Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / (Part One) Kids, Screens, and Schools: How worried should we be?

Transcript

(Part One) Kids, Screens, and Schools: How worried should we be? · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

0:01
Speaker 1: This is parent data. I'm Emily Oster.
0:06
Speaker 2: If your parent, especially of an older child, you've probably
0:11
Speaker 2: started thinking about phones.
0:12
Speaker 1: Your kids probably started.
0:14
Speaker 2: Asking about when they can get a phone, and you're
0:17
Speaker 2: probably also reading a lot out in the world about
0:20
Speaker 2: the dangers of phones.
0:21
Speaker 3: Let's talk numbers. Research shows the average team checks their
0:25
Speaker 3: phone every fifteen minutes. As you might expect, teenagers will
0:29
Speaker 3: tell you, oh, what's the big deal, It just takes
0:31
Speaker 3: a second, But research shows the distraction lasts much longer
0:34
Speaker 3: than the ping.
0:36
Speaker 4: And the look.
0:37
Speaker 2: Maybe phones ruined mental health. Maybe they distract your kid.
0:41
Speaker 2: Maybe they mess with their sleep.
0:42
Speaker 3: Fear of missing out. They are afraid if they're not
0:45
Speaker 3: they're hooked up all the time, They're going to miss
0:48
Speaker 3: out on something important.
0:49
Speaker 2: Maybe you should avoid phones until your kid is, I
0:52
Speaker 2: don't know, in their mid twenties.
0:54
Speaker 4: Our cell phones.
0:55
Speaker 3: Disrupted in class.
0:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, even you admit it.
0:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:01
Speaker 2: Part of what makes this hard is that it's well
1:03
Speaker 2: outside of our own experiences.
1:06
Speaker 1: And that's not just phones.
1:07
Speaker 2: That also goes for all kinds of screens, Especially in school.
1:11
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I remember the computer lab.
1:15
Speaker 2: Surely you also had a computer lab.
1:17
Speaker 1: It was down the hall.
1:18
Speaker 2: That's where all the computers were, and you would go
1:21
Speaker 2: in learn typing and play Oregon Trail Dying of Dysentery
1:26
Speaker 2: every single time.
1:29
Speaker 1: But now there's.
1:30
Speaker 2: No computer lab. The computer lab is the classroom. Our
1:33
Speaker 2: kids have computers right there all the time. They're doing
1:38
Speaker 2: their math homework on them, they're doing their reading on them.
1:42
Speaker 1: And maybe they also have phones.
1:44
Speaker 2: I ended up getting my kid a phone specifically because
1:48
Speaker 2: she needed.
1:48
Speaker 1: A bird app for school.
1:50
Speaker 2: It was an app that recorded sounds of birds and
1:53
Speaker 2: told you what kind of bird it was. So as parents,
1:57
Speaker 2: it feels like we're stuck between a place where our
2:00
Speaker 2: kids are using technology all the time and they need
2:03
Speaker 2: technology all the time, and yet we're being told to
2:06
Speaker 2: be afraid of it, and it's so far outside our
2:09
Speaker 2: own experiences. It's hard to look back and say, oh, well,
2:12
Speaker 2: here's what worked for me, because we're not actually going
2:15
Speaker 2: back to the world of Oregon Trail anytime soon. With
2:20
Speaker 2: all that as background, I want to dive into the
2:23
Speaker 2: questions of kids and technology, and this episode is the
2:27
Speaker 2: first of two conversations about what it means for kids
2:31
Speaker 2: to have access to technology, what digital hygiene looks like,
2:35
Speaker 2: and specifically, how do we think about devices in schools.
2:39
Speaker 2: Both of my guests have conducted extensive surveys into these issues,
2:43
Speaker 2: coming at them from different angles, from different kinds of expertise,
2:47
Speaker 2: but ultimately trying to get at these same core questions.
2:52
Speaker 2: How can kids live in the modern world as good
2:54
Speaker 2: digital citizens, How can we help them navigate this world
2:58
Speaker 2: one that we did in ourselves grow up in. And
3:01
Speaker 2: how do we put together our fear that technology might
3:06
Speaker 2: be going too fast, there might be too much of it,
3:08
Speaker 2: with the recognition that it's here to stay, and somehow
3:12
Speaker 2: our kids need to learn how to coexist with computers,
3:15
Speaker 2: with phones, with the technology that's out in the world.
3:19
Speaker 2: My first conversation today is with Jessica Gross. Jess is
3:22
Speaker 2: a New York Times reporter who covers family and education issues,
3:26
Speaker 2: and I asked her to come talk because she did
3:28
Speaker 2: a series reporting on a survey about the use of
3:31
Speaker 2: technology in schools. So she, like many of us, got
3:35
Speaker 2: curious about how exactly kids are using tech in schools,
3:39
Speaker 2: and she couldn't find any detailed data on that question.
3:43
Speaker 2: So she went out and asked readers, how are your
3:45
Speaker 2: kids using technology in schools? And she came back with
3:48
Speaker 2: some reports how much time are kids on technology, how
3:52
Speaker 2: are they using it? What are the rules generally about
3:54
Speaker 2: phones in schools. In this conversation, Jess and I talk
3:59
Speaker 2: about what she learned from her survey of parents.
4:01
Speaker 1: We also talk a little more generally about what's the role.
4:04
Speaker 2: Of technology companies in kids schools, how can we help
4:08
Speaker 2: kids enjoy the benefits of computers and screens and the
4:12
Speaker 2: Internet without the constant distractions that often come along with them.
4:17
Speaker 2: And we also talk about positive effects of screens, particularly.
4:21
Speaker 1: For kids with learning differences.
4:25
Speaker 2: Part of what makes the whole parenting in the face
4:27
Speaker 2: of school technology hard is it can be actually pretty
4:30
Speaker 2: challenging to understand what is going on at school with
4:34
Speaker 2: our kids all day.
