On Monday, February 5th, I went to the showing of "Screenagers" at Shelburne Community School. The movie discusses the usage of screen time for adolescents and its negative impacts. The central storyline revolves around the filmmaker's own experience of deciding whether or not to give her 12-year-old daughter Tessa a smart phone. The trailer for the film is below.
The film explores the ways in which adolescents are addicted to their devices and the impacts it can have. On average, adolescents spend over ten hours a day looking at a screen. This does not include the time they spend doing homework. Another interesting fact that the movie discusses is that students who are on their phones during class are actually distracting the students next to them. Sitting next to a classmate that is on his or her phone can be more distracting than being on your own phone.
During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex is still developing. This is the part of the brain that is in charge of decision making as well as self control. Adolescent brains are not developed enough to make the smart decision of keeping their phone away, or to control the urge to distract themselves. In this way, it is important for the teacher to help guide the student to focus on the task at hand rather than what is happening online.
The film stresses the importance of building relationships in person. Video conferences will never replace business trips. You may be able to maintain relationships through technology, but you won't be successful trying to build the relationship through it. The film gave examples of treaties with other countries. There is a reason why contracts are not signed over video calls. Meeting in person establishes a foundation of trust and empathy that cannot be recreated over the computer.
School districts that provided each student with a laptop in hopes to aid their learning found contrasting results. They found that students who took their computers home were actually doing worse in their classes. This was particularly true for poor students with less parental guidance. The decrease in test scores dropped significantly when computers were allowed to go home.
A main topic of the movie is violent video games and their potential impact on users. Teenage boys can spend over thirteen hours every day playing video games. Violent video games have been shown to increase aggressive behavior in users but it is unknown as to whether or not they play a factor in violent behavior outside of the game. The original purpose of violent video games was to desensitize soldiers before they go into combat. A good question to consider is do we want adolescents becoming desensitized the same way soldiers need to be? Adolescents will not be going into combat any time soon, so shouldn't they be focusing on increasing their empathy during the hard years of adolescence rather than decreasing it?
While boys are becoming more and more addicted to video games, teenage girls feel the need to be connected on various social media sites. The more "likes" they receive, the higher their self-esteem is. I thought this divide was incredibly interesting. To have the use of technology differ so much between sexes is astonishing and raises lots of questions as to how and why it diverged.
After school activities are decreasing because programs are being cut due to lack of funding. Studies have shown that children who engage in after school programs such as band, sports, clubs, etc., do better in school than children who don't.
Towards the end of the film, lab rats are tested to see how screen time affects their performance through a maze. The mice that experience more screen time take three times as long to get through the maze than the mice that experience none. The scariest part of the study is that the effects on the brains of the mice didn't go away. The way screen time affects adolescents may be blurry, but if it is anything like the impacts on rats then parents and teachers should worry.
The children in the film express frustrations with their parents' use of electronic devices as well. I think this is an important point to remember. Adolescents are not the only ones that need guidance when it comes to technology- parents need to set their own restrictions too.
The movie has a website you can check out (www.screenagersmovie.com). On the website, the "Tech Talk Tuesday" tab explores the various ways in which parents can incorporate discussions about technology into their day-to-day lives.
The film explores the ways in which adolescents are addicted to their devices and the impacts it can have. On average, adolescents spend over ten hours a day looking at a screen. This does not include the time they spend doing homework. Another interesting fact that the movie discusses is that students who are on their phones during class are actually distracting the students next to them. Sitting next to a classmate that is on his or her phone can be more distracting than being on your own phone.
During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex is still developing. This is the part of the brain that is in charge of decision making as well as self control. Adolescent brains are not developed enough to make the smart decision of keeping their phone away, or to control the urge to distract themselves. In this way, it is important for the teacher to help guide the student to focus on the task at hand rather than what is happening online.
The film stresses the importance of building relationships in person. Video conferences will never replace business trips. You may be able to maintain relationships through technology, but you won't be successful trying to build the relationship through it. The film gave examples of treaties with other countries. There is a reason why contracts are not signed over video calls. Meeting in person establishes a foundation of trust and empathy that cannot be recreated over the computer.
School districts that provided each student with a laptop in hopes to aid their learning found contrasting results. They found that students who took their computers home were actually doing worse in their classes. This was particularly true for poor students with less parental guidance. The decrease in test scores dropped significantly when computers were allowed to go home.
A main topic of the movie is violent video games and their potential impact on users. Teenage boys can spend over thirteen hours every day playing video games. Violent video games have been shown to increase aggressive behavior in users but it is unknown as to whether or not they play a factor in violent behavior outside of the game. The original purpose of violent video games was to desensitize soldiers before they go into combat. A good question to consider is do we want adolescents becoming desensitized the same way soldiers need to be? Adolescents will not be going into combat any time soon, so shouldn't they be focusing on increasing their empathy during the hard years of adolescence rather than decreasing it?
While boys are becoming more and more addicted to video games, teenage girls feel the need to be connected on various social media sites. The more "likes" they receive, the higher their self-esteem is. I thought this divide was incredibly interesting. To have the use of technology differ so much between sexes is astonishing and raises lots of questions as to how and why it diverged.
After school activities are decreasing because programs are being cut due to lack of funding. Studies have shown that children who engage in after school programs such as band, sports, clubs, etc., do better in school than children who don't.
Towards the end of the film, lab rats are tested to see how screen time affects their performance through a maze. The mice that experience more screen time take three times as long to get through the maze than the mice that experience none. The scariest part of the study is that the effects on the brains of the mice didn't go away. The way screen time affects adolescents may be blurry, but if it is anything like the impacts on rats then parents and teachers should worry.
The children in the film express frustrations with their parents' use of electronic devices as well. I think this is an important point to remember. Adolescents are not the only ones that need guidance when it comes to technology- parents need to set their own restrictions too.
The movie has a website you can check out (www.screenagersmovie.com). On the website, the "Tech Talk Tuesday" tab explores the various ways in which parents can incorporate discussions about technology into their day-to-day lives.
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