Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #763 Are Smart Phones a Smart Idea in Schools?
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Studies show that the people who benefit the most from
- 0:14Speaker 2: removing the distraction of a smartphone from the school classroom
- 0:17Speaker 2: are the students who struggle at school.
- 0:22Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
- 0:25Speaker 1: and dad.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Well Kylie. The topic of smartphones in schools has arisen
- 0:29Speaker 2: once again. My friend Madonna King and another one a
- 0:33Speaker 2: friend of mine, Rebecca Sparrow, have joined forces and I'm
- 0:36Speaker 2: doing some work with them on this, as well as
- 0:37Speaker 2: a couple of other people around the country who really
- 0:40Speaker 2: care about this issue a lot to discuss whether or
- 0:43Speaker 2: not Queensland should be doing what several other states have
- 0:46Speaker 2: now done and bring in a smartphone ban in schools
- 0:51Speaker 2: because smartphones calls distraction. I note that while I'm having
- 0:54Speaker 2: this conversation with you, you are staring at your screen
- 0:57Speaker 2: and not paying attention to what I'm saying. You're literally
- 0:59Speaker 2: doing that, and we did not rehearse this, and I'm
- 1:01Speaker 2: so upset at you.
- 1:03Speaker 3: I was halfway through watching a recipe.
- 1:05Speaker 2: And look, you don't even you haven't even got your
- 1:07Speaker 2: microphone in front of your face. Because you're so distracted
- 1:09Speaker 2: by your phone. You have literally just closed the argument
- 1:12Speaker 2: for me. And we haven't knew what the answer was
- 1:15Speaker 2: from the beginning, but you literally lived it for me.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Right then, folks, this is not pre arranged. That literally happened.
- 1:26Speaker 2: I can't believe you. Hello, my name's Doc Justin Coslin
- 1:29Speaker 2: here with my somewhat distracted perpetually on her phone wife Kylie.
- 1:33Speaker 2: As we can't believe you said, as we talk about
- 1:36Speaker 2: the challenge of smartphones in schools and whether or not
- 1:39Speaker 2: they should or should not be banned, I note that
- 1:42Speaker 2: you are still Oh that's right, you're turning it off now, fantastic.
- 1:45Speaker 2: Just as well. We do have some conflict in our
- 1:48Speaker 2: home about this, don't we a little? Okay? So, Rebecca
- 1:51Speaker 2: and Madonna and myself and a half of others Michelle
- 1:54Speaker 2: Mitchell are pushing really hard to ban smartphones in Queensland's
- 2:00Speaker 2: as other states have done, and I thought today it
- 2:02Speaker 2: was probably worth just unpacking this a little bit on
- 2:04Speaker 2: the podcast and talking about the reason that I'm so
- 2:07Speaker 2: against it, and I.
- 2:08Speaker 3: Don't even against spanning it.
- 2:10Speaker 2: No, no against smartphones being available in schools, but I
- 2:14Speaker 2: just realized we literally have not I've worked out what
- 2:18Speaker 2: I want to talk about. I don't even know your
- 2:20Speaker 2: position on this. I don't even know if you agree
- 2:22Speaker 2: with me should smartphones be in schools? I'd love to
- 2:25Speaker 2: get an opinion from you before I share my myriad
- 2:28Speaker 2: of reasons and all of the stuff that I want
- 2:30Speaker 2: to share here. I've got a lot to say, as
- 2:32Speaker 2: you no doubt not going to be surprised about. I'd
- 2:36Speaker 2: love to know what somebody who's a mum who doesn't
- 2:38Speaker 2: read psychological research thinks about whether or not kids should
- 2:42Speaker 2: have smartphones in schools, Like, what's your general take on this?
- 2:45Speaker 3: I think it's absolutely unnecessary and it causes so much
- 2:49Speaker 3: conflict and challenge and exposure for our kids that's completely unnecessary.
- 2:56Speaker 2: Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. So kids are being exposed.
- 2:59Speaker 2: I mean I hear from parents constantly about how their
- 3:01Speaker 2: eight year olds, their ten year olds have been exposed
- 3:03Speaker 2: to explicit content because some kid had a smartphone at
- 3:06Speaker 2: school or an iPad at school or something like that.