4:35
Speaker 1: Most of what I get at the end of the
4:37
Speaker 1: day is it was fine.
4:38
Speaker 2: And what's really valuable here about Jess's reporting is it
4:41
Speaker 2: gives us a very clear picture of what kids are
4:45
Speaker 2: actually doing on screens in schools, and lets us think
4:48
Speaker 2: about which of these things are valuable and which of
4:51
Speaker 2: these things might we like to replace.
4:54
Speaker 1: After the break, Jessica.
4:56
Speaker 2: Grows Jess Gross, I'm so excited to have you on
5:11
Speaker 2: the Parent Data podcast.
5:12
Speaker 4: Welcome. I am so excited to be here. Thank you
5:14
Speaker 4: for having me.
5:16
Speaker 2: So I'd love to have you start by telling us
5:18
Speaker 2: a little bit about who you are and what you do.
5:23
Speaker 5: So I am an opinion writer for the New York Times,
5:27
Speaker 5: where I cover a range of issues including.
5:31
Speaker 4: Family, politics, culture, education, religion.
5:34
Speaker 5: And we are here to talk about a little series
5:36
Speaker 5: that I did about tech in schools K through twelve schools.
5:41
Speaker 1: Yes, we are, and you have.
5:42
Speaker 2: I would be remiss not to note you have an
5:44
Speaker 2: excellent book, relatively recent book called Screaming on the Inside,
5:48
Speaker 2: which is about how it's hard to be a modern parent.
5:54
Speaker 5: Yes, as I put it, America makes it harder to
5:57
Speaker 5: be a parent than it really needs to be.
5:59
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to be this hard.
6:02
Speaker 2: Okay, So but let's talk about what you Let's talk
6:06
Speaker 2: about what you did in the Times about screens in schools,
6:08
Speaker 2: And I'd love to just have you start with why
6:12
Speaker 2: you embarked on this data collection exercise and what you
6:16
Speaker 2: were curious to learn.
6:18
Speaker 5: So I felt very silly because in February or March,
6:23
Speaker 5: someone who I was talking to about a totally different
6:24
Speaker 5: story asked me how much time my kids are spending
6:28
Speaker 5: on screens every day? And I had no idea. I
6:32
Speaker 5: had never thought about it, which sort of I was
6:36
Speaker 5: disappointed in myself. I was like, you showed a real
6:38
Speaker 5: lack of curiosity about what your kids were doing. But
6:43
Speaker 5: it was more like they are neurotypical girls who had
6:46
Speaker 5: always done well in school and there was no problem.
6:49
Speaker 4: So I was like, there's no problem. I'm not making
6:51
Speaker 4: a problem.
6:52
Speaker 5: But I was like, I should know how much time
6:56
Speaker 5: they're spending on screens when they're in school, And I
6:59
Speaker 5: also want to know how much time the average American
7:02
Speaker 5: child is spending on screens in school. And so I
7:06
Speaker 5: started to look into the research, and the short answer is,
7:09
Speaker 5: we have no idea because there is so much variation,
7:14
Speaker 5: not even just districted district state to state. We're talking
7:17
Speaker 5: classroom to classroom. So you know, an English teacher in
7:21
Speaker 5: room three oh one might be using screens entirely differently
7:26
Speaker 5: than you know the chemistry teacher in room three o two.
7:29
Speaker 5: And I felt like the data that we did have
7:32
Speaker 5: was not particularly granular. And I feel like with a
7:35
Speaker 5: topic like this, the devil really is in the details,
7:38
Speaker 5: and so I wanted to hear from teachers and parents
7:42
Speaker 5: how much time and in what ways are is tech
7:46
Speaker 5: being used in your children's.
7:50
Speaker 4: Classrooms, and you know, there's so many different.
7:53
Speaker 5: Ways it's being used too, so I wanted to get
7:56
Speaker 5: really granular information on that. You know, you have the
7:58
Speaker 5: Promethean boards, whiteboards, the screen whiteboards, you have individual chromebooks
8:03
Speaker 5: and iPads that are you know, honestly more ubiquitous than
8:08
Speaker 5: I had thought before I embarked done this project. And
8:11
Speaker 5: then you have apps, you have all different apps, and
8:17
Speaker 5: you know, just again we're going to come back to
8:19
Speaker 5: this theme of lack of research. I talked to researchers
8:23
Speaker 5: at Harvard's Graduate School of Education who had done a
8:27
Speaker 5: study on educational apps, and they said that when they
8:30
Speaker 5: did a review of literature, there were only thirty six studies.
8:33
Speaker 5: There are hundreds of thousands of apps built as educational
8:37
Speaker 5: on any app store, and so thirty six studies is nothing.
8:43
Speaker 2: So there's like thirty six studies on almost any topic exactly.
8:49
Speaker 5: So I mean, and especially some you know, the way
8:51
Speaker 5: that education has really been remade in the past ten
8:54
Speaker 5: to fifteen years, it's it's kind of incredible that there
8:58
Speaker 5: are not.
8:58
Speaker 4: More, there's not more search.
9:01
Speaker 5: So you know, I'm not a scientist, I'm a journalist,
9:03
Speaker 5: but I think you can get a lot of information
9:06
Speaker 5: from surveys like this. And we got about a thousand
9:09
Speaker 5: responses and they were paragraphs long, and I read through
9:13
Speaker 5: as many of them as I possibly could, and I
9:15
Speaker 5: called back about probably thirty people and had long conversations,
9:20
Speaker 5: and I wrote a.
9:22
Speaker 4: Series of four pieces based on what I found.
9:25
Speaker 2: So before we get into those pieces and what you found,
9:28
Speaker 2: why do you think this is this is important? You know,
9:32
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that happen in our
9:33
Speaker 2: in our schools, you know, different crayons that they used,
9:36
Speaker 2: different like you know, things that happen in schools, like
9:38
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is, but some there must
9:41
Speaker 2: be something about this particular set of choices that you
9:43
Speaker 2: think really matters.
