By Kerwin Eloise
Recent events such as tech moguls admitting to restricting their children’s access to screens and whole school systems such as those in Los Angeles and in Denmark deciding to severely limit access to tablets and other screen devices have made me think.
One of this administration’s trail blazing and pioneering initiatives in the education of our youth has been the laptop program, where students first in form three, and then in various other grades received laptops to assist their learning in an ever-shifting technological environment. Moreover, it proved to be a semi masterstroke as COVID-19 struck and the world went fully into digital education and used tools like Seesaw, Google Meet and Classroom as the pivotal forms of teaching and learning.
But those earlier recent events have had me questioning whether or not the Labour administration would need to adjust or scrap one of its planks in order to avoid the continued breeding or nurturing of what I call “screen zombies.”
If we are to be frank we have developed a society where many students are glued to their screens and live within parasocial experiences, rather than having real life experiences. I had a recent experience where I overheard children from rural communities bemoan a two-hour electricity interruption and ergo their online experience. I had assumed the lure of the outdoors to go gallivanting and exploring or to play football would provide a serious alternative. But alas it appears that even those expected to be more adverse to the lure of the screen have become as intoxicated with it as others.
But are these valuable reasons to reconsider the long successful program, which allowed for many from the rural and lower-class communities their first consistent access to the internet on a much more consistent basis?
The goal is not to derail the laptop program but to examine the potential negative impacts it may be contributing to and propose meaningful adjustments.
The fact lies that instead of making many real and life affirming relationships many of our GenZ children and young adults have fostered parasocial relationships with streamers, Tiktok, Facebook and IG stars. They have grown up with many of them and believe that a genuine friendship exists between them and the persons they see via the screen.
So perhaps the solution may first be in teaching parents how to reduce screen time in an effort to minimise the issues and challenges that children may face as time passes by. Talking, playing and exploiting are critical mental stimulus real world skills that are often more diminished the more students spend on the screen. Language acquisition and the ability to socialize is thus limited and delayed in many instances. The blue light effect of the screen which often dulls our ability to fall fast asleep often overstimulates the brain and hampers the ability to develop our social skills. Parents should be acutely aware of all these varied issues that arise between children and their overdependence on the screen.
And rather than overregulating parents and their children then perhaps they might allow for them to be guided accordingly? However, there must be allowances needed for students who have lax or no parenting especially if the government is the facilitator of the devices. Restrictive hours on use and bedtime modes on various apps may be necessary safeguards of a society that sees itself losing the battle against fully functioning children and their future with the screen the major impediment to realizing such a reality.