Mamas, Don’t Give your Kids Smartphones!

Post date: Oct 24, 2015 2:37:18 PM

Blog Post for the week of Oct. 23^rd

Mamas, Don’t Give your Kids Smartphones!

My Composition 2 students are doing research for the “big paper” and their topic problems range from cyberbullying to internet addiction to the problems created in the workplace by an obsession with social media and/or mobile devices. As I have been helping them find sources, three came to my attention:

Two are new reports from the Pew Internet Research Center: “Teens, Technology and Romantic Relationships and Teens” (Lenhart, Anderson and Smith) and “Teens and Social Media and Technology” (Lenhart). If you have not yet discovered the Pew Internet Research Center, it is a very reputable organization and they do an excellent job of gathering information from surveys and interviews and then interpreting it. These studies looked at teens, ages 13-17. The first report focuses more on the impact of technology on relationships while the second one takes more of an overview of how technology and social media is reshaping the angst-filled lives of young people.

According to Pew researchers, 75% of teens have a smartphone or have access to one, only 30% have a basic phone, and only 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone (Lenhart) . This report alone should make any parent think twice about getting a smartphone for Susie or Jimmy at age 12 or 13. While most parents buy a smartphone for a child because 1) the child is begging for it, or 2) their cell phone provider makes it easy to buy four at a time, few parents seem to have thought about the consequences of putting a smartphone into the hands of a tween or teen.

Smartphones are teens’ main access to the internet: in many ways, they are portable and powerful computers, and provide easy access to email, text, photos, social media, apps and games. They make it possible for romantic partners to text each other and check in/checkup frequently, which can lead to some unrealistic and unhealthy expectations: 15% of teens in a relationship report that they are expected to check in hourly and 38% are expected to check in every few hours (Lenhart, Anderson and Smith). Smartphones make it possible for partners and ex-partners alike to pressure, threaten, harass, and demand attention.

They give bored kids access to lots of apps that compete with sitting in the classroom at school and they give insecure kids a camera for taking selfies to post on social media, which can then lead to compulsively checking for likes and comments. They are much more than a phone to let mom and dad know when to pick them up after school or check in to ask a question or give an update. They can become an enormous distraction that prevents students from fully engaging in learning, which concerns me as a teacher.

The second source is an online special from CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who spent two years working with a team to observe 200 teens (13 year olds) using social media. One of the findings of this special, “Being 13: Inside the world of Teens” (Hadad), that should have all of us alarmed is that many of these kids are checking social media 100 and even 200 times a day. Teens aren’t posting that often; instead, they are lurking to see if others have liked or posted to their earlier postings, as well as checking to see if anyone is saying mean things about them. Likes are seen as way to measure popularity.

The study included an analysis of 150,000 posts and messages by two trained psychologists. According to CNN’s Hadad, “The level of profanity, explicit sexual language and references to drug use surprised the experts, considering the study's subjects were only in eighth grade.”

One of those doctors said, "I didn't realize these kinds of behaviors trickled down. You see this at the high school level but these are kids, who I think of as children, and we saw a lot of adult content on these platforms” (qtd. in Hadad). However, they also looked at the parents of the 200 teens participating, and learned that 94% had underestimated the amount of fighting happening over social media.

One of the more shocking findings to me as an educator from the CNN report was the statement that teens no longer make a big distinction between their lives online and their lives in the real world. In addition, they admitted to the researchers that they post harsh messages online that they would never deliver face to face.

Think about what it was like when you were 13, sitting in an 8^th grade class: maybe you were lucky and had at least one friend in there. You might write and pass a note, but you were expected to have the book open, be taking notes or working on math problems or completing a worksheet over something you read for class. If caught, your note might be read by the teacher—or you might be asked to read it out loud.

NOW, think about a classroom FULL of 13 year olds all with smartphones: for one thing, it would be noisy with lots of little alerts that new tweets, posts, and text messages were waiting for attention. How does the teacher compete for their attention? Or should she just sit back and check her own smartphone? According to the National Education Association, many schools are lifting bans on the use of cell phones in the classroom (Kinjo) and the Pew Reports did not seem to indicate that phones were staying in backpacks, purses and pockets during class.

If your teens are checking their social media and texts 100 times a day, let’s narrow that down into 15 hours, from 7 am to 10 pm, and that means that every 15 minutes, teens are on their phones checking for updates or uploading selfies. If they are checking 200 times a day, that goes down to every 7 minutes. What can you accomplish in 7 minutes between checking for updates on social media? How about in 15 minutes? How do we teach children to problem solve, think critically, or reflect in 7 minutes? How do they learn complex Math and Science concepts and master formulas in 7 minutes?

The point I am making is that I LOVE technology; I am a Geeky Grandma, after all. However, I am capable of sitting and reading a book or magazine, grading essays, watching a movie, and taking a walk without checking my phone every 7 minutes. I have been known to leave my beloved iPhone in my purse in the other room while working at my computer, doing housework, or sorting through another tub from the garage. I grew up in a different era, and I believe that has better prepared me to shift from one mode to another: I learned to concentrate FIRST on more text-based information, and then embraced the web and all its wonders.

I worry that we are pushing our children to embrace social media and the digital world when we hand them a smartphone at a young age, especially when we have high expectations for them academically. From what I am seeing in the classroom, not everyone is mature enough to take on those responsibilities, even at the college level. Instead, many of them confess to me that they struggle continuously with the urge to check for texts, upload pictures to Instagram, pin a cool idea to Pinterest, and have a hard time focusing.

As I walk around my computer classroom in Composition class, where students are working on gathering sources and drafting their outlines, I notice that each person has his or her smartphone within easy reach, and one student has both a personal phone and work phone. Suddenly, I try to imagine these children ten years down the road in the workplace: will they suddenly be able to control themselves and focus on their customers and daily routines? Will the workplace need to adapt to them and give them breaks to text, surf and update Facebook on their phones the way we once let smokers take frequent breaks?

As much as I enjoy my iPhone, I would encourage any parent who wants to get his or her child a phone the simplest Trac phone possible without too many bells and whistles: keep it boring and give your child the opportunity to experience the world IRL (in real life). I would urge all of us to talk to our schools about reviewing that cell phone policy: keep the phones in the pockets, back packs and purses and help our digitally distracted children learn to focus on their school subjects, not on who has posted on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Side bar

Hadad, Chuck. “Being 13: Teens and Social Media Study.” CNN. Oct. 13, 2015

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/health/being-13-teens-social-media-study/

KINJO, KIEMA. “AS SCHOOLS LIFT BANS ON CELL PHONES, EDUCATORS WEIGH PROS AND CONS”

NEA (NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION) FEBRUARY 23, 2015

http://neatoday.org/2015/02/23/school-cell-phone-bans-end-educators-weigh-pros-cons/

Lenhart, Amanda, Monica Anderson and Aaron Smith. “Teens, Technology and Romantic Relationships.” Pew Internet Research Center. October 1, 2015.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/01/teens-technology-and-romantic-relationships-introduction/

Lenhart, Amanda. “Teens and Social Media and Technology.” Pew Internet Research Center. April 9, 2015

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/

End of Side Bar

Last Updated October 24, 2015