearby, and for those reasons I turned out a better person. I explained that my generation was the one that went through all of these changes, and we knew what it was like to be a kid and play, and also to sit on the computer and connect to the internet (albeit at a much slower connection speed). We knew what it was like to go outside and play, to have face to face communication with our friends, to ride our bikes to each other’s homes if we wanted to talk, but my fear is that many of these children never experienced that. They learned from a young age that when they are bored, they can turn on a device and instantly connect to something that will entertain them. The ability to combat boredom without looking at a screen is something I think is EXTREMELY important, and it is also the reason my children will not have a device in the car, or restaurant, or grocery store. In fact, I explained to the students that although I am a tech leader in my school and I would consider myself very technologically advanced, I do not plan on my child having his own device until much later in his elementary/junior high years. Even when my children do get their own device they will not be permitted to use it at their leisure, and they will have times when devices are not permitted such as car rides, sitting at the dinner table, or out in public places.

These rules that I laid out to the class for my own children generated so much conversation and took us off topic, but the conversation was the best I’ve had with students in a long time. They didn’t understand the effects of their brains constantly being turned on, of not having down time or relaxing without being connected to the world. They also didn’t connect the fear of missing out on something happening in the digital world leading to anxiety, where my kids will hopefully be playing outside not thinking about what is happening with people that aren’t around them and that in many cases have no relevance to their current lives or situations. The best conversation came from my “gamers” though. I asked them what they got by winning the game they play, how did that better their lives? Most of them said it made them feel good, but when asked how they felt when they lost the answer was completely different. Truly, in gaming nothing is ever GAINED. If it is done in moderation maybe it improves hand eye coordination, but you do not get a medal, or a trophy, and it certainly does not improve your health or wellbeing. THESE were the things I wanted them to think about when they consider balance. I want my students to do things that make them feel good, and improve them as people. In the end, a lot of students claimed they would change what their perfect day looked like, but I just want them to THINK ABOUT how they could balance their lives so they still have media, but also experience things outside of media.

The lesson concluded by students sharing a plan about how they could balance media better. They came up with things like eating dinner with their family, playing games with their siblings, or just going outside for a walk. The students then took the quiz (which had one question that was almost too difficult for them to understand) (LINK TO RESULTS HERE) Overall, I think they understood the point of balancing the lesson, but I want them to put this into action. The thing I took away most from this lesson is that it is not just important to reach these children, but we MUST reach the parents as well. In the articles that I read on the amount of time children are already online it stated that use had TRIPLED over the last 4 years with mobile devices. (LINK TO ARTICLE HERE) They are the ones that will set limits, and enforce the guidelines that lead to our students being more well balanced digital citizens. Additionally, most parents aren't even aware of the guidelines or even the effects that media can have on their children according to the following article. (LINK TO ARTICLE HERE)I found it funny how much preparation I did for this lesson, but in the end the student conversation took this lesson on a course of its own. I truly think we did “discover a better track”.