The nation’s second-largest teachers union said Thursday it was losing patience with social media apps that it says are contributing to mental health problems and misbehavior in classrooms nationwide, draining time and money from teachers and school systems.
As a parent with a kid entering middle school who just got a phone (average age for one in this area) here is my 2 cents:
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I want my kid to have a phone more for me than her. There are no pay phones and if, heaven forbid, some shit goes down (we are on America and shit goes down in schools) I need to not only be able to allow her to easily contact us and us to contact her, I need to know her location. Past events have shown we can’t count on anyone else. Barring school shootings, I would not be anywhere near as concerned about her having one. I know parents of kids with severe allergies also want kids to have a phone on them.
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Since she could talk we have talked about media and it’s influence on her mind and life. That talk has evolved as she has grown. I studied the impact of harmful media, so in this way I have the privilege of knowing why this education is so vital. She knows what she watches and puts out there can impact her in insane ways. And though I have to slowly trust that this took root in her as I cant control what she watches forever, things like Google family link can help me block sites and apps, make her ask for permission etc. She knows I do this and why and she will talk to me when she thinks she should have access. It’s a conversation.
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I know her friends parents don’t do this. Which I also know allows her access other ways, again, I have to slowly hope this education worked. I wonder if more parents instead were taught to take these steps if it would help and if we taught students directly. There are privacy concerns too though, my kid knows I’m here parent, not the government, she has no expectation of privacy on her phone (mostly anyway) at this age from me, but she should from her school so I wouldn’t want them to be allowed to block etc.
You sound like a parent who manages to be caring and involved, without being overbearing. That’s difficult. Congrats!
I want my kid to have a phone more for me than her.
Imo, this is the root of the issue that must be addressed. No child under 16 should have a smart phone, of anything they should have a flip phone for calling and texting only, no apps.
Children will see violence, porn, or beheading videos if they have a smart phone. No parental controls can stop a child from seeing the full Internet and a lot of parents don’t get that. The quickest way is to boot the phone into safe mode, access the web browser, boom full Internet.
I think that this is like wrapping a kid in bubble-wrap, though. And like, not in that “over-coddling” metaphorical sense, but much more literal - sure, the kid can’t get scrapes if they fall off their bike, but the other kids are going to make fun of the kid wearing bubble wrap.
You don’t necessarily want to give them an unrestricted mainline to the worst of the internet, but you don’t want to overcorrect so hard that you’re causing other problems.
As toxic as it is, as much as there’s space for harms and bullying, or that the internet holds porn and violent content … the internet and social media spaces are where a huge portion of kids social lives live, and barring them from participating in that will do one of two things - teach them to get sneaky in order to bypass the restriction, or force them into an ‘outsider’ role in their peer group. In the first, it’s a lost cause and all you’re doing is making it inconvenient without addressing the harms - and ensuring they can’t talk to you about what comes from that space. In the latter, there are strong social and self-esteem costs associated with excluding your child from having a social life with other children - is it “better” for the parent to do the harm instead of the other children? Is it better for your relationship with that child, long-term, their trust in you, or your ability to support them?
The kid restricted to “dumb phone only, no internet, no apps” is the current generations’ equivalent of that one kid that wasn’t allowed to go to the park, or the mall, or hang out on the street - whatever any given past generation used as their youthful Third Place, where they could socialize and hang out separate from school and without adults actively supervising them. And it’s never been great for the kid whose parents won’t let them participate in the common social life that their peers have.
It’s far more fruitful to give them age-appropriate education related to their use of and relationship with the internet and provide a controlled and supported introduction than it is to simply bar their access for several years. You’re either stunting their social development in order to avoid harms to their social development (?!?!) or you’re simply winding the proverbial rubber band tighter and tighter against an inevitable rebellion - at which point they’re jumping in headlong without ever developing any sort of media literacy or social media savvy and never had a chance to build coping and resilience for whatever rabbit holes they’re likely to fall into .
I blocked social media sites at the router and on the phones for my kids and don’t feel bad about it at all.
Reason I don’t feel and about it is that as soon as we blocked everything my daughter’s mental health did a 180 from planning her suicide to having real life goals. And she tells all her friends how much happier she is without those stupid apps all the damn time.
I make an effort to talk to my kids about media and critical thinking. We have awesome communication and I’m super happy that my kids talk to me about things. They’re not ostracized for their lack of TikTok. They actively avoid the kids who are obsessed with socials because those kids are toxic and struggle in ways that make them not great friends. I truly don’t see a downside to implementing this boundary on behalf of my kids.
If your kid feels left out because they can’t wreck their mental health with their peers then there’s some serious values conversations that need to be had. It’s ok, and necessary to use tools for your kids when they can’t or won’t use them on their own. That’s what being a parent means.
I’m with you on this. I blocked them too and my kid knows why. The commenter above may mean more using/having a smart phone and internet access generally and I reluctantly agree for the most part. But yeah, fuck social media and it’s debilitating impact. Not just on youth, I don’t use that shit because five minutes makes my fairly successful ass feel terrible too! Just toxic all around.
