What will you remember?
The end of summer is always hard on me. I have such great memories of summer as a kid that when school starts again, I always get this sad, homesick feeling inside (it was worse when I had to go back to work as a teacher).
But what about…
It makes me wonder about all the kids who have spent a ton of time on their phones during the summer months. What are they going to remember about their summer? Maybe the comparison game we all play when on our phones - oh, how I wish I looked that cute in a swimsuit, or they go on so many trips, why can’t that be my life, or if my backyard looked like that, I’d spend my whole summer back there.
When I was a kid, my sister and I knew there was about a three-block radius where we could freely roam with the blessings of our parents. We would meet up with our neighborhood friends and make up games to play until it got dark, when Mom or Dad would holler that it was time to come in.
I’d be willing to bet I could say “Dracula” to our neighbors at that time - Jeff, Trina, Grant, and Claire - and they’d know exactly what I was referring to and how to play it.
I’ll admit, though, that we lived in a town of around 2,100 people at that time, and it felt like we knew all of them. Not a place where too many scary things happen, although I know there’s potential in every single town, big or little.
But back to today
After getting the book The Anxious Generation, I also signed up for emails about updates with kids, and parents, and their technology by Joining the Movement. You can sign up here, at the bottom of the page. My kids are adults, but I worry about our grandchildren and, honestly, just kids in general.
The email I got today includes a poll in which they asked more than 500 kids ages 8 - 12, how would you rather spend time with friends? Almost three-quarters said, “I would spend less time online if there were more friends in my neighborhood to play with in person.”
When asked how they’d prefer to spend their time, in-person free play came in at 45%, while in-person organized activity earned 30%, and online activity brought up the rear with 25%.
Kids are telling us that they don’t want to spend so much time on screens, but we’re not listening.
I will admit that the first school I taught in that tried to limit phone use, I resisted. I was teaching Information Technology and English, and we did pretty cool stuff with our phones. Looking back, I would say that there were only a couple of activities we needed the phones for, everything else we could do on a laptop.
Tightening up with phones came up every single year after that, and I began to see I had been wrong. One school said phones were okay in the passing periods, but we shouldn’t see them out during class. The problem with this is that kids kept them in their pockets and could feel them vibrate. I know adults have trouble not looking at their phones when they know there’s a notification; how do we expect kids to resist? Kids solved this problem by asking to go to the bathroom. What teacher is going to deny that? Certainly not me.
Jonathan Haidt goes on in the email I received to say that:
37 states have passed policies regulating phone use in K-12 schools — 19 of which have implemented our model bell-to-bell policy.
74% of U.S. adults now support banning phone use during class, up from 68% last year.
The fact that adults are now supporting banning phone use is important because shortly after teachers were hailed as heroes during Covid, they quickly became the bad guys of the world. Parental support of their kid’s teachers plummeted, and it was hard to deal with kids' poor behavior because there was no support from home. I hope it’s not still that way.
It’s also important because it’s terribly difficult to try to enforce something when you’re the only one doing it. Telling your child they aren’t allowed to have a smartphone when every single kid in their class already has one sucks. But it sounds like more of us are starting to see the light.
I’ve been encouraged by the videos of teachers talking about how locked in and fully present their students are without the distraction of their phones.
I saw a video of famous singer Ed Sheeran, who said he had a phone from the time he was about 15. He kept the same number and probably had around 10,000 contacts once he became well-known. He talked about trying to have a conversation with someone and feeling his phone go off. His concentration was instantly gone because he kept wondering who had just texted or called or whatever. He says that once he looked and saw who it was, he was able to focus on the current conversation with whoever he was with.
He became irritated with apps that demanded his attention whenever they decided to notify him. So he got rid of the phone and got an iPad. Now he sends emails once a week, and he checks them “whenever the f@#$ I decide to. I’m not interrupted when I’m out for dinner with my wife or my dad or whomever.”
Being in charge of your technology seems brilliant to me.
It’s so difficult
But, just like handing your child a giant chocolate bar and telling them they should only eat one square, self-regulation doesn’t come easy. That kid is probably going to end up eating the whole thing, and to be honest, I would too.
One way to help kids find other things to do is the Free Play Friday Challenge. It’s a challenge to families, and I would add that everyone try it, to spend one hour each Friday without screens and let kids lead the way. It helps develop confidence and creativity. You can check out the Let Grow Toolkit with ideas, right here.
It truly will take everyone to make the changes we need to make with our phones. I am encouraged by the number of children living one block away from me who certainly spend at least one hour, probably more, each week outside riding bikes, running through sprinklers, playing basketball, and building snowmen.
We just need to find ways to encourage more people to do the same.