The Need for Tech Wise Schools
There is no question that youth today are struggling. Academic achievement scores have dropped sharply (The Nation’s Report Card, 2022), rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2022), and suicide is now the second-leading cause of death among youth across the nation (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2021). Amid this crisis of youth wellness, schools are devoting significant resources to supporting student emotional and physical health. Many districts are making difficult changes such as starting the school day later, providing food for all students, hiring additional mental health staff, adjusting grading scales to be more forgiving, removing harsh discipline procedures, and even implementing school-wide suicide prevention curriculum in an effort to address these issues.
There is one thing, however, that schools seem strangely unconcerned about. Despite established links between screen time and mental health issues (Stiglic & Viner, 2019), attention issues (Nikkelen et al., 2019), sleeplessness (Hale & Guan, 2014), obesity/prediabetes (Nightingale et al., 2019), and lowered academic achievement (Adelantadeau-Renau et al., 2019), there is a puzzling lack of caution surrounding screen-based devices in education. As schools push more learning to online platforms and hand out personal devices at earlier ages, could they actually be sabotaging learning and exacerbating all the issues they are working so hard to address?
Screen-based learning has become the norm rather than the exception in education. Estimates suggest that most elementary schools and nearly all secondary schools are providing a computing device (i.e., tablet or laptop) to each child (Education Week, 2022). Research also indicates that teachers tend to use screens for activities that can be done just as easily (and sometimes more effectively) on paper (Center for American Progress, 2013). For a generation that is already spending 6-9 hours per day on a screen outside of school (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018), adding unnecessary screen time during the school day might not be the wisest move. Of even greater concern, is the lack of research to support screen-based learning as an educational tool. While educational technology (EdTech) creators have successfully convinced school districts that EdTech will revolutionize learning, most research indicates that the effect size of screen-based learning on educational outcomes is close to zero (Jongseok, 2022; Escueta et al., 2020; Falck et al., 2018; Bulman & Fairlie, 2016; Hattie, 2009; Reeves, 2005).
Given what we know about the limitations of EdTech as a learning tool and the potential negative impacts of excessive screen use, school districts would be wise to take this issue seriously. The good news is that there are many simple ways school districts can improve their EdTech practices. TechWell recommends 10 specific steps school districts can take to ensure they are supporting students in establishing healthy relationships with technology. Future blogs will review each step in more detail. Stay tuned and consider sharing this list with your child’s teacher, principal, district leaders, or school board.
