Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse Is Making Our Kids Dumber

by Joe Clement

Jayden admitted that he normally had Netflix on his television to create background noise in concert with music he was playing through his laptop. “The noise helps me focus,” he claimed. Because his textbook was online, he was reading the chapter on his laptop. However, he had Facebook, Instagram, and different messengers simultaneously opened in other windows. Jayden and his parents began tracking his phone usage through an app that tallies how many times users unlock their phones and how long they spend actively on their phones. He was unlocking his phone over two hundred times and actively using his phone for over two hours of the time he was “doing homework.” He admitted he would regularly respond to text and Snapchat messages. It became clear that very little of the time Jayden was dedicating to homework was actually dedicated to doing homework. Instead, he was spreading his attention between at least six different activities—and doing a poor job at each.