(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here)
OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay
Lots of new research and analyses are coming out suggesting that cellphones are making things a lot worse for the world’s teenagers.
What are these reports saying, and are they accurate?
Who’s Blaming Cellphones For What?
The research about the negative impact of cellphone use in schools has been pretty universal over the past few years (see The Best Posts On Student Cellphone Use In Class — Please Contribute More).
PISA pretty much blames them for the downward slope of international test results over the past decade (see It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber).
And a big new study came out today saying the same thing, along with blaming them for other mental health issues, as do others.
It should be pointed out that even though I began by citing studies pointing out the problems with cellphone use in schools, it appears that everybody else I listed, including the folks behind PISA, seem to point to overall cellphone use as the culprit.
What Should We Teachers Do?
I sort of shrug my shoulders at the PISA results, especially since more-and-more research has found that what schools do beyond test results are what really count for long-term student success. Personally, I’m more concerned about cellphone’s overall impact on student mental health.
But it is also pretty clear that student cellphone use in classes, especially since the pandemic, has to be controlled. We’ve done at our school by saying no use during class and, even though it does require periodic reminders, it’s about ninety percent less of a problem this year than in the past.
If the PISA folks and the others are right, though, cellphone use in schools are a drop-in-the-bucket, and student phone use falls into the two-thirds of outside of school factors (a pretty universally-agreed to percentage) that affect academic performance.
Of course, including a unit on the impact of cellphone use in many of our classes probably couldn’t hurt, also.
Outside of parents restricting cellphone use, and admittedly extremely challenging task, it seems to me that this genie is out of the bottle.
What do you think are realistic solutions?
Addendum: There are now questions about if cellphones really are the prime culprit – see The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness? and Teen Mental Health Distress Didn’t Start with the Phones.
A new book has amplified fierce debate around teens, mental health and smartphones A new book has amplified fierce debate around teens, mental health and smartphones A new book has amplified fierce debate around teens, mental health and smartphones https://t.co/A7pku2qn3w pic.twitter.com/vc31UdOsgb
— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) April 3, 2024
Is the plunge in teen reading because of smartphones? is from Kevin Drum.
Did smartphones “destroy” a generation? The debate, explained. https://t.co/lt6nzcVJfF
— Vox (@voxdotcom) April 12, 2024
Brilliant review of Jonathan Haidt’s book and moral entrepreneurship by @mmasnick, who brings, as ever, reason & receipts. “Neither the data nor reality support his position, and neither should you. Kids and mental health is a very complex issue, and Haidt’s solution appears to…
— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) April 21, 2024
“So if you ban smart phones from schools, grades go up by a very modest amount, bullying falls by a less modest amount, and actual mental health diagnoses stay the same.”https://t.co/iCcxNntpZ3
— Tracy O’Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) April 29, 2024
Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated. https://t.co/5onpUOdu1k
— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) May 9, 2024
The idea smartphones are responsible for a rise in teenage anxiety, depression and adverse mental health seemed interesting and plausible.
But after hearing @dwallacewells talk to @DKThomp about what the research really shows, I’m far more skeptical: https://t.co/YSkRAZaqzQ
— Luke Thomas🏋️♀️ (@lthomasnews) May 14, 2024
Author of a new book about what brain science says about teaching teens – @ellengalinsky – has mixed feelings about the push to ban phones in schools and keep teens off social media, worrying that it could backfire the way some ‘just say no’ to smoking campaigns did.…
— Jeff Young (@jryoung) May 22, 2024
Cell phones really don’t seem to be causing an epidemic of teen depression is by Kevin Drum.
Are Smartphones Driving Our Teens to Depression? is from The NY Times.
THE PANIC OVER SMARTPHONES DOESN’T HELP TEENS is from The Atlantic.
I’m happy to listen to people who worry about phones and social media on the basis of personal experience and observation, but I’m increasingly of the opinion that all the actual *research* cited to point to a scare is basically rubbish. Maybe that’s confirmation bias on my part https://t.co/xMfrzPjzsW
— Tom Chivers (@TomChivers) June 10, 2024
Smartphones are likely not the main problem of youth anxiety. Will Davies nails it here – it’s the political withdrawal of support infrastructure for children, with a greasing of conservative nostalgia for childhoods most never experienced https://t.co/YTRbgxBaIU
— Ben Williamson (@BenPatrickWill) June 14, 2024
It’s not true that Haidt’s “doing this *before* the scientific community has reached full agreement”. The scientific community–on the basis of many meta-analyses–agrees the effect of social media on mental health is very small. Haidt is the (sole?) outlier https://t.co/RGHwTKmYf9
— Oliver Scott Curry (@Oliver_S_Curry) June 20, 2024
Don’t Just Blame Social Media for Kids’ Poor Mental Health—Blame a Lack of Sleep is from Ed Week.
(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here) Lots of new research and analyses are coming out suggesting that cellphones are making things a lot worse for the world’s teenagers. What are these reports saying, and are they accurate? a look back Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
