“Have you checked your phone recently?” says nobody. Ever. At least not in our current point on the timeline, where the simple number alone of apps available to track screen time and phone glaces is evident of a generation constantly tethered to that screen. In one of those rare, real conversations with a student working alongside me after school today I was able to catch a glimpse of a frustration brought about by perpetual connectivity (aka the smartphone) - a frustration so often buried so deeply beneath the ‘quick fixes’ of a social media generation that they are seldom known to exist let alone emerge to the surface. But yet there I was, with Karla (not her real name) explaining to me that her grades used to be good until, quite simply, phones were allowed in class; that assessment tasks were digital making it too hard to stay concentrated for long enough to get anything productive done because of, well quite literally, an entire world of everything else at their fingertips. Well that’s an easy fix though right? Take away the technology and you take away the distraction, and hey while your’e at it a few babies too - given that anything associated with that proverbial bathwater of phone-obsessed teens needs to be overhauled. Because the thing about babies is that they can not be measured by their productivity or contribution to society - yet. So what do we oust then, in order to claim back those engaged, attentive learners we so yearn for? If the yet-to-mature-to-potential user of the technology is the yet-to-mature-to-potential baby in this scenario then that leaves only the bathwater. Which, by this point in history having had millions of students pass through it’s ‘cleansing’ process, is perhaps somewhat past it’s used by. After all, it may contain traces of assumption that a digital native has, by osmosis perhaps, managed to also learn how to use technology responsibly, purposefully, and as a tool to reach a premeditated end goal. Yep, that water better go.
The approach with which we, as educators and members of the community, usher our students into an era of understanding of when to use tech, and when not to use tech, is hazy. Now granted, this era may well be defined by this same generation called into question - it is after all soon to become their reality and not ours - which may bring about many more conversations like mine with Karla. And whilst she has not been the first to verbalise this frustration with me, she has been the first that I have really seen a genuine concern arise from, about how to ‘fix it’. And if that’s not shining the light on a gap of explicit teaching of technology use then I’m not sure what is. So how did I respond to Karla? By simply explaining to her that if we took devices off them they would only have to learn how to handle and manage technology next year when the next teacher gave it back. Or the year following that when that job you get will force you to be constantly connected, whether you want to be or not. Perhaps this is what Incubus’ Brandon Boyd was referring to when he sung “if not now, when?” though probably not. Like anything the later we learn something in life the harder it is to learn it, but the quicker we apply discipline, then the faster we can learn to dodge the dangers, exploit it for all it offers, and ultimately tame it.