- 3:08Speaker 3: You know, we had a challenging situation on our recent
- 3:12Speaker 3: crewis with one of our children, and the comment that
- 3:16Speaker 3: you made was you were so grateful that we weren't
- 3:19Speaker 3: connected and as a result, she didn't have access to
- 3:22Speaker 3: any social media or which would have had just exacerbated
- 3:25Speaker 3: the situation.
- 3:26Speaker 2: Yeah, she had a tough time. We ended up saying, look,
- 3:28Speaker 2: don't go to the teenage hanging out kids club thing today.
- 3:31Speaker 2: You can just stay home with us, or stay in
- 3:33Speaker 2: the cabin with us, come and do our stuff, and
- 3:35Speaker 2: especially tonight you're staying in And she was really unhappy
- 3:38Speaker 2: about it. But having that distance, not having the screen
- 3:43Speaker 2: and the connection and the ongoing interaction, it made all
- 3:46Speaker 2: the difference.
- 3:48Speaker 3: You know, outside of all of those things, it's just
- 3:50Speaker 3: a distraction, an unnecessary distraction in the learning environment. I
- 3:55Speaker 3: don't it's absolutely unnecessary.
- 3:56Speaker 2: Do you have anything that you'd like to add? No,
- 3:58Speaker 2: ask me what I think?
- 4:00Speaker 3: Do you think?
- 4:00Speaker 2: I'm so glad you did you say what do you think? Doctor?
- 4:03Speaker 2: Justin calls, I did say, Okay, So I have put
- 4:07Speaker 2: together a long list of what's going on here. I
- 4:11Speaker 2: don't want kids to become smombies. You're looking at me
- 4:14Speaker 2: like that's a funny word smomby social media zombie is
- 4:17Speaker 2: what smomby is. You've not heard of swomby. I'm gissing,
- 4:21Speaker 2: that's so let's be really clear. As time is going
- 4:27Speaker 2: on and research evidence is accumulating, we're starting to see
- 4:31Speaker 2: that there are both positives and negatives when it comes
- 4:33Speaker 2: to children having access to screens generally, but social media specifically.
- 4:40Speaker 3: Well, most schools these days have laptops. That's the chosen
- 4:45Speaker 3: mode of.
- 4:45Speaker 2: A lot of schools are demanding that kids are on
- 4:47Speaker 2: a screen.
- 4:48Speaker 3: Yeah, so a phone is literally an unnecessary accessory to learning.
- 4:56Speaker 2: This raises an important point in this whole conversation. You
- 4:58Speaker 2: can ban smartphones, but kids are We've got iPads, they've
- 5:00Speaker 2: still got tablets, they've still got computers. So it doesn't
- 5:05Speaker 2: completely resolve the issue. Kids are still going to be
- 5:09Speaker 2: on screens, They're still going to have access to social
- 5:11Speaker 2: media and so on.
- 5:12Speaker 3: Most school's laptop structures are such that a lot of
- 5:16Speaker 3: those things are.
- 5:18Speaker 2: The school shuts a lot of stuff down, and they've
- 5:20Speaker 2: got the resources, the technological resources to do that or
- 5:24Speaker 2: at least to minimize the extent which kids are doing stuff.
- 5:26Speaker 2: Having said that, I remember several of our kids have
- 5:29Speaker 2: been able to work their way around this stuff pretty easily,
- 5:32Speaker 2: and the school hasn't done anything at all about it,
- 5:34Speaker 2: which has driven both you and I up the wall.
- 5:38Speaker 2: But here's what research tells us around the different way
- 5:42Speaker 2: that social media affects kids, and this is from the
- 5:45Speaker 2: kids themselves. So one of the positives is the self
- 5:49Speaker 2: expression that it facilitates and also the validation that kids get. Now,
- 5:52Speaker 2: both positive and negative, it can be really great for
- 5:55Speaker 2: self esteem and social support and identity experimentation. Negatives around
- 6:01Speaker 2: identity experimentation, social comparison, anxiety, fear of judgment, risk of behavior.
