Media use

Today’s students spend more time with media than they do in school: between 7 and 11 hours per day, according to the 2010 Kaiser report. The first “Internet class” (Class of 2015) is now just entering college ( Box 1 ). Media are the leading leisure-time activity for children and adolescents, and they spend more time with media than they do in any other leisure-time activity other than sleeping. By time criteria alone, one would think the media would be a force to be reckoned with; but the media also are powerful teachers of young people. Virtually every concern that teachers and parents have about children and teenagers is potentially influenced by the media: aggressive behavior, sex, drug use, obesity, eating disorders, and depression. Several studies have found a deterioration in academic performance with increasing screen time and have linked increased screen time at a young age with the development of attention-deficit disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A recent longitudinal Canadian study of 1314 children at 29 months of age and in fourth grade found that for every additional hour of television viewed per day at 29 months of age, there was a 6% to 7% decrease in classroom participation, a 10% increase in victimization by classmates, a 9% decrease in physical activity, and a 5% increase in body mass index by the fourth grade.

But the term “media” now means far more than television, movies, or music. “New” technology has become increasingly important as well, although there are only a few behavioral studies available to date. Nearly 90% of 8- to 18-year-olds now have Internet access at home, and one-third have access in their bedroom. Half of young people surveyed say that they have a video game player in their room. Both the Nielsen Company and the Pew Foundation have been tracking new media use:

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  American 18-year-olds now average nearly 40 hours per week online from their home computers, including 5.5 hours of streaming video.

  
  
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  Nearly all teenagers (93%) now use the Internet. In a 2009 survey, 70% of 12- to 17-year-olds owned a cell phone, and 80% owned an iPod and a game console.

  
  
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  More than 78% of 12- to 17-year-olds have visited social networks or read blogs.

  
  
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  Some 75% of 12- to 17-year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45% in 2004. Nearly all teens (88%) are texters.

  
  
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  Virtually all teenagers now have MP3 players, and they often use high-volume settings. The same goes for multitasking: nearly 40% of 7th to 12th graders say that they multitask frequently, listening to music (43%), using the computer (40%), or watching television (39%). Some neuroscientists worry about how efficient multitasking really is and about its impact on the developing adolescent brain.

Media use, sleep, and schools

Surprisingly, new research shows that teenagers need more sleep than older children do: 8 to 9 hours per night. Yet media use is associated with less sleep, especially when so many different forms of media are now present in the bedroom. Sleep deprivation has been associated with fatigue, neurocognitive impairment, increased risk of accidents, and poorer school performance. Given the normal sleep pattern of most teenagers (staying up late at night and wanting to sleep late in the morning), does it make sense to start high-school classes earlier than grade-school or middle-school classes? School systems such as in Minneapolis have experimented with later starting times (as late as 9:00–9:30 am ), and have found significant improvements in classroom performance and test scores.

Media use, sleep, and schools

Surprisingly, new research shows that teenagers need more sleep than older children do: 8 to 9 hours per night. Yet media use is associated with less sleep, especially when so many different forms of media are now present in the bedroom. Sleep deprivation has been associated with fatigue, neurocognitive impairment, increased risk of accidents, and poorer school performance. Given the normal sleep pattern of most teenagers (staying up late at night and wanting to sleep late in the morning), does it make sense to start high-school classes earlier than grade-school or middle-school classes? School systems such as in Minneapolis have experimented with later starting times (as late as 9:00–9:30 am ), and have found significant improvements in classroom performance and test scores.

Health education

Although most schools and school systems now have drug prevention and sex education programs, relatively few have kept pace with modern media and deal with media content ( Table 1 ). Nationwide, 70% of schools still use Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), even though multiple studies show that it is ineffective. Part of its ineffectiveness is the absence of media education in the curriculum, for example, the impact of cigarette and alcohol advertising and depictions of drug use in movies and on television. Similarly, sex education programs routinely ignore topics such as sex in the media and the absence of contraceptive advertising in American society. Media can be part of the solution, not just part of the problem. Using media to educate children and teens about sex puts the subjects on kids’ “home turf” and also helps them resist unhealthy media messages—one of the aims of media education. The latter is absolutely crucial in the twenty-first century, yet the United States lags far behind other Western countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom in incorporating media education into the everyday curriculum. Numerous studies have now shown media education to be effective in preventing aggressive behavior, drug use, and even inappropriate sexual displays on social networking sites. It is true that schools represent the final common denominator in society and therefore seem to have the ultimate responsibility for remedying all childhood ills. Nevertheless, teaching children about media can accomplish many useful health goals.

Using new technology in the classroom

Forty years ago, classroom teachers complained about the fast pace of the new children’s show “Sesame Street,” saying that it increased pressure on them to be entertainers so that their students’ attention would not wander. But the flip-side of the equation is that new technology in the classroom offers nearly limitless educational possibilities:

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  More than 600 school districts are now using iPads instead of textbooks. iPads cost $500 to $600, but administrators at Brookfield High School in Connecticut estimate that they spend at least that much annually on every student’s textbooks, which does not include all of the add-ons (graphing calculators, dictionaries, and so forth) available on the iPads.

  
  
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  A Los Angeles eighth-grade teacher has his students use Twitter to chime in with questions and answers during his presentations. Similarly, Purdue University developed its own backchannel system, Hot Seat, which lets students post comments and questions online during lectures. It allows quiet or shy students to speak up.

  
  
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  A Spanish teacher in Wesley Chapel, Florida insists that her students bring their cell phones to class; she texts them in Spanish and they respond.

  
  
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  With a program called MealpayPlus, parents in more than 250 school districts can track their children’s lunch purchases and see exactly what they are eating. Many parents use an Internet program called iParent to track their children’s attendance, school assignments, and performance. In Royal Oaks Schools in Michigan, parent-teacher conferences are conducted online.

  
  
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  Many schools are experimenting with “blended learning”: a shift to an online environment for at least part of the school day to improve learning and productivity.

  
  
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  Special-education students may especially benefit from new technology. At Westmark School in Encino, California, special-education students learn fractions via brightly colored, jungle-themed pie charts, they can ask their iPads how to spell and define words, and they can practice cursive writing via a tracing application.

  
  
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  Teacher training is changing as well. At the Teachers College of San Joaquin in Stockton, California, “multiple learning pathways” are emphasized: that is, the need to approach subjects from many different angles to accommodate different learning styles. At Cal State—Fullerton, student teachers are immersed in interactive whiteboards, digital media tools, and Web 2.0 teaching strategies. At the University of Central Florida, teaching apprenticeships are done virtually.

  
  
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  At the cutting edge of new technology, avatars are being used to interact with grade-school students one on one. Avatars can be customized for each individual, follow their eye-tracking on the computer screen, and keep them motivated.