The question I continue to ask is, how is technology and the large amounts of time on a screen shaping the brains of this younger generation? Many of the students I work with and know spend 6+ hours on their phones a day, in addition to staying up late into the night playing video games or watching shows/movies. We’ve also seen more and more work shift to happing on the computer. The pandemic also increased this with meetings and collaboration shifting to virtual platforms, such as google teams, Zoom, etc. I found myself and many of those I talked with increasingly exhausted from spending an eight hour work day completely on the computer.
It seems that even the best technology cannot replace the value of in-person relationships. In a podcast I was listening to it talked about how brain research has shown that the chemicals released in the brain when connecting with other people in-person are not released when interactions are happening in a virtual platform. Because of this, I am realizing I have a fairly negative view of technology. When it comes to having students using technology in the classroom, I tend to assume that having students off of technology is better. For example, if I’m assigning homework, I have an assumption that giving students a paper worksheet is superior to giving them the same assignment on a google form. Is this assumption grounded in actual research?
The research definitely shows the negative impact of social media on kids, and the dependence they have on their phones. But has there been much research about how more screen time in the classroom has impacted students? It is more about the content they are consuming rather than actually the screen itself? I want to learn more, and am confident there will be more and more research coming out, especially after the pandemic where so many students and classroom content went online.
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