- 6:05Speaker 2: That kind of thing is challenging. We know that it's
- 6:09Speaker 2: bad when it comes to appearance comparison and body ideals.
- 6:14Speaker 2: We know that it's bad from the pressure to stay connected,
- 6:18Speaker 2: the fear of missing out. We know that that increases distraction.
- 6:23Speaker 2: We also know that it's bad from exposure to bullying
- 6:25Speaker 2: and harmful content, explicit content, that kind of thing. But
- 6:29Speaker 2: the positives around social engagement peer support are really strong.
- 6:32Speaker 2: So the argument that we need to just get rid
- 6:35Speaker 2: of it because it's bad doesn't completely stack up. There
- 6:39Speaker 2: are some positives as well as some negatives. I guess
- 6:41Speaker 2: the big question is to what extent, to what extent
- 6:45Speaker 2: are the positives and negatives affecting schooling. And that's where
- 6:48Speaker 2: I really want to go with this conversation. But you're
- 6:50Speaker 2: busting to ask me a question.
- 6:52Speaker 3: Now, I was going to ask you a question. I
- 6:53Speaker 3: was just going to say, well, there are definitely some
- 6:55Speaker 3: positives to having it. The reality is they're not big
- 6:57Speaker 3: enough to warrant having them on site.
- 7:00Speaker 2: Well, let me share with you a couple of things
- 7:01Speaker 2: that I think are fascinating from a research point of
- 7:03Speaker 2: view around why I believe that we should be Like,
- 7:09Speaker 2: my position for the last fifteen years has been as
- 7:11Speaker 2: a parent, don't ban your kids from X, Y and Z.
- 7:14Speaker 2: When it comes to screens, you can't ban them. It
- 7:16Speaker 2: won't work. I still stand by that from a parenting
- 7:19Speaker 2: point of view. So I just want to distinguish here
- 7:21Speaker 2: we're not talking about parenting. We're talking about whether mobile
- 7:24Speaker 2: phones should be allowed in schools. It's a very different
- 7:28Speaker 2: context with completely different objectives and a totally different control
- 7:34Speaker 2: structure around it compared to what happens in the family home.
- 7:38Speaker 2: I can't be explicit enough about that you cannot do
- 7:41Speaker 2: this at home. It won't work, and I don't think
- 7:44Speaker 2: that it's going to be good for your children. But
- 7:45Speaker 2: we're talking about an educational context here, and this is
- 7:49Speaker 2: why it's different. So I want to start with something
- 7:51Speaker 2: really simple. There's this thing that we call the brain
- 7:53Speaker 2: drain studies. When we're talking about social media and telephones.
- 7:57Speaker 2: There's a whole lot of studies that have been done
- 7:58Speaker 2: where literally the mere presence of a telephone on the
- 8:01Speaker 2: table distracts people, reduces the quality of interactions socially, empathically,
- 8:06Speaker 2: it's associated with decreased capacity for memory, attention, all that
- 8:11Speaker 2: kind of thing. If I'm having a conversation with you
- 8:13Speaker 2: and you're distracted, even though you're not looking at the phone,
- 8:16Speaker 2: simply the presence of the phone, what that does is
- 8:20Speaker 2: it makes the experience worse for you and it makes
- 8:23Speaker 2: it worse for me. So we've got a whole lot
- 8:25Speaker 2: of studies that show just having a phone on the table,
- 8:27Speaker 2: we'll do that keep the phones off the table that
- 8:30Speaker 2: you've literally just put your phone on the floor. So
- 8:34Speaker 2: that's the brain drain studies. Here's the next thing. A
- 8:38Speaker 2: meta analysis that was published just in the last year
- 8:40Speaker 2: or so showed that phones create distraction and with that
- 8:45Speaker 2: smartphone use. As smartphone use goes up, we see academic
- 8:50Speaker 2: performance go down. Now, the effect statistically isn't huge, but
- 8:55Speaker 2: it's there, it's present, and this is the bit that
- 8:59Speaker 2: gets really important to me. I mean, a meta analysis
