The data is piling up demonstrating that devices in schools, especially for the youngest students, have deleterious effects on their learning and wellbeing.
As a parent and an education professional who visits classrooms around the state, I’ve been surprised by the quantity of screentime in classrooms in New Hampshire elementary schools, including the Concord School District, from Youtube videos during snack times and movement breaks, to one-to-one tablet devices starting in kindergarten and Chromebooks in third grade. This topic has come up repeatedly as I interact with students, teachers and families, as the bell-to-bell phone ban has rolled out successfully and with clear improvements in the school experience. Yet many students, including the youngest, still have significant screentime integrated into their days.
There are several reasons for reducing the use of screens in school and devising clear policies. Purchasing devices for each student, subscriptions to numerous education technology (EdTech) platforms and repairs to these devices are large expenses for the district. Given that budgets are so tight, this money may be better spent on additional teachers and human support roles, as smaller teacher-to-student ratios, unlike digital platforms, do show positive correlations with enhanced long-term educational outcomes.
Time spent learning through devices is also replacing and reducing other learning opportunities: time outside, reading physical books, socializing and working to communicate across differences, struggling through slow-paced tasks that have delayed gratification, doing hands-on, experiential learning that improves motor skills and fluidity of thought, or doing applied, real-world, interdisciplinary learning and problem solving. These are the learning processes that research shows effectively lead to the outcomes outlined in Concord District’s “Portrait of a Learner: Creative & Skillful, Collaborative, and Self-Directed Students.”
Big EdTech companies have profit as their bottom line, not the wellbeing of children or schools. They’re making a lot of money through our children’s data and attention, hoping to build lifelong customers. Schools can become so beholden to certain platforms that they lose autonomy and control over big decisions for students, such as in the recent announcement from Google whereby schools who choose to restrict A.I. entirely on their devices, like Chromebooks, would also lose access to Google Search.
Devices often “speed up” learning, providing instant feedback and gratification, and many products include micro-badges, instant sound effects, streak/progress trackers or other “engagement” techniques EdTech programs have borrowed from the gambling industry and are intentionally addictive. This overstimulates the dopamine system, responsible for motivation, leaving kids anxious, restless and bored, robbing them of feelings of satisfaction, and depleting brain chemicals that allow them to engage with other learning, like reading a book.
Classroom environments can be unruly. Teachers are overburdened and underresourced. If school cultures allow for easy access and encourage screen use, it can be tempting for even the best, well-intentioned teachers (like those we have in Concord) to turn to devices in hopes of calming students or accelerating learning.
Research shows that in the case of devices and screentime, however, “engagement” does not equal learning, that learning is not maintained over time, and that screentime exacerbates some of the very behaviors leading to unruly classrooms in the first place. Worldwide, kids’ reading and math are suffering; motor skills, attention and focus are falling; loneliness, anxiety and even eye-strain are increasing and many kids spend a huge portion of their time at home on screens, as well. It feels important for the school environment to be a place where they can practice learning without that interference.
We do need students to be “future-ready,” and learning about how to safely use/navigate technology (i.e. media literacy and how-to-type). Additionally, using technology to reduce certain accessibility barriers, like a non-verbal student needing a computer to help communicate, is completely appropriate. But learning about how to use technology, using technology as a tool to assist in learning, and using tech to learn are very different things.
In speaking with members of the district, it’s also clear we need more communication about what digital devices are being used, how often, for what purposes and how students interact with them. For all these reasons, a number of Concord families have decided to convene a community conversation focused around screentime in public schools. How can we safely and meaningfully distinguish between different learning scenarios and build an evidence-based policy so our children, teachers and families can flourish?
Are you curious, as well? Please join us Tuesday, Nov. 17 at the Christa McAuliffe School cafeteria from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. for an initial discussion. We’ll be joined by members of the school board, representatives of the faculty and district administration, and remotely by a guest presenter who is co-chair for the Screens in Schools Action Network. Childcare and light refreshments provided.
Aubrey Nelson, M.Ed., is a former middle school science teacher and current educator and professional learning lead with VT/NH Energy Education Program. She lives in Concord with her two children in the Concord School District.