9:45
Speaker 4: Well.
9:46
Speaker 5: So we are seeing that test scores have dropped over
9:50
Speaker 5: the past decade. But obviously COVID was a huge, you know,
9:54
Speaker 5: crater in terms of learning loss. And I had been
9:57
Speaker 5: hearing anecdotally from teachers for years.
10:01
Speaker 4: But basically, since you.
10:02
Speaker 5: Know, smartphones came in and laptops became, you know, the
10:07
Speaker 5: norm in college classrooms that the kids were not doing
10:12
Speaker 5: as well. They could not retain information as well, they
10:16
Speaker 5: had much shorter attention spans, they simply could not concentrate
10:20
Speaker 5: on longer texts.
10:22
Speaker 4: And so this was something that I.
10:23
Speaker 5: Had been hearing from college professors for a long time,
10:26
Speaker 5: and then it started sort of creeping down in terms
10:30
Speaker 5: of the stories that I had been hearing about the
10:32
Speaker 5: lack of attention, the lack of ability to concentrate, the
10:35
Speaker 5: lack of ability to, you know, do any work that
10:38
Speaker 5: required any kind of longevity and prolonged attention. And I think,
10:46
Speaker 5: you know, people might disagree. I think that's an important
10:48
Speaker 5: skill to have, and I think that anything that is
10:52
Speaker 5: working against that skill we need to think about, we
10:55
Speaker 5: need to talk about. But I also think that we
10:59
Speaker 5: all as a society have bought into a narrative led
11:05
Speaker 5: by tech companies that more tech is better, that more tech,
11:09
Speaker 5: the higher tech that you get anything, you will have
11:12
Speaker 5: an improved experience.
11:14
Speaker 4: And they have never had to prove that.
11:17
Speaker 5: And there is no proof really that things there's like
11:22
Speaker 5: a little things around the edges that some things can
11:24
Speaker 5: improve a little bit, and we'll get into it. And
11:26
Speaker 5: especially for kids who have learning differences, so dyslexia was
11:30
Speaker 5: one thing that really has been improved by tech. So
11:33
Speaker 5: I don't mean to say it's all bad nothing is
11:35
Speaker 5: all bad or all good, but I think overall, there
11:39
Speaker 5: just has been very little scrutiny into something that has
11:43
Speaker 5: been a massive shift in the way kids learn in
11:47
Speaker 5: the past.
11:48
Speaker 4: You know, let's say two decades.
11:50
Speaker 1: All right, so let's look at what you learned.
11:52
Speaker 2: So what tell me? First headline reaction? You're like sitting down,
11:55
Speaker 2: you're looking at the stadia, You're going to write your
11:56
Speaker 2: first piece.
11:57
Speaker 1: What's your first thing? You want to say?
11:58
Speaker 4: Oh, the first thing, I I will tell you.
12:01
Speaker 5: Reading through all of these responses, I felt physically ill.
12:05
Speaker 1: Yeah that comes out.
12:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:07
Speaker 5: I had this sinking feeling, like you know when you're
12:10
Speaker 5: in a horror movie and then see here is creeping
12:15
Speaker 5: up exactly, and it just felt like, oh my god.
12:19
Speaker 4: I felt I.
12:20
Speaker 5: Was falling just through this hole of information that I
12:25
Speaker 5: had not dreamed.
12:29
Speaker 4: Was happening. I guess.
12:30
Speaker 1: So let's start with the sort.
12:31
Speaker 5: Of things that disturbed me the most, and we can
12:33
Speaker 5: sort of get pulled back from there. I don't think
12:36
Speaker 5: kindergarteners should be on iPads for much of the day
12:40
Speaker 5: and reading on iPads, and there is research that shows
12:43
Speaker 5: that you do not retain information as well when you
12:47
Speaker 5: are reading digitally. As when you were reading paper, and
12:51
Speaker 5: I think when children are learning to read and they
12:53
Speaker 5: are learning, you know, what's the cliche, it's like up
12:56
Speaker 5: till third grade, you're learning to read, and then you're
12:58
Speaker 5: reading to learn, and you read to.
13:00
Speaker 4: Learn in that you know, very.
13:04
Speaker 5: Special period where you are learning to read. I just
13:07
Speaker 5: think minimal screens is really really important. And so you know,
13:11
Speaker 5: again it's not It is very hard to say with
13:15
Speaker 5: any authority how widespread this is, but I heard numerous
13:19
Speaker 5: stories from teachers and parents about how their elementary schools
13:24
Speaker 5: had switched to digital only reading materials and so there
13:27
Speaker 5: just really weren't books. There weren't textbooks. There was one
13:30
Speaker 5: teacher who said, I would kill for a math textbook.
13:33
Speaker 5: I'm desperate to give a math textbook to my students.
13:37
Speaker 4: So I didn't enjoy that.
13:39
Speaker 5: Then you're seeing, you know, YouTube is available on chromebooks,
13:45
Speaker 5: money chromebooks, and some schools don't. There are a lot
13:49
Speaker 5: of settings, so this isn't that's the other thing. It's
13:54
Speaker 5: this is hard.
13:55
Speaker 4: This is a very complicated problem. There's lots of settings,
13:59
Speaker 4: there's lots of tools.
14:00
Speaker 5: And not all schools and school administrators are well trained
14:04
Speaker 5: in how to use the tools that they are already using.
14:07
Speaker 4: And so one thing that came up a lot was chromebooks.
14:11
Speaker 4: So chromebooks everywhere. Yep.
14:13
Speaker 5: Most most schools have laptops middle school and above individuals
14:18
Speaker 5: so one to one, and the kids are watching just
14:22
Speaker 5: TV on YouTube. So that can range from just benignly
14:26
Speaker 5: distracting and you shouldn't be watching TV when you're in
14:29
Speaker 5: the middle of class. I think that's a bad idea.
14:31
Speaker 5: I'm going to come out and say that.
