I don’t want to sleep with my smartphone: pondering unintended consequences of digital pedagogy
I am addicted to my smartphone. And it’s making me depressed, destroying my creativity, ruining my attention span, and straining my in-person relationships. I’d venture to say that you are probably addicted to your smartphone, too. How do you feel about that? Is it negatively impacting your life? Recently, I’ve been trying to work on this (see “How to Break Up with Your Phone“), because as a prospective academic, I am really concerned about how my phone and technology usage is affecting my brain.
This may seem irrelevant, but stick with me.
The theme of this week’s readings was digital pedagogy. In short, the readings critiqued current online teaching and learning tools and strategies, citing the pitfalls of learning management systems, lengthy and boring online courses, and teaching methods that don’t adapt well to mobile technology as support for the idea that “twentieth century instructional methods just don’t work as well for busy, distracted 21st-century learners.” I agree with this sentiment. However, I am a little bit terrified of the recommendation that educators should take cues from those companies who “are excelling at captivating easily distracted, constantly connected people” (read: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…).
One of this week’s readings cites that 83% of millennials “literally sleep with their smartphones.” While this makes a compelling argument for educators who are trying to capture the attention of “21st-century humans,” I don’t want to sleep with my smartphone. And I don’t want my students to, either.
My last job was particularly taxing on my mental health. In an attempt to maintain some semblance of work-life balance, I turned off the work e-mail notifications on my phone, and generally did not check my work email outside of work hours. I found this profoundly decreased the amount of stress I felt about work when I wasn’t at work. That is, until one morning when I had just parked my car and was walking to catch the Metro for my hour-long commute when my boss called me asking where I was. Evidently, he had e-mailed me at 7:00pm the previous evening asking me to join him at a meeting at 7:30am. I was already 15 minutes late.
I turned my work e-mail notifications back on. I left my job about three months later.
I know this is anecdotal, and I know that given the current circumstances, we have all found ourselves online students and teachers perhaps for the first time ever (and we don’t really have a choice in the matter).
But I maintain the belief that tailoring online pedagogy to be more attractive to the 21st-century-human by modeling behaviors of the companies who are deliberately manipulating our attention is not an ethical approach. Our students are already constantly checking their phones to see who “liked” their last photo on Instagram. Do we really need to add to this stress by asking them to also maintain active Twitter discussions with their classmates? To ask them to “constantly check the Canvas site” for last minute updates on homework assignments? These practices do not support healthy relationships with technology, and they do not support healthy work-life balance. Our students should be able to step away from their devices, just as we request our family puts away their phones around the dinner table.
I know I sound a little bit like Ron Swanson. Obviously, we cannot ignore the world around us, and technology gives us tools and opportunities that we could have never had before. But I think that it is critical for us as educators to think very carefully about what tools we ask our students to engage with. Just because the collective attention span of millenials has dramatically decreased doesn’t mean we should continue to enforce that.
I am curious – what do you think? What are your ideas on training your students to be digitally responsible instead of just digitally connected learners? How can we make use of online tools but also set appropriate boundaries?
October 26, 2020 @ 11:25 pm
I loved your post… and that isn’t just because I love Parks and Rec. You aren’t the first person I’ve heard of to turn off their email notifications past a certain time in the day, or altogether. While I love this boundary setting, it does feel like we are almost expected to have access to our emails 24/7 in the event of an advisor or supervisor wanting to schedule a meeting. I see this too in our students expectations of us to respond to last minute questions about assignments. Since most of my assignments are due at 11:59pm, I have a clause in my syllabus about taking 48 hours to respond to emails. Since I am teaching virtually, I have stressed this boundary. I realize students have less opportunities to engage with me in an asynchronous course, so I understand why I receive a lot of emails at random points throughout the day. However, ease of communication does not equate to accessibility of communication. Just because I receive an email at 10:03pm does not mean that I will respond at said time. However, I do practice some flexibility here because sometimes it is just 1-3 emails over the span of a week, so I haven’t had to go out of my way to respond. Also, this probably relieves their anxiety because they receive an email sooner rather than later. Now, your post does make me wonder if I am perpetuating a system that places these expectations on us as educators and learners. I have some more thinking to do…
October 29, 2020 @ 12:07 am
HAHA! I used the same giphy when I changed my technology policy in the middle of the semester last Fall. This was because no one who had their laptop or phone out was interacting with their peers, looking up at the films, or seemed to paying the slightest bit of attention to the lesson. I know there are strong opinions the other way, but I also think that technology is not always a welcome guest. This changes in upper level classes, but first years… you aren’t doing them any favors by leaving up to them.
October 29, 2020 @ 12:48 am
Brilliantly told !
I face the same problem, which I am skeptical if we can solve through the alternative management of the digital usage in everyday life. I was thinking more in line with approaching this as a symptom of the form of life that we all live in which is deeply arranged by a certain mechanism of technological advancement. In that sense, I guess this problem will keep haunting us. This sense of permanency of the problem that we face seems to be vital to think about the digital arrangement in a learning environment. Without a mobile phone, for example, many everyday essential activities would not be possible. That is, it has been to a stage that it is no more just for communication. I think some of our measures to save ourselves from the bad produced by the technology consumption have to be rethought in the light of how this is connected to a specific form of life, a problem that is totalized structuring the entire life of ours. Anyways, thank you for this provocation.
October 30, 2020 @ 5:32 pm
I have the same issue with my smartphone, and I have deleted apps from it so I don’t get addicted especially when I have work to do. however, I do believe this generation is dealing with it differently from how ( my generation) does as they can benefit from it in terms of work, organization, and even making money.
therefore, I thought why not making it a tool of learning. when I have come to vt and got introduced to “hakoot” and other apps that acquire having a digital tool, it made me realize that it is ok to embrace it and not reject it and be smart in our use of these methods.
November 1, 2020 @ 8:28 pm
Love this post! I completely agree. Last fall, I tried implementing a class policy where I did not alloow any technology in the room, and even took off participation points if I saw that students were using it while the others were giving speeches. I realize how prehistoric this may sound, but I really thought it would force students to focus on their work and take notes by hand. Little did I know that it probably had the opposite effect, and may have inadvertantly hindered their learning. With that being said, I agree that smart phones are a prevasive issue in our society, with little looking to solve it. It may be best practice to begin weaning ourselves off of it, perhaps for the betterment of society!