Parenting and Education in the Age of Smartphones
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Schools play an ever-increasing role in shaping the lives of our young people. Whilst the family unit continues, and always will be, the primary influence in the journey from toddler to Year 12 graduation, covering childhood, puberty and adolescence, the society our young adults enter as they leave the family nest is changing at a rapid rate.
Some recent research from McCrindle outlined the changes to the societal forces that shape us. Basically, the government directs social and cultural norms through 2 major institutions, school and work. In the past, there were other important contributors to the shaping of the society we live in – church, scouts and guides, sporting clubs, committees, the village square, community groups – but the influence of these groups has waned as life gets busier and more complex. For example, the government can decide to change acceptable language through legislation in schools and workplaces, and society changes. This can be a powerful and beneficial process, but not always. Not so long ago I found myself questioning one of my daughters when she said “Dad, it was the bomb” and I didn’t know whether it was good, bad, fast, slow, positive, or negative, whether I should frown or smile.
Of course, whilst school and work are the two main traditional shaping forces of society, social media is becoming the most powerful influencer of how society evolves. And it is a sobering thought. All the great lessons, advice, examples and guidance you provide your children as parents can be undermined by a 1 minute video on YouTube or TikTok. Our focus on building character, adhering to our core beliefs which provide the signposts for our children’s journey, can be challenged by a crass, money-making stranger with a handful of followers.
To further complicate things, our young people need to be proficient in navigating the digital world. Their future in work will be both in the real and the virtual worlds, natural and digital environments existing in the same realm, but separated by reality. Disconnecting and going to live off the grid in the Daintree might seem appealing at times, but it is not a realistic option for most of us. Don’t get me wrong, technology has brought some wonderful innovations and has lifted the standard of living for many people. But in a world with an increasing need for immediate gratification, the smart phone is changing everything.
As parents, we tend to adhere to broad societal norms when raising our children – we don’t want our kids to be left out or left behind. I know when I visit Melbourne and board a suburban train, virtually the whole carriage full of passengers have their faces glued to their devices. In the old days, you would often strike up a conversation, take interest in watching the world go by, or talk with a friend. No more. Don’t get me wrong, when my girls were young, an hour of them in front of the TV (or idiot box, as my father’s generation used to refer to it), watching cartoons, was a wonderful break. However, watching very little kids glued to their iPad whilst being wheeled around the supermarket makes me a little uneasy.
In the upper school levels, smart phones can be terrific learning tools. For example, in Engineering, we build plywood bridge prototypes and load them to failure. Videoing it with a smart phone, then slowing it right down to explore the mode and point of failure, is a truly wonderful teaching tool. Then being able to post it onto OneNote so the students can go through it frame by frame away from class and carry out an analysis, used to be a teaching process limited to a university physics laboratory. Unfortunately, uses like this are in the minority.
We notice that our Year 9 students, whilst out in the bush on their 15-day Outdoor Education program, are noticeably happier and more engaged with their peers. Whilst you could consider not having classes or homework as a contributor to that observation, there is no doubt that being away from their devices does relieve some of the pressure that our young people experience 24/7 through the presence of social media.
Jonathan Haidt, in his seminal book “The Anxious Generation”, investigates the effect of smart phones on US and western countries, particularly on the cohort moving into their teens between 2010 and 2015. There is a clear jump in cases of teens presenting with anxiety and depression across this period – the data is quite confronting. He considers the smartphone to have visited 4 foundational harms on our children – social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction.
He takes a step back and posits that, as a society, we are making 2 major mistakes: overprotecting children in the real world and under protecting them in the virtual world and suggests we have our concerns as parents back-to-front. Whilst he writes mainly about the US, he includes Western countries in his analysis and advances four reforms we should consider: (i) no smartphones before high school (given it is in the US context, I suggest this applies to Year 9 in Australia), (ii) no social media before 16, (iii) phone-free schools (I think he means children, not staff) and (iv) more unsupervised play and childhood independence.
As parents and schools wrestle with the issues resulting from smartphone use, the Australian government has embraced the second of the points that Jonathan Haidt has made above, proposing a ban on social media up to the age of 16. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 passed parliament on Friday 29th November, 2024. It will place responsibility on the social media platforms to “take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 years of age from having accounts, and ensures systemic breaches will see platforms face fines of up to $49.5 million” (https://www.pm.gov.au/)
At TAS, smartphones are banned from use during the school day, and consequences enacted if students are unable to meet these expectations. Most digital activities and learning can be achieved using their school-issued devices, which are monitored using our cyber-safety software and through educating our community with our partnership with YSafe. As we enter 2025, we have commenced investigation into the efficacy and suitability of only allowing “dumb” phones (i.e. mobile phones without online/social media accessibility) for students up to 16 years old if a phone is desperately needed by a student under 16 (I would argue strongly that in most cases it isn’t). Of course, schools have no control over how young people use their smart phones when outside school hours on non-school devices and non-school networks.
As of January 2025, the Australian government has started trialling a variety of methods with companies such as Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok and Snapchat on how to enforce these legislative changes. At TAS we will continue to monitor the Australian Government trial whilst educating our students on safe and appropriate use of technology.
Paul Sjogren