The Dangers of Screen Time . . . in 1440
December 22, 2019
We've all heard about the dangers of excessive screen time. Students with more than five hours a day of screen time show decreased levels of concentration and empathy. This is especially true of those screen functions that require no engagement or interaction by the student with the media, but simply allow their bodies and minds to become sedentary wastelands. In her marvelous book Reclaiming Conversation (Penguin, 2015), MIT Professor Sherry Turkle makes a compelling case for human interactions and for, on a disciplined basis, closing down electronic devices. This is particularly important during social and professional interactions, such as meals, serious conversations, and job interviews. But recently former Stanford Professor Nir Eyal, in the wonderful book Indistractable (BenBella Books, 2019), reminds us that this is not the first time that one generation has become alarmed about the media habits of the young.
Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, and by the late 15th century, his invention was credited with sparking literacy, along with religious and political reform movements throughout Europe. The contests of ideas that followed, along with the decades of deadly clashes they ensured, would have been unlikely without a mechanism for quickly spreading ideas. For some, this was a perfect example of technology accelerating the pace of progress. Others, including the monks who were threatened by Gutenberg's invention, railed against it, labeling the invention a "whore," as if the device, rather than the ideas, were to blame. A few centuries later, an 1883 medical journal suggested that the rising rates of murders and suicides were due to the "educational craze" which was responsible for exhausting the brains and nervous systems of children. In 1936, another new and fast-spreading technology was blamed for limiting the attention span of children who spent time listening to the devil's device – the radio – rather than attending to their studies.
"The computer made me do it" should be consigned to the dustbin with other claims that are more associated with zealous repetition than objective truth. Eyal dissects other myths, including the "sugar high" and undeveloped teen brains, and suggests that what all of these have in common is our wish to blame something else – technology, diet, and dimly understood brain development – for the failures of parents and teachers to create an environment that simultaneously accepts technology and also provides appropriate challenges for meaningful work, social interaction, and personal growth. He encourages a careful reading of the claims about technology, many of which contain sweeping generalizations about the dangers of screen time without a thoughtful distinction between the many different ways students engage with technology.
Well before the advent of the internet, psychological researchers propounded three major factors that influence motivation for students and adults: autonomy (some degree of choice), relationships, and most of all, competence. Many of the internet games parents are concerned students are addicted to offer autonomy, relationships, and competence in ways that are often absent in the classroom or even in family discussions. These characteristics do not, as Turkle points out, require technology. Students in the Lyceum learned with Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato that a wide variety of ideas could be explored and challenged, that relationships could survive draught of hemlock given to a well-loved teacher, that the rewards of competence influencing two millennia of philosophers, teachers, and students were so motivating that students persisted in carrying on the difficult work of teachers.
If these fundamental conditions for learning and motivation are not present at home or in school, let's not blame the technology. Let us rather challenge ourselves to ask how best to employ the tools, from the printing press to the iPhone, to help our students address the challenges before them.
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