14:33
Speaker 4: But then you know, sometimes the kids are watching really disturbing.
14:36
Speaker 5: Stuff from porn to clockwork orange like it's not great, and.
14:42
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, so, I think what the.
14:46
Speaker 2: So what some people would say is, oh, well, that's
14:48
Speaker 2: the fault of you know, well, that's the fault of
14:50
Speaker 2: the of the school. Like there's a way can't they
14:53
Speaker 2: block can't they block YouTube on the chromebook?
14:56
Speaker 4: So they can block YouTube?
14:58
Speaker 5: But when you have the basically the administrators described it
15:02
Speaker 5: to me as a game of whack a mole. Okay,
15:04
Speaker 5: you take the YouTube off, then if they're on the
15:06
Speaker 5: first of all, the kids are smart and they find
15:08
Speaker 5: to work around.
15:09
Speaker 1: Right, there is actually a website you can go to.
15:11
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say it on the but where
15:12
Speaker 2: it's like just unblocks your YouTube.
15:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's VPNs like the kids are smart. Good
15:18
Speaker 5: for them, honestly showing some initiative, but like there, once
15:23
Speaker 5: the screen is out and it is connected to the internet,
15:27
Speaker 5: there is only so much you can do. And is
15:30
Speaker 5: it the best use of a teacher's time to be
15:32
Speaker 5: playing whack a mole with what you don't want them
15:35
Speaker 5: to look at on the internet. And many of the
15:38
Speaker 5: teachers themselves said, I don't think this is.
15:40
Speaker 4: A good use of my time.
15:43
Speaker 5: And so you know, that's the sort of that's the
15:47
Speaker 5: big picture of the negatives.
15:49
Speaker 2: So it's it's both, I mean, just to dig into
15:51
Speaker 2: those to those negatives, it's kind of yeah, both that
15:56
Speaker 2: there are time periods in life or subjects or anything
16:00
Speaker 2: where generally we think that you would better learn with
16:02
Speaker 2: physical some kind of either reading a physical book, working
16:05
Speaker 2: in a physical textbook, something where the digital solution is
16:10
Speaker 2: not the same. And then there's just the basic distraction piece,
16:16
Speaker 2: which is that the more technology we introduce and the
16:18
Speaker 2: more we have an iPad or a chromebook or something
16:20
Speaker 2: in front of you, the more likely it is you
16:23
Speaker 2: are using that for something that isn't school great?
16:28
Speaker 4: Correct?
16:29
Speaker 5: And so ultimately the takeaway is not ban all screens,
16:33
Speaker 5: no screens ever, Like that's both unrealistic and also ignores
16:39
Speaker 5: the facts that there are some really great uses.
16:42
Speaker 2: Like tell us those what are the good great uses
16:44
Speaker 2: of things?
16:45
Speaker 5: Well, so, like I already said, for kids with learning differences, dyslexia, dysgraphia,
16:51
Speaker 5: kids with you know, physical differences, so you know, hearing loss,
16:55
Speaker 5: all of those things, like tech is amazing. Tech enables
16:58
Speaker 5: them to be able to learn like everybody else, and
17:02
Speaker 5: that should never be diminished in anyway. So I heard
17:06
Speaker 5: a lot about that, and special ed teachers said, you know,
17:08
Speaker 5: it's really been a boon to them.
17:10
Speaker 4: Many of them said that, not all of them.
17:11
Speaker 5: Actually some of them said it's worse for kids with ADHD,
17:14
Speaker 5: but like that aside. Overall, the picture was that there
17:18
Speaker 5: are many assistive technologies.
17:20
Speaker 4: That can be really really helpful.
17:23
Speaker 5: Discrete tools like does most I heard doesmost so much time,
17:27
Speaker 5: so many.
17:28
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is.
17:29
Speaker 4: It's graphing.
17:30
Speaker 5: It's for math, you know, and it makes graphing so
17:32
Speaker 5: much easier, and.
17:33
Speaker 4: It's really cool for the kids. They love to use it.
17:36
Speaker 5: Great word processing Obviously we're not going to ask kids
17:39
Speaker 5: to write two thousand words stories and long hand.
17:41
Speaker 4: That's silly, that makes no sense.
17:43
Speaker 5: So you know, there's things like I see with my
17:46
Speaker 5: older daughter, she's a dueling though it's great, it's a tool,
17:50
Speaker 5: is she uses it in addition to other.
17:52
Speaker 4: Things, but as a tool helpful.
17:56
Speaker 5: There are apps that have been proven especially with I'm
18:00
Speaker 5: going to forget what the word is for these skills,
18:03
Speaker 5: but very sort of straightforward skill building. So vocabulary, you know,
18:10
Speaker 5: learning your multiplication tables, anything where it's like you're not
18:13
Speaker 5: learning a complex thing, you're doing rote memorization. There are
18:17
Speaker 5: apps that are really helpful in doing that and can
18:20
Speaker 5: help you do it a little more quickly than you
18:22
Speaker 5: might have done it with just you know, pen and paper.
18:25
Speaker 4: Is it one hundred percent necessary, No, but it's so
18:28
Speaker 4: nice to have.
18:29
Speaker 5: So there were certain and then you know, there were
18:31
Speaker 5: teachers who said, when I can do those sorts of
18:36
Speaker 5: things more quickly, then we can get into more complex
18:41
Speaker 5: discussions and more complex kinds of learning more quickly. So
18:45
Speaker 5: I talked to an English teacher who said, a high
18:47
Speaker 5: school English teacher who said, you know, because they can
18:51
Speaker 5: look up.
18:51
Speaker 4: Vocabulary words so easily.