- 9:01Speaker 2: is a study of all the studies. It's where we
- 9:03Speaker 2: get as many research reports as we can that are
- 9:07Speaker 2: relevant and that meet a minimal level of criteria, and
- 9:11Speaker 2: then we have a look at what their results are
- 9:12Speaker 2: and we work out overall what the results mean. The
- 9:15Speaker 2: fascinating part of this is that studies show that the
- 9:20Speaker 2: people who benefit the most from removing the distraction of
- 9:24Speaker 2: a smartphone from the school classroom are the students who
- 9:28Speaker 2: struggle at school. So if we talk about kids who
- 9:33Speaker 2: are having a hard time at school, the best thing
- 9:35Speaker 2: we can do for them is get the smartphones out
- 9:37Speaker 2: of the environment. Because a study from Spain showed the
- 9:41Speaker 2: most benefits experienced when removing smartphones go to struggling students,
- 9:45Speaker 2: and there's also a reduction in bullying plus students. Highlighted
- 9:49Speaker 2: that social interactions improved in a separate study, and fascinatingly,
- 9:54Speaker 2: in a qualitative study that I found kids actually prefer
- 9:58Speaker 2: it when phones are out of the environment, which I
- 10:00Speaker 2: find extraordinary. They're going to fight tooth and nail saying
- 10:03Speaker 2: you can't take our phones away and they're going to
- 10:05Speaker 2: do everything they can to make sure that they can
- 10:08Speaker 2: get access to their phones even when we've said no.
- 10:10Speaker 2: And yet they're actually happy when the phone's gone, which
- 10:13Speaker 2: I thought was fascinating. Now here's another study that I
- 10:19Speaker 2: think you'll love. Most of the time, when studies are done,
- 10:22Speaker 2: we say how much time are you spending on your screen?
- 10:25Speaker 2: And what are your grades? And so people have to estimate.
- 10:27Speaker 2: But if I was to literally ask you to estimate
- 10:29Speaker 2: how much time you spend on your screen each day,
- 10:31Speaker 2: could you do it? How many hours a day do
- 10:33Speaker 2: you spend on your screen?
- 10:35Speaker 3: No? I am actually surprised how much screen time I have,
- 10:38Speaker 3: Like when I get my weekly analysis.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Yes, but and you think to yourself, I can't possibly
- 10:43Speaker 2: be spending five hours a day on my screen.
- 10:44Speaker 3: But that's because I use Google Maps for everything.
- 10:47Speaker 2: I don't know if it includes Google Maps, does right?
- 10:49Speaker 2: And podcasts and so. But this is the critical thing here.
- 10:52Speaker 2: If you listen to podcasts, if you're using Google Maps,
- 10:54Speaker 2: if you've got Spotify playing, shouldn't that be counting towards
- 10:57Speaker 2: whether or not you're doing well on your GPA with
- 11:00Speaker 2: your school performance? Like there are all kinds of things
- 11:03Speaker 2: that we use our phones. No, no, But the point
- 11:07Speaker 2: still stands, we use our phones for a multiplicity of actions,
- 11:11Speaker 2: for our range.
- 11:12Speaker 3: During the school day, there shouldn't be any need for
- 11:16Speaker 3: a phone and for any of the things that the
- 11:18Speaker 3: phone offers.
- 11:19Speaker 2: All I was going to say is we can't even
- 11:21Speaker 2: objectively guess how much time we use per day, Like,
- 11:23Speaker 2: we have no idea how much time we spend on
- 11:24Speaker 2: We have to go on look it up to find it.
- 11:26Speaker 2: But in a lot of the studies, they say how
- 11:28Speaker 2: many hours a day you spending and then they correlate
- 11:29Speaker 2: that with GPA and they come up with their thing.
- 11:31Speaker 2: But a recent study looked at Apple screen time stats,
- 11:35Speaker 2: so we've got exact numbers correlated that with GPA. Guess what,
- 11:38Speaker 2: the research.
- 11:38Speaker 3: Show, the greater the use of the phone, the lower
- 11:41Speaker 3: their GPA.
