Digitally Detoxing America’s Teens
The 90’s. Schools filled with teenagers wearing ripped jeans, rocking out to Nirvana, and smoking cigarettes on school property. Many will remember the scenes that played out across television and print ads targeting teenagers to smoke cigarettes. It was hip. Everyone was doing it.
They say history repeats itself, and It’s now 2020. Teenagers bring back ripped jeans, wear Nirvana shirts, and are now equally addicted in the classroom. The only difference is that cellphones and social media have replaced cigarettes.
Go to any public place in America, and look for the teenagers. Chances are, you’ll see a generation transfixed with their technology. At the restaurant, watch as teens endlessly use their phones to update social media during dinner with their family. View teens walking in parks as they walk with their heads down, glued to their devices. Enter today’s classroom to see teenagers glancing at their phones at any moment they can. America’s teenagers have become hooked.
A Study of Teenager Cellphone Usage
I recently surveyed my socially distant classroom of thirty-five Media Arts students on their relationship with social media. I asked students to look at and analyze their data through Apple Screentime and Android Wellbeing data. The data highlights a group of people highly addicted to their cellphones.
In five days, these students collectively reported spending 963 hours on social media. Students also collectively received 27,946 notifications and picked up their devices 18,524 times. Individually, students spent a range of 6–57 hours on social media and averaged twenty-five hours of social media time throughout the week.
This data became the foundation of a future digital detox project. I’ll share the results of the project later in this article.
Student cell phone usage data collected from our class study.
Apps like Tik Tok, Snapchat, Among us, and YouTube demand teenagers’ attention supremely. Teenagers are fleeing from Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, as it’s where the “old” people interact.
In our study, Tik Tok was the number one used app. Some teens spent more than thirty-six hours in five days on Tik Tok. On average, teenagers spent eight hours on the app. YouTube was the second most visited app, as students consumed 397 hours of YouTube content. One student even spent forty hours watching live stream gamers, roughly eight hours a day.
Our school has developed a week on, a week off-model. As a note of interest in our study, many students reported the data they collected during their remote learning weeks. It seems many students are distracted from the absence of structure in-class learning offers.
While most students reported their cell phone usage increased during the remote weeks, many did note that their cellphone usage increased during class learning. Many students also reported spending increased cell phone hours during the evening, and many were saying an average bedtime of one to three am.
Once students collected data, I put the data into a spreadsheet and removed personal names attributed to the data. We shared the results, and many teenagers were unaware and in disbelief of the sheer indication of cell phone addiction.
“I use Snapchat the most out of all the apps on the media log. I was on it for 976 minutes last week, which is crazy because I didn’t know that was the actual amount of time I was on it.” -Anonymous student.
“I always tell myself that I can afford an hour break, but I end up getting sucked into TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, or Netflix/Youtube for 2 and a half hours. I am embarrassed though, I thought I was doing so well this week until I got to Friday when I didn’t have as much school work to do. I spent about 26 hours on my phone throughout this week. That’s a lot.” -Anonymous student
“Based on the data that I was able to collect throughout the week it was very eyeopening to see how much time I actually spent throughout the day just sitting on my phone scrolling through tiktok (sic). The fact that I spend an average of 7 hours a day on tiktok (sic) is so crazy to me because it really doesn’t feel like I’m on it for that long.” -Anonymous student
Overwhelmingly teens responded that they realized they spend time on their devices but didn’t realize the extent of their usage. Having a number associated with their usage helped students identify how deep their addiction is. It’s not even their fault. Cell phone and social media companies are likely guilty.
Technology engagement or manipulation?
Similar to cigarette manufacturers, who willingly knew how addicting their product was, technology engineers have purposefully designed their applications to be equally as addicting. Developers have employed psychological methods that deliberately engage people to open an app, retain the user’s attention while on the app, and re-engage that person once they’ve dwindled off. For an unexpecting teen, the results are an engineer’s dream.
Social media apps have become masters of engagement. These companies use highly adaptive and predictive algorithms to build an infinite stream of content that targets users’ unique preferences. Once a stream refreshes, new content appears, creating a small amount of dopamine, a hormone associated with happiness, for the user. The apps emulate a slot machine, constantly offering happiness every now and then.
These dopamine bursts hit teenagers, especially hard. When an application offers a reward or incentive to engage with the app, teenagers respond affirmatively. Let’s look at Snapchat, a teen favorite. The app continually urges users to use the app by rewarding the user with “streaks.” The more people engage with each other, the app rewards them with streaks; essentially, digital emojis. The higher the streaks, the more rare the rewards are. The app reminds users that a streak may end, and for teenagers, ending a streak could end a friendship in real life. There are even stories of teenagers giving away their credentials to friends to keep up their streaks. What seems like fun for the teenager is camouflaged manipulation.
Snapchat is not the only one preying on teenager’s dopamine reliance. Tik Tok, an app specifically designed for attention craved teenagers, relies on overloading teenagers with increased and continual dopamine drops. The app does this by introducing a new video jampacked with music, text, dancing, and fun every 30 seconds.
Here’s the sneaky aspect of Tik Tok; it uses an algorithm that explicitly targets the users’ interests almost instantly and infinitely. If a teen watches one video of dancers in unicorn costumes, within seconds, the app will generate thousands of similar unicorn or dance videos added to a queue waiting for views. With one swipe, the cycle repeats endlessly.