18:54
Speaker 5: Now my vocabulary tests are more sophisticated ways of usage,
18:59
Speaker 5: ways of using the vocabulary words in a sentence, and
19:01
Speaker 5: I even allow an open book test. But the actual
19:06
Speaker 5: mental work to do that quiz is perhaps a little
19:09
Speaker 5: more challenging because you're having to think about nuances that
19:13
Speaker 5: before you were just memorizing the vocabulary words. So you know,
19:16
Speaker 5: again there are ways of using it. I think it
19:20
Speaker 5: just always needs to be really thoughtful. And that was
19:23
Speaker 5: ultimately one of my big takeaways was that in twenty
19:27
Speaker 5: twenty and twenty twenty one, because remote learning, because of COVID,
19:32
Speaker 5: everything went remote and everything went online, and everything was digital,
19:35
Speaker 5: and just everything went off the rails in this department.
19:39
Speaker 4: And then we came back and a lot of schools.
19:43
Speaker 5: Did not We're not able to walk it back in
19:47
Speaker 5: a thoughtful way and just sort of let it run
19:49
Speaker 5: the way it had been running in twenty twenty twenty
19:52
Speaker 5: twenty one. And so I think it's a real moment
19:54
Speaker 5: now that you know, everybody's back in school, things are
19:58
Speaker 5: basically back to, you know, the way that they were
20:01
Speaker 5: to reassess and for every teacher in every classroom to
20:04
Speaker 5: think about to do even a tech audit, which is
20:08
Speaker 5: something that some experts sort of suggested, and they have
20:11
Speaker 5: a workbook about how to do such an audit in
20:13
Speaker 5: their classroom. And look at every way they're using tech
20:16
Speaker 5: to evaluate is this useful?
20:18
Speaker 4: Is there another way we could do this? Is this necessary?
20:20
Speaker 4: Is this good? And so simply too many places.
20:24
Speaker 5: It just seems like we're not asking those questions in
20:27
Speaker 5: any kind of, you know, routine way.
20:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, the lack of thoughtfulness about the use is interesting.
20:37
Speaker 4: I mean, I.
20:39
Speaker 2: The slippery slope piece of this feels maybe the slippery
20:43
Speaker 2: opens wrong word. The implementation piece of this feels so challenging, right, challenging.
20:48
Speaker 2: Once I say, look, in English class, I want everyone
20:51
Speaker 2: to be able to write an essay on the computer,
20:54
Speaker 2: Like I want you to be able to open a
20:56
Speaker 2: Google doc and write in the Google doc, because that's,
20:59
Speaker 2: you know, that's much better than having to write out
21:02
Speaker 2: and long hand, and we all agree that that's a
21:04
Speaker 2: very good use. Once you do that, then they've got
21:07
Speaker 2: their computers open, and so then you get the distraction piece.
21:11
Speaker 2: And then the teacher is not just teaching but also
21:16
Speaker 2: walking around the classroom seeing who's clicking between.
21:19
Speaker 1: Tabs in YouTube.
21:21
Speaker 2: So somehow I can imagine for schools, for parents, etc.
21:27
Speaker 2: Like getting to something that is a balance feels, I
21:31
Speaker 2: think could feel almost impossible, right that maybe there's really
21:34
Speaker 2: only like go back to writing and you know, just
21:40
Speaker 2: let it go like it is.
21:41
Speaker 1: Neither of which seems like a great current solution.
21:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it is.
21:46
Speaker 5: I don't ever mean to suggest that this is an
21:49
Speaker 5: easy problem to fix, because the other part of it
21:52
Speaker 5: is we need kids to learn how to be.
21:55
Speaker 4: Good digital citizens to each other and to human.
22:00
Speaker 2: And I mean even beyond that, just beyond the question
22:02
Speaker 2: of digital citizenship, there's the question of like in the
22:06
Speaker 2: world they will have computers, right, Like, we are training
22:09
Speaker 2: kids for a world in which the expectation is that
22:11
Speaker 2: they know how to you know, open up a Google
22:13
Speaker 2: doc and and do stuff. And there's like a set
22:16
Speaker 2: of skills there that they need to learn. So living
22:19
Speaker 2: in a you know, in a hut with no technology
22:22
Speaker 2: is like also not a good preparation for certain aspects
22:24
Speaker 2: of the modern world.
22:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you have to build the willpower to not
22:29
Speaker 5: I mean, I am only one woman.
22:32
Speaker 4: I have eight thousand tabs open at every.
22:35
Speaker 5: Minute of the day, like you know, and I'm and
22:38
Speaker 5: a lot of them are for work, and I'm like, oh,
22:40
Speaker 5: do I do this piece of work or this piece
22:42
Speaker 5: of work?
22:42
Speaker 4: And let me check.
22:43
Speaker 1: I just have like a zoom like all of the
22:45
Speaker 1: zoom things.
22:46
Speaker 2: Somehow zoom opens a new tab every time I zoom,
22:48
Speaker 2: and I never close them.
22:49
Speaker 1: So I think is just like.
22:51
Speaker 5: I don't know, Yeah, it is a skill that they're
22:55
Speaker 5: going to have to build.
22:55
Speaker 4: Is also to be able to avoid the.
22:58
Speaker 5: Constant acting attention, you know, sucking nature of the Internet
23:04
Speaker 5: and modern world. So you know, I don't think, you know,
23:08
Speaker 5: full abstinence makes sense for pretty much anybody forever. But
23:13
Speaker 5: I again, it's not going to be a one size
23:15
Speaker 5: fits all.
23:16
Speaker 4: I feel like you run into this often.
23:20
Speaker 5: With the subject to your cover that it is blanket
23:23
Speaker 5: recommendations are almost never useful, and so I think that
23:29
Speaker 5: the just having those frameworks of is it useful?
23:32
Speaker 4: Is it necessary? Is a good It's a place to start.