They say on social media
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Social media impacting mental health is definitely happening, but its a symptom of a larger problem. And COVID definitely accelerated it. But this is a problem that has been going on for decades IMO. American society is crumbling and fixing it will be a multi-prong, multi-decade, probably multi-trillion dollar effort.
but its a symptom of a larger problem
American society is crumbling
I’ve heard this before about a billion things, it’s not a particularly useful take. IMO we’ve got a youth depression problem because of extremely hostile messaging about “how screwed our country is”, “how screwed our planet is”, and addictive mind manipulating social media apps.
I’m in my late twenties, my generation was plagued by hot take social media, and I think the current generation has it even worse. I’d love it if we could avoid these hot takes on Lemmy. Break the problems down into their pieces and attack those things; IMO, like solving any big problem, that’s how we get through this.
I’ve heard this before about a billion things, it’s not a particularly useful take.
It wasn’t really intended to be, as that is a larger conversation. But I didn’t mean it the way I suspect you thought I did, in a boomer “tight pants and rock music are all of society’s ills” way.
My take on it is that ever since corporations got away with prioritizing shareholder profits over everything else, the safety nets that kept families strong started to crumble. Parents had to work more hours, people were more stressed, neighborhoods became more distant, urban spread increased. Add that to hysteria over crime and we get parents that aren’t able to raise kids and think schools can do it. No sense of community responsibility and no safety net of a village helping to raise the kids because everyone’s at work and scared that someone’s going to shoot or kidnap them. So you get generational radicalization with acting out behavior getting worse and worse.
Social media makes all this worse because it optimizes for engagement, and nothing gets engagement like misery and jealousy all while giving an illusion of actual socialization. COVID was gas added to this fire that has been burning for decades.
Break the problems down into their pieces and attack those things; IMO, like solving any big problem, that’s how we get through this.
I definitely agree there. Which is a challenge in and of itself. Like I said, this is a multi-pronged issue. It didn’t get to where it is quickly and it won’t get fixed quickly either. It will be a generational effort. And I don’t think all the fix actions needed are agreed on or even known.
I think part of it will be strengthening neighborhoods and creating a sense of community and pride in it. Another part is allowing parents to actually parent and giving them the tools that their parents didn’t pass on to them because they probably didn’t have them either.
It’s a large conversation to have.
I think this is a really great response; I agree with you on a lot of this. I (personally) think we need more of this sort of dialog and less “American society is crumbling.” I hope you’ll agree here/try to keep that in mind as much as possible. IMO some outwardly expressed optimism and hope is really important and can go a long way towards fighting the collective depression and overwhelming feeling that we’re up against an insurmountable force … IMO we can get through all of this, we just have to work together and have constructive discussions on how.
There’s definitely been some dropping the ball by previous generations, and I hope (and if we try, know) we can do better in the coming years.
Maybe I’m not thinking through everything here, but why not have a phone locker by the classroom door? Student comes in, phone goes in the phone locker. Student leaves…phone comes out.
Parents throw a fit, and honestly I can’t blame them. With school shootings as prevalent as they are I’d want my kid to have a phone at all times too if they need to call for help.
There have been multiple times that my daughter has had emergencies at school that she was able to solve by calling us. I’m glad she has a phone. But she also uses it responsibly.
Honest question. How quickly do these emergencies need to be resolved by you specifically? Like if the teacher or school can contact you in a quick manner if they go to the office, why would they need a phone on their person?
Maybe there are person exceptions here, but how often does a few minutes, or a direct contact matter?
I don’t get why kids are allowed to have phones in the school. Just install signal blockers. Parents can call the office if there is an emergency like it’s 1995.
In a country where kids drill for school shootings, not having cell phones so emergency calls can be made from anywhere should be a non-starter.
You’re aware that students aren’t the only people in schools, right?
I’m with you on this. How is having like 300+ more options available (depending on the school) to call the police really something that will help with school shootings specifically. Like if it happens a teacher would call.
People are so paranoid about not having instant connections available at all times. It is not that needed. Especially with kids in school.
Having everything at your fingertips is great, in theory. But for kids without the ability to regulate, it’s as much a distraction than an advantage.
Signal jammers are illegal. Certainly wouldn’t be a good idea to install those in the US, where school shootings are common.
Edit: Also, unrelated to the signal jamming thing you talked about:
Phones are useful in case of a fight were to occur, which happen very often (at least in schools I went to). Video recordings are good to determine fault. School surveillance cameras are often cheap, blurry, unreliable, have many blind-spots, and also forbidden in classrooms (at least in the US). In addition, sometimes classrooms still use old textbooks that only have 1 class set, and are very heavy to carry, and they aren’t available online, so in that case, kids can just take photos of the textbook and the school saves a lot of money from having to copy-print the textbooks, so maybe they just need to make 1 or 2 copies for the kids that don’t have a phone. Phones are very useful, just needs reasonable rules. A complete ban is not necessary in my opinion.
The FCC will not allow that. Huge fines.