- 11:42Speaker 2: Pretty much, that was exactly it. So we see all
- 11:45Speaker 2: of these reasons that when it comes to distraction, when
- 11:48Speaker 2: it comes to relationships, when it comes to pressure to
- 11:51Speaker 2: state it connected, when it comes to bullying, no matter
- 11:54Speaker 2: what it is, if you look at it, we see
- 11:57Speaker 2: that smartphones are not giving us great things. My argument,
- 12:02Speaker 2: this is my summary argument for a smartphone ban in
- 12:04Speaker 2: schools The research shows that when there's less distraction, you
- 12:07Speaker 2: get better academic performance. The research shows that when there's
- 12:11Speaker 2: less smartphone usage, you get more physical activity. The data
- 12:15Speaker 2: shows that you see an increase in in person social interactions,
- 12:20Speaker 2: and those social interactions are improved when smartphones aren't in
- 12:23Speaker 2: the picture.
- 12:25Speaker 3: Well, how many times have you walked into a room
- 12:27Speaker 3: of teenagers and they're all sitting together, but they're on
- 12:29Speaker 3: their phones. That's just no conversation happening.
- 12:33Speaker 2: But before I summarize my main point and really close
- 12:39Speaker 2: this argument down, I just want to acknowledge that there
- 12:42Speaker 2: are arguments against the smartphone ban, and they're good arguments,
- 12:45Speaker 2: and we need more evidence because we just don't have enough.
- 12:48Speaker 2: And those arguments include the value of children being able
- 12:53Speaker 2: to communicate with their parents. Like I've spoken to so
- 12:55Speaker 2: many parents who have said, my child has anxiety or
- 12:57Speaker 2: my child has specific health needs, and I want them
- 13:00Speaker 2: to be able to contact me. Now, I know a
- 13:02Speaker 2: lot of people say, we'll just go to the office,
- 13:04Speaker 2: and I'm kind of generally in agreement with that, but
- 13:07Speaker 2: I also understand that in some circumstances, your child being
- 13:10Speaker 2: able to access you.
- 13:12Speaker 3: Yeah, but having a few children with access to It
- 13:15Speaker 3: is totally different to having a classroom.
- 13:16Speaker 2: But if you have a few children who have access
- 13:18Speaker 2: to it, then all the other students and many parents
- 13:20Speaker 2: will get upset about it. So that's a challenge. Another
- 13:24Speaker 2: argument against a smartphone ban is that like kids do
- 13:28Speaker 2: need to learn how to manage themselves in a world
- 13:31Speaker 2: full of distractions, because if they go home and they've
- 13:33Speaker 2: got access to absolutely everything all the time, the benefit
- 13:37Speaker 2: does happen at school, but.
- 13:38Speaker 3: There's enough distraction at school without a phone. I was
- 13:41Speaker 3: completely distracted as a high school student.
- 13:44Speaker 2: So was I how cute?
- 13:45Speaker 3: My HPA teacher.
- 13:46Speaker 2: Was, Oh gosh, I can't wie. You just said that.
- 13:48Speaker 2: That's really like in twenty twenty three, that's a creepy
- 13:51Speaker 2: thing to say. Oh mind you, it was you saying
- 13:53Speaker 2: that about him, not him saying that about you. So
- 13:57Speaker 2: there's the cost to the school, to the and we
- 14:00Speaker 2: know that kids are going to find a way around it,
- 14:03Speaker 2: like they just do. They find a way around it.