23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's almost I almost think there's
23:38
Speaker 2: a shift of default that might help, right that, like
23:41
Speaker 2: we are there's a thing to say. By default, there's
23:44
Speaker 2: no technology, but if there is a reason to have,
23:48
Speaker 2: like in order to get over the barrier of introducing technology,
23:51
Speaker 2: into some lesson at school. We need to have an
23:55
Speaker 2: active reason to think it would make this experience better,
23:59
Speaker 2: as opposed to saying the default is everything is done
24:02
Speaker 2: on the computer, and you need to show an active
24:03
Speaker 2: reason why it would be better to not do it
24:05
Speaker 2: on the computer, which sometimes feels like where we are now.
24:08
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and I do think there just needs to be
24:10
Speaker 5: a lot. I mean, and something I did not even
24:13
Speaker 5: have space to get into in my stories was the
24:16
Speaker 5: data privacy piece of it. So I don't trust the
24:20
Speaker 5: tech companies to do what they say they will do
24:22
Speaker 5: in terms of protecting our kids' data privacy.
24:24
Speaker 4: I just don't.
24:25
Speaker 5: They've been sued before, they have lost those lawsuits, Like,
24:28
Speaker 5: it's not they have not shown themselves to be.
24:31
Speaker 1: It's a hard problem, and it does not seem like
24:33
Speaker 1: it has been solved.
24:34
Speaker 5: Yes and so, and then it's like you see some
24:36
Speaker 5: tech companies being like, we should put VR in the classroom,
24:39
Speaker 5: and it's like, first of all, from a practicality level,
24:43
Speaker 5: that headset would get broken by children within ten minutes.
24:49
Speaker 4: Like so, just it's just the expense the practicality.
24:52
Speaker 5: I'm sure you could do a couple really cool things
24:55
Speaker 5: on it, but that's Something else that I did discuss
24:58
Speaker 5: in the piece was the expense part.
25:00
Speaker 4: So I think that there's this idea.
25:02
Speaker 5: That if we just digitized everything, it would be cheaper
25:04
Speaker 5: and we wouldn't have to pay for textbooks. It's at
25:08
Speaker 5: best a wash because those chromebooks. Some teacher wrote in
25:12
Speaker 5: was like, there's one eighth grader who we've had to
25:16
Speaker 5: give forty replacements of various things. You know. It's just
25:20
Speaker 5: like the expense of that, the ecological damage of you know,
25:23
Speaker 5: getting rid of all of these laptops that you know
25:26
Speaker 5: are become obsolete pretty quickly, you know, so it's just like,
25:32
Speaker 5: let's not the electricity use all of that. So it's like, yeah,
25:35
Speaker 5: we have fewer photo copies. Okay, yea true, but let's
25:40
Speaker 5: not pretend that we're not introducing a bunch of other
25:43
Speaker 5: issues and expenses that were not there before.
25:55
Speaker 2: More parent data, including whether school should ban phones and
25:58
Speaker 2: the reader response to Jessica growth is reporting after the break.
26:11
Speaker 2: So we talked a little bit about the idea of distraction,
26:14
Speaker 2: but like kids are distractable, I think some some pushback
26:19
Speaker 2: I can imagine to say, look, tech distraction is no
26:21
Speaker 2: different from you know, there's a bird out the window
26:23
Speaker 2: distraction from you know, somebody's yelling outside distraction kids have
26:28
Speaker 2: trouble focusing because their children. Is your sense from the
26:32
Speaker 2: from the literature that this is fundamentally a pretty different
26:35
Speaker 2: kind of distraction.
26:37
Speaker 5: I do think it's different, and this is a little
26:39
Speaker 5: more philosophical rather than you know, strictly dated driven. But
26:46
Speaker 5: to me, and when I think about my kids when
26:48
Speaker 5: they are zombie out watching YouTube, that is very different
26:54
Speaker 5: from sitting and staring off into space and daydreaming and
26:57
Speaker 5: having whatever is generating in your little mind. It's different
27:01
Speaker 5: from you know, looking out the window and being like,
27:05
Speaker 5: what that what's that dog doing. It's engaging with the
27:08
Speaker 5: natural world around you, with your peers, socializing. I mean,
27:12
Speaker 5: that's something that I I have not allowed my middle
27:16
Speaker 5: school to have a cell phone. And part of the
27:19
Speaker 5: reason why is because when she's hanging out with her friends,
27:22
Speaker 5: I want them to be hanging out and not all
27:25
Speaker 5: gathered around the screen together, which obviously they still definitely do,
27:28
Speaker 5: but I would try like to minimize that, especially when
27:31
Speaker 5: they are out and about in the neighborhood.
27:33
Speaker 4: And even something like doodling.
27:35
Speaker 5: I think doodling is more generative than sitting and watching
27:39
Speaker 5: a clip from a Clockwork Orange when you are supposed
27:42
Speaker 5: to be in the middle of your English class, which
27:44
Speaker 5: is an actual Although listen, Clockwork Orange is a great movie,
27:48
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna.
27:50
Speaker 1: It's not for English classes.
27:51
Speaker 4: It's probably not for thirteen.
27:52
Speaker 1: Years, not for children.
27:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I mean, I think what is going on
27:56
Speaker 5: in their actual minds and having them focus on that,
27:59
Speaker 5: or folks on the actual physical humans around them. I
28:02
Speaker 5: just think that that is better, and people can disagree
28:04
Speaker 5: with that. People can That is I think a little
28:07
Speaker 5: bit more values and philosophy, but I do feel it
28:12
Speaker 5: pretty strongly. Yeah.
28:14
Speaker 2: I think the other thing I would add to that
28:16
Speaker 2: is just that the the way that something like YouTube
28:20
Speaker 2: works is it's algorithmically designed to keep you there. And
28:23
Speaker 2: so if we think about the kind of staring out
28:26
Speaker 2: the window form of distraction, eventually the dog is gone,
28:30
Speaker 2: you know, you kind of there's a the world does
28:32
Speaker 2: not provide you with is not algorithmically designed to keep
28:35
Speaker 2: you staring out the window, whereas YouTube is designed to
28:39
Speaker 2: keep you flipping flipping through. That's I mean, that's literally
28:42
Speaker 2: some very smart people are figuring out how to do that,
28:44
Speaker 2: and I think that that piece of it is is
28:48
Speaker 2: probably important to keep in mind when we think about
28:50
Speaker 2: you know, how is how are kids interacting with this
28:52
Speaker 2: in a way that's different from interacting with other forms
28:55
Speaker 2: of stimuli.