Effects of Obsessive Technology on Teens
Although fun, exciting, and often inspiring, social media pose other threats to the well-being of teenagers. Obsessive social media usage can affect a teenager’s cognitive ability, decrease focus and motivation, and increase teenagers’ anxiety and depression. It also diminishes self-confidence and disrupts sleep patterns. Social media also has many teenagers wrangling an ever-present cyberbullying battlefield, and sadly, some teenagers have committed suicide due to posts on social media.
In the 2000s, many people realized the harmful effects of cigarette smoking. The US Government stepped in, positively regulating deceptive advertisements and an abundance of education provided to teenagers about tobacco harms. Cigarettes now contain warning labels, and when teenagers became addicted to e-cigarettes and JUULS’s, products now contain labels warning of addictive tendencies.
Labeling Cellphone and Social Media Apps
Technology does not come with addictive warnings. Social media and cellphones do not come with instructions on how to live with technology healthfully.
In today’s classrooms, many teenagers fail to receive education about cell phone addiction. Instead, educators turn a blind eye, finding cell phones as nuisances instead of learning opportunities. Educators are also hard-pressed to teach skills not relative to state testing models, and life skills often take a back seat.
It’s incumbent of educators to change this. I would argue that the cell phone addiction curriculum should become a part of the social, emotional learning in every classroom. The digital well being of all students should become paramount.
Digital Detox in the Classroom
It’s time to digitally detox, America. I recently participated in a graduate class with Professor Ewa Callahan at Quinnipiac University. One project from the class that stuck with me was a digital detox. Created by Cal Newport, author of ‘Digital Minimalism,’ digital detoxes should not become a break from technology, but instead, offer opportunities to become self-aware and change behaviors.
For my digital detox experiment, I decided to turn off all notifications on my phone and try to get off of Twitter for a week. The results were astounding. I found my digital well-being improved drastically after decreasing my cell phone usage by 60%. After the experiment, I knew I had to develop a similar project for my Media Arts students.
I immediately thought this activity would lend itself perfectly for remote learning. We asked students to develop a digital detox experiment based on the previously collected data using Apple Screentime and Andriod Wellbeing apps. The activity took place over three weeks and was facilitated remotely through Google Classroom. If you’re curious about how we structured the experiment, you can view our slideshow here.
At first, I anticipated that teenagers would groan and not engage with the lesson. Quite the opposite happened. I was shocked to see students attempt a digital detox of their own, and most developed a detox that spanned multiple days. Students fully embraced the activity, and the results are quite inspiring.
Students Digital Detox
Student #6’s Experience
Student #6 spent ninety-nine hours on social media in one week and spent Twenty-six hours on Tik Tok alone. This student was the extreme social media abuser in the class. During the detox, she asked the question: “What would happen if I gave my phone to my mother when working on remote learning?” She did just that for an entire week. She reported that her screentime went down by 60%, and she only spent sixty hours on social media during the remote week. Although still relatively more extensive, this deduction is a significant improvement. Not only did she become aware of her usage, but she was also able to change her behavior positively.
I also made the mistake to offer this activity the week of the 2020 US election, where anxiety was high, and social media usage increased for everyone.
Student #6’s Reflection:
“Day 5: Truly thought that the election would be over by today. When I am completing this assignment, the votes are still close, but not every vote has been counted yet. I’m still feeling the need to check my phone periodically and have even found myself reaching over to where I usually keep my phone to prevent it and realizing that nothing is there.
I honestly like how focused I’m able to be without my phone as a distraction and will probably continue to have my mom take my phone while I’m doing my schoolwork on my remote weeks.”
Student #23’s Experience
On the other end of the spectrum, student #23 intrigued me. As the student data came in, it was apparent something was going on. The student reported they spent six hours on social media within five-days. Every student said 20–58 hours on social media. This student was a misnomer. When we returned to class, we held a debrief discussion and asked about the minimal data. She shared with me that this student’s parents have already set strict one hour a day time limits using parental controls on the phone. The student reported that she spent most of her time off of social media and instead in a book.
Then came the time for the detox. This student decided to eliminate her already minimal Tik Tok usage from her daily media consumption. The student spent zero hours on Tik Tok in Five days. Instead, she found something else to do with her time:
Student #23 Reflection
“Though I didn’t find any significant changes. I did get so bored I decided to use the sewing technique my Vavo (Portuguese grandmother) taught my like 8 years ago to fix the hole in my sock. And I am not going to lie, it was fun. So I proceeded to sew the holes in my blanket and made it so my pjs fit me! And the look on my mom’s face when I told her she didn’t have to mend my torn clothes anymore was priceless!”
Positive Results
I was expecting students to hate me for this activity; it turns out I was wrong. Students took the time to thank me for the learning unit. Students also wrote about how they wanted to this again somewhere in the future. I was amazed at how far students came with their experiments. Parents also were appreciative of the unit. 92% of students realized the downsides of their social media usage, made positive changes, and decreased cell phone usage altogether. The best part, the experiment proved they could survive without technology.
“Overall this was a very healthy detox that I would recommend to anyone and everyone. This detox will definitely changed my views