Technology – Pied Piper or scapegoat? Helen Jeys

Technology – Pied Piper or scapegoat? Helen Jeys seeks a balanced approach at school and at home

The issue of technology hit the headlines again on 19 November 2018. The BBC reported that ‘parents struggle to handle children’s tech habits’, stating that recent surveys had concluded that 43% of 7,000 parents across Europe were concerned that using gadgets meant their children slept poorly. Others expressed concern about the impact of tablet and phone use on their children’s social skills and mental health. Conversely, the BBC reported that ‘many said that they set a bad example with their own heavy use of gadgets.’

We certainly have an issue. With the decreasing sight of children playing outside - the survey reported that British children were more likely to be looking at a screen - and the knowledge that parents themselves found it difficult to navigate technology because of being ‘digital immigrants’, we have a resulting dilemma. On the one hand, Technology is seen as important, but on the other, it is perceived to be responsible for destroying relationships, affecting sleep and impacting upon a child’s ability to interact with others. These two horns of the dilemma result in confusion and create difficulties in establishing precisely which route we should recommend for our parents to follow.

So, let me put it into the context of my school. We have just been recognised as an Apple Distinguished School for 2018-2021. We are a 1:1 iPad school and are huge advocates of technology in the classroom. Both of my Computer Science teachers are Computing Master Teachers, delivering INSET around the country on effective and impactful Computer teaching, and, together with our network team, have worked incredibly hard on applying to be awarded this status. We pride ourselves on being a centre of innovation and using Apple products to inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. This award comes as the result of a strategy which began in 2014, and being awarded the ISA National Award for Excellence and Innovation just last week reiterated our focus on using technology to do just that – to innovate, to inspire and to enhance learning.

Nevertheless, at the same time, we ban mobile phones for all girls in Years 7 – 11: girls hand in their phones at the start of the day and are given them back at the end of the day. Although we are passionate about the use of technology, it is very much used with a direct purpose, not for social media interactions or gaming, and our insistence upon extra-curricular involvement during lunchtime results in girls appreciating our focus on balance, of socialising with friends, of making eye contact and doing all those things that parents expressed concern about in the BBC article.

So, what is going wrong outside school and how can we help parents to navigate their way around what are, for them, potentially unchartered territories. Certainly, I think that I surprise some of my parents when I comment that one long

term strategy that they should not adopt at home is an all-out ban on technology. Mobile technology is here to stay. Rather, we need to teach children how to use gadgets responsibly and parents not only need to model good behaviour themselves, but they also need to manage their child’s behaviour online, just as they would in all other contexts. I encourage parents, for instance, to adopt a family contract whereby all devices are charged overnight in the kitchen. This means that the whole family acts in the same way, and parents are able to help their children avoid the very real dangers of unsupervised internet use in bedrooms, and the necessity some young people feel to continue conversations into the early hours, or to continue to respond to Snapchat streaks until there is no-one on their contact list left awake!

I saw a fantastic presentation last year by the rather controversial Natasha Devon MBE, once children’s mental health tsar to the government, and now speaker on body image and mental health. She presented a fascinating viewpoint that technology can often be used as a scapegoat to explain the increased reporting of mental health issues among young people, and that for many young people, social media has ‘much less of a negative influence on their wellbeing than their forebears’. Indeed, she recently told the Commons science and technology committee that ‘in focusing so much on social media … we can sometimes take our eye off other things’. She highlights other potential causes of mental health concerns such as poverty and the reduction of access to the therapy art and music can provide.

Yes, social media can exacerbate problems – we have heard about those arguments children have that continue into the evening because of social media interactions - but she does challenge the view that technology is the only thing to blame.

Helen Jeys is the Headmistress of Alderley Edge School for Girls