28:56
Speaker 5: That's right, And and the connections that your brain is
28:59
Speaker 5: making on its own, serendipitously are different than the ones
29:04
Speaker 5: that the algorithms might drive you to and the sort
29:07
Speaker 5: of things that you think about. And I just think
29:10
Speaker 5: that's a better way to spend the majority of your day.
29:14
Speaker 1: In school paying attention exactly learning math.
29:21
Speaker 2: I'm curious in the survey whether people talked about phones.
29:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean the sort of uniformly everyone was like,
29:27
Speaker 5: get the I could not find a parent or a teacher.
29:30
Speaker 2: Who was like, I like to have the cell phones,
29:33
Speaker 2: and I have yet to find I have been looking
29:36
Speaker 2: for an expert who thinks of phones in classrooms and
29:39
Speaker 2: have not found one.
29:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, so.
29:44
Speaker 1: Why do you think so?
29:45
Speaker 2: I mean, this maybe is a little bit beyond the survey,
29:48
Speaker 2: but like the issue of phones in classrooms has struck
29:51
Speaker 2: me as something where the agreement among adults is quite widespread,
29:58
Speaker 2: but teachers, among parents and my people digital experts, And
30:02
Speaker 2: it is true that our children perhaps would like cell
30:04
Speaker 2: phones in the classroom, but I'm sure they would also
30:07
Speaker 2: like you know, unlimited soda and cookies and all kinds
30:10
Speaker 2: of other things that we're not putting in the classroom.
30:12
Speaker 1: They're kids.
30:15
Speaker 2: What do you think is the reason that not everyone
30:18
Speaker 2: has banned cell phones in school in classrooms?
30:21
Speaker 5: So the defense that I've heard of it is for
30:25
Speaker 5: safety and for parents to be able to reach kids
30:28
Speaker 5: at any time. But like, I don't find that compelling
30:31
Speaker 5: considering you know, call this the front office. If it's
30:34
Speaker 5: an emergency, they'll get to the kid pretty fast. Like
30:37
Speaker 5: it's not a huge place. They are contained already, and
30:41
Speaker 5: you know, we survived with now I hate that argument too.
30:46
Speaker 4: It's just like it did back in our day. But
30:47
Speaker 4: we did. We survived with the payphones and the you know,
30:50
Speaker 4: PA system, Like it was fine.
30:52
Speaker 5: I just don't think that there's so many reasons that
30:54
Speaker 5: a parent might need to reach a child during the day,
30:59
Speaker 5: So I don't find that interesting. I do think, I mean,
31:03
Speaker 5: I think some of it is they don't want to
31:06
Speaker 5: be responsible for taking the kid's property and if.
31:10
Speaker 4: It gets damaged.
31:11
Speaker 5: It's just this other sort of logistical and legal responsibility
31:15
Speaker 5: that I think school sometimes don't want to have.
31:17
Speaker 4: So those are the only.
31:18
Speaker 5: Two sort of reasons why I think that it hasn't
31:20
Speaker 5: happened yet. And then it cuts like to get the
31:23
Speaker 5: yonder pouches, that's an expense, and like it's just you
31:25
Speaker 5: know sometimes I mean I have in sort of extreme
31:29
Speaker 5: cases heard that the teachers they do have a ban
31:31
Speaker 5: against it, but the kid's behavior is so bad and
31:34
Speaker 5: the kids become aggressive and at some point policing the
31:37
Speaker 5: cell phone use. Again, it's just like do I teach
31:40
Speaker 5: the class today or do I police the cell phone use?
31:43
Speaker 5: And so that's sort of another layer to it. And
31:45
Speaker 5: again that is you know, we're not talking elementary here,
31:48
Speaker 5: we're talking middle and high school.
31:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let me ask you that.
31:52
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this because I for me, if
31:54
Speaker 2: you had to say, like make one tech change, that
31:56
Speaker 2: is a tech change I would make is to say, basically,
31:59
Speaker 2: let's just get to a place where there are no
32:01
Speaker 2: phones in classrooms, yeah.
32:03
Speaker 1: Or ideally in the in this school day. What is
32:06
Speaker 1: the one change if you were like.
32:08
Speaker 2: A fairy, you know, like a like a wizard, what
32:13
Speaker 2: is the one tech change you would make?
32:18
Speaker 4: I'm with you on the no cell phones.
32:19
Speaker 5: But beyond that, I would actually say the kids can
32:23
Speaker 5: have one to one devices, but they live in a
32:25
Speaker 5: tech room.
32:26
Speaker 4: They live not in the classroom.
32:29
Speaker 5: You're not taking them from English, you know, for the
32:31
Speaker 5: older kids, you're not taking them from English to chemistry
32:33
Speaker 5: to whatever. That it creates that having them live not
32:38
Speaker 5: with you creates a default that is not the computer.
32:41
Speaker 4: And even possibly, and this is even.
32:45
Speaker 5: More extreme, having them only used, you know, having time limits,
32:50
Speaker 5: saying an hour a day, we are striving to have
32:52
Speaker 5: the kids one out of eight hours on screens and
32:55
Speaker 5: that's it.
32:57
Speaker 4: I don't Again, it's like the.
33:00
Speaker 5: Needs of every school are so different and so it
33:04
Speaker 5: is tough to say that.
33:05
Speaker 4: But you know.
33:08
Speaker 5: What, just having them up all of the time, I
33:11
Speaker 5: can't justify it. I don't think that there is any
33:14
Speaker 5: reason for it, and I think it is a net negative.
