Go outside and kick a ball!
As much as we like to think of education as a forward-looking embrace of the future, much of our educational practice (even in the best resourced, most progressive schools) would be easily recognised by a teacher or pupil from a hundred years ago. We're more conservative than we think we are, and, in fact, so are our pupils.
The introduction of technology into schools has been a real exception to this pattern of behaviour, and schools have, since the development of the internet and the commodification of hardware in the 1980's, been in a constant state of adoption and exploration of various technologies and models of implementation. From the early days of laptops to iPads and other technologies, it has been a given that these devices are 'revolutionising' education, and the ubiquity of devices is of educational benefit.
But something else has been in constant change since the 1980s. While measures of living standards have gone up in this time, measures of the wellbeing of our young people are in startling decline. Rates of depression, anxiety, and associated practices such as self-harm amongst the young are skyrocketing, especially since the explosion of social-media use. I have been a science teacher for long enough to be careful about reaching cause-and-effect conclusions from simple correlation, but I do have real concerns about the scale of social media use, the dopamine effect of social media, algorithm driven content manipulation, and the subtle ways that these incrementally impact wellbeing and educational outcomes over time. You would have to be blind not to notice it.
And it is not just our students that are at risk. Take a look around your staff-room and notice the blank looks on silent faces as teachers scroll through their digital drug of choice. Before we are able to lift our students into a state of enhanced wellbeing, we as educators have to admit that we have fallen into the same trap, and deal with it.
Social media is a powerful dopamine trigger in the same way that alcohol, drugs, pornography, and gambling are - feeding into our brain's reward system creating a cycle of anticipation and reward. Endless scrolling, algorithm driven content that caters to individual preferences and the social validation feedback loops trigger dopamine release that gradually requires more and more stimulus to achieve the same effect. In her book "Dopamine Nation" (https://www.annalembke.com/dopamine-nation) Dr Anna Lembke links the resulting excessive social media use to anxiety, depression, and loneliness. We don't need an expert to explain what we see every day, but the scientific validation is useful.
As school leaders we need to take the lead. 'Digital detox' (Dr Lembke recommends 40 days) and 'mindful usage' are concepts that we should be exploring for ourselves, and explicitly teaching our students. Above all though, we need to get in touch with those decidedly 'old-school' activities that boost dopamine without the negative effects. Exercise, hobbies, time in nature, and face-to-face social interactions need to be hard-wired into our curriculum and explicitly articulated as part of our wellbeing initiatives. Never has the old adage 'get outside and kick a ball' been more appropriate!
The technological pendulum has swung unquestioned and unnoticed way beyond healthy equilibrium. There has never been more compelling evidence to justify establishing schools as 'device free' spaces.