- 14:07Speaker 2: My biggest challenge philosophically is that a ban goes against
- 14:10Speaker 2: everything that I believe about what we should and shouldn't
- 14:12Speaker 2: be doing, and yet in this particular context, I think
- 14:16Speaker 2: that it makes sense. The last point that I'd make
- 14:19Speaker 2: is that the research evidence still isn't that strong. We
- 14:23Speaker 2: still really lack good evidence around this, but the evidence
- 14:26Speaker 2: is building, and I think that it's strong enough that
- 14:28Speaker 2: we should do it, and that the research evidence at
- 14:31Speaker 2: the moment is kind of circular. Like nobody's done an
- 14:34Speaker 2: experiment where they've gone into a handful of schools and said, guys,
- 14:36Speaker 2: we're going to ban phones in this school as part
- 14:39Speaker 2: of an experiment, but we're going to let the schools
- 14:41Speaker 2: next door, like those five schools over there, they're going
- 14:43Speaker 2: to keep their phones, and we're going to compare their
- 14:45Speaker 2: results with your results and see what happens with and
- 14:47Speaker 2: without phones at school. If we could run some experiments
- 14:50Speaker 2: like that, we'd get an answer pretty quickly about what's
- 14:52Speaker 2: going on. We'd find out academically, socially, physically, all the
- 14:56Speaker 2: ways whether it's a good or a bad thing. I
- 14:58Speaker 2: overall though, I think it's good and I think they
- 15:00Speaker 2: should be banned. And you know why. Ultimately, it's got
- 15:04Speaker 2: nothing to do with all the research evidence. It's just
- 15:06Speaker 2: personal preference. And I'll tell you when we went on
- 15:08Speaker 2: our crewise and we were away for a couple of
- 15:11Speaker 2: weeks we had no Wi Fi. I basically forgot that
- 15:14Speaker 2: I had a phone.
- 15:15Speaker 3: How good was that?
- 15:17Speaker 2: And it was so good? There was no distraction. There
- 15:21Speaker 2: was no news articles to read, no social media to
- 15:23Speaker 2: look at. There was no way for us to communicate
- 15:26Speaker 2: with anybody at all about anything. We were just in
- 15:29Speaker 2: the moment when we came home. I don't know if
- 15:31Speaker 2: you've noticed. Have you noticed my screen usage since we've
- 15:34Speaker 2: gotten home? Have you noticed the way I've been interacting
- 15:37Speaker 2: with a screen, Well, since you haven't been here, Oh,
- 15:40Speaker 2: come on, I've been around a fair bit. I know
- 15:42Speaker 2: I've traveled a lot for work, But my interaction with
- 15:44Speaker 2: screens other than when I'm working.
- 15:46Speaker 3: Obviously, well, I think I at about at seven o'clock
- 15:48Speaker 3: at night. So I actually don't know what your screen
- 15:49Speaker 3: usage is. Well, actually I am going to dub you
- 15:52Speaker 3: in I wake up because you were watching a screen
- 15:54Speaker 3: in our bed.
- 15:55Speaker 2: Well, I'm still glad to watch some TV now.
- 15:57Speaker 3: And then, well, you just asked me I did notice.
- 16:00Speaker 2: Can't believe you dub me in. But I've not been
- 16:03Speaker 2: on social media. I haven't been reading the news sites.
- 16:06Speaker 2: I've been really present and available, and I've been keeping
- 16:09Speaker 2: my phone away and it's made a huge difference, and that,
- 16:13Speaker 2: more than anything, is why I think that kids don't
- 16:15Speaker 2: need them, especially at school. So join the conversation.
- 16:19Speaker 3: Well, I might not be an expert, but I already
- 16:21Speaker 3: had that opinion.
- 16:22Speaker 2: Jumped over to our Facebook page and let us know
- 16:25Speaker 2: what you think. We're asking the question on the Facebook page.
- 16:28Speaker 2: We would love to get your idea based on the evidence,
- 16:30Speaker 2: based on your experience, based on your overall situation. Should
- 16:33Speaker 2: we or shouldn't we? Am I right? Is Beck right?
- 16:36Speaker 2: Is Madonna right? Is Michelle right? And we make it's
- 16:40Speaker 2: Kylie right? Is missus? Happy family is right? Jump over
- 16:43Speaker 2: and let us know your thoughts on this because it
- 16:45Speaker 2: is a complicated and nuanced issue. I've got some really
- 16:50Speaker 2: smart friends who are aware of the research evidence, and
- 16:53Speaker 2: their opinions are not nearly as strong as mine on this.
- 16:57Speaker 2: They actually disagree with me, and I think that it's
- 16:59Speaker 2: a fascinating conversation. Dr Justin Filson's Happy Families on Facebook
- 17:04Speaker 2: to join the discussion. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
- 17:07Speaker 2: by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
- 17:09Speaker 2: executive producer. And if you'd like more information about making
- 17:12Speaker 2: your family happier visitors at happy Families dot com, dot
- 17:15Speaker 2: a