33:17
Speaker 2: So it's interesting because there's actually some research in college
33:22
Speaker 2: that students learn better, like they've done trials where students
33:26
Speaker 2: basically learn better if you don't allow computers in the classroom.
33:30
Speaker 2: And so I don't let my students use computers. And
33:34
Speaker 2: I actually realized the biggest issue is not their own
33:41
Speaker 2: use of the computer, but the almost the distraction of
33:45
Speaker 2: someone else, Like these are adults, and so look, if
33:48
Speaker 2: you don't want to pay attention to what I'm saying,
33:51
Speaker 2: like your parents paid for you to be at this
33:53
Speaker 2: Ivy League school, you know, like this is an opportunity,
33:55
Speaker 2: and I think you should want to engage with that.
33:58
Speaker 2: But if you want to be like checking your email
34:01
Speaker 2: or you know, iming, I guess that people don't insit
34:04
Speaker 2: message anymore whatever other people from nineteen eighty seven from
34:10
Speaker 2: my childhood. Anyway, if you want to be doing that, like,
34:13
Speaker 2: I think that's like that's on in some sense, it's
34:15
Speaker 2: on you.
34:16
Speaker 1: But what I find is that if you're sitting behind someone.
34:18
Speaker 2: And they are texting or emailing and not taking notes,
34:22
Speaker 2: it's actually quite distracting. And so I think the biggest
34:25
Speaker 2: value to this in the in the classrooms that I
34:28
Speaker 2: sit at the front of are just other.
34:31
Speaker 1: People are not distracted by your distraction.
34:34
Speaker 5: As show that too, that the that just someone next
34:37
Speaker 5: to you having the laptop open means you will do
34:41
Speaker 5: worse and you will pay less attention.
34:42
Speaker 4: That's absolutely true.
34:43
Speaker 2: So when we have me sort of think about the
34:45
Speaker 2: question of like almost like externalities, right, like what in
34:49
Speaker 2: economics when we want we think the government or some
34:52
Speaker 2: policy maker should intervene on something we're always looking for, Like, well,
34:54
Speaker 2: they want to intervene if there's an externality, if like
34:57
Speaker 2: you are not internalizing the full cost of your behavior,
35:00
Speaker 2: And there is a place where I think kids are
35:02
Speaker 2: are kind of not internalizing the full cost of watching
35:05
Speaker 2: YouTube because it's distracting the other kid who isn't who's
35:08
Speaker 2: trying not to watch YouTube, but is you know, sucked
35:10
Speaker 2: into the shorts about pie or whatever.
35:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean what teachers will also tell you
35:16
Speaker 5: is like there are some kids, especially in K through twelve,
35:18
Speaker 5: who just simply refuse to learn, and at some point like,
35:24
Speaker 5: but they shouldn't be.
35:26
Speaker 4: Able to distract the kids who who really do want
35:29
Speaker 4: to learn and pay attention. So I think.
35:31
Speaker 1: That's I'm curious. My last thing I want to ask
35:33
Speaker 1: is how do people react to your write up of this?
35:35
Speaker 4: They were mostly very into it.
35:38
Speaker 5: You know, parents thanked me, they were excited to be
35:42
Speaker 5: able to send it to their school administrators. So I'm sorry,
35:46
Speaker 5: superintendents of America that I've now darkened your doorstep, but
35:52
Speaker 5: I think a lot of them have sort of been
35:54
Speaker 5: fighting this privately or have a couple of like minded
35:59
Speaker 5: parents that they sort of have banded together with. But
36:01
Speaker 5: I think so many parents feel totally helpless about this
36:06
Speaker 5: because even if they in their homes have very strict
36:09
Speaker 5: rules about device use, it's like, Oh, the kids coming
36:12
Speaker 5: home with a chromebook and they have to do their
36:14
Speaker 5: homework on it. Like I, I can't say no to that.
36:18
Speaker 5: So I think having a desire for some backup from
36:25
Speaker 5: the school, a real partnership, and a desire a stated
36:28
Speaker 5: desire to reduce the tech in the kids'.
36:31
Speaker 4: Lives was very welcomed.
36:35
Speaker 5: And I did get some pushback, certainly, you know people
36:39
Speaker 5: you know who made really good points about how tech
36:41
Speaker 5: has improved their kids' lives, And I take that really seriously,
36:44
Speaker 5: and so I don't want to be again one size
36:46
Speaker 5: fits all as tough. It doesn't always work. But I
36:49
Speaker 5: think overall.
36:53
Speaker 4: People were very excited to.
36:56
Speaker 5: See more information on it, even if it is not
37:01
Speaker 5: I'm not a social scientist, but I think having a
37:04
Speaker 5: thousand people talking about this in granular detail was very
37:07
Speaker 5: helpful to them.
37:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's also incredibly valuable just to bring
37:14
Speaker 2: people's attention to this, because if the argument is largely
37:19
Speaker 2: we defaulted into something which was very different than five
37:23
Speaker 2: years ago, and we defaulted into it without really thinking
37:28
Speaker 2: about whether it's what we wanted. That having people just say, hey,
37:31
Speaker 2: let's have a conversation about whether that's the right thing
37:34
Speaker 2: to have done is already kind of a first.
37:37
Speaker 4: Step, I hope.
37:39
Speaker 2: So so thank you, Thank you for joining me, Thank
37:42
Speaker 2: you for thank you for doing the.
37:44
Speaker 4: Work my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
38:07
Speaker 2: Parent Data is produced by Tamar Avishai with support from
38:11
Speaker 2: the parent Data team and PI Rex. If you have
38:14
Speaker 2: thoughts on this episode, please join the conversation on my
38:16
Speaker 2: Instagram at Prof Emily Oster, and if you want to
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38:27
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38:30
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38:34
Speaker 2: this summer, I wrote about screens and social media, particularly
38:37
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38:40
Speaker 2: how involved parents should be in monitoring it. Check it
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38:58
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38:59
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39:01
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39:08
Speaker 1: Right, mom, We'll see you next time.