“Screenager” is a term invented almost 30 years ago, described by the Oxford English Dictionary as the familiarity that youth have with technology. This tech savvy-ness that characterizes high schoolers comes from the early exposure to technology that children receive, some of which is unavoidable. From parents using technology to control their children’s temper tantrums to a majority of learning in the classroom taking place online, the world is enabling and watching the reliance on technology grow stronger with each generation.
Just a little over 10 years ago, the typical screen time in a Novato Unified School District (NUSD) classroom would have looked quite different. In 2013, most schools had computer labs, and at the elementary level, classes scheduled “Computer Lab time” as the only exposure to devices during school hours. In January 2016, a 1:1 (one device for each student) pilot program was launched in 15 classrooms across NUSD. Schools began acquiring classroom carts of Chromebooks or iPads to be shared by grade levels or classroom wings. The success of this program led to Chromebooks being purchased for all students in grades 4-11 in the fall of 2018. By the next fall semester, NUSD was fully 1:1 for all grades 3-12 and many computer labs were repurposed into classrooms. During the pandemic’s remote learning, additional equipment was purchased so that NUSD became 1:1 for all grades K-12 by fall 2020.
Lu Sutton TK teacher Heidi Joseph chooses not to use the iPads given to her by the district. Joseph, who has been teaching for 27 years, has seen the evolution of technology in an educational setting and tries to reduce the amount of screen time her students are exposed to.
“I think they get enough of it at home. I don’t think there’s a single child in my class who does not have a tablet at home,” Joseph said.
Joseph has noticed differences in her students’ behaviors now compared to her earlier years of teaching, such as a constant need to be entertained, decreased motor skills, and unfamiliarity with hands-on tools like crayons and scissors. These once basic capabilities have degraded, which Joseph believes has been amplified by the recent pandemic.
“They cannot stand or sit for four seconds without being bored… and I think the reward for ‘I’m bored’ at home is the phone,” Joseph said. “Kids just need to play. And it’s okay to be bored because that’s when creative things happen. Kids figure stuff out for themselves.”
This early reliance on technology is amplified as the students move up through their entire K-12 education; the amount of technology that students are surrounded by only increases. Joseph’s coworker, fourth-grade teacher Kristen Flores, has also witnessed adverse effects due to the takeover of technology.
“It’s not that they don’t care, but when it’s left to them, they would choose the entertainment over the education,” Flores said.
Out of Flores’ 25 students, 22 have phones. In addition, 14 admit to using devices after 10 p.m. With Lu Sutton’s 8:40 a.m. start time, some of her students are not getting the National Institute of Health’s recommended nine hours of sleep and come to school unprepared to learn. In addition, according to the Mayo Clinic, too much screen time causes not only irregular sleep but also impaired academic performance. For Flores, while her highly driven students are passing benchmarks with flying colors, with some already working on the sixth-grade pathway for their online curricula, some of her students are 5% complete with their fourth-grade coursework when they should be closer to 50% in the second semester.
In addition to early exposure to phones, elementary-aged children, including some of Flores’ students, have unrestricted access to social media. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat have age restrictions of 13 years old, but can easily be overridden by lying about birth dates. Social media is not meant for children as young as elementary schoolers, so they have not learned to interact safely online and frequently participate in harmful conduct.
“It’s not ‘let’s plan a play date,’ it’s ‘let’s make a group and talk bad about somebody,’” Flores said. “…It’s behavior that’s happening at home; students being unsupervised, students being allowed to stay on their phones until 12 o’clock at night.”
While students have relatively simple academic lives in elementary school, when it comes to slightly higher education, the amount of learning that takes place online increases.
Sinaloa Middle School 8th grade history and English teacher Keri McNeil believes that working with and regulating technology in the classroom is the best course of action.
“The most important thing is a solid balance between technology and studies. It’s really important to make sure that students aren’t relying too much on technology. So I think we [teachers] should definitely try to make the assignments more personal in a way that prevents copying,” McNeil said.
McNeil believes that the best time to introduce students to technology is in high school. Despite this, San Marin history and psychology teacher David Krakora prefers a more “old-fashioned” work environment. Krakora enjoys life without technology, especially when it comes to the experience of living.
“We’re missing the in-person experience of the world because we’re too busy recording it. We live through the phone for a recording that we’ll never watch. In the future, as technology gets more advanced, or even as we begin implementing it into ourselves, I hope to see a resistance of some kind. I think that there will be a large culture of reform and a return to ourselves and the world around us,” Krakora said.
The district has experimented with many phases of technology in the classroom, and devices are not going anywhere. That being said, NUSD teachers acknowledge the imperfections of online learning and are continuing to look for ways to manage the developing screen dependencies. Joseph agrees with this sentiment.
“I worry that we’re going to lose a lot of our ability to problem-solve and to wonder and to think,” Joseph said. “You Google it and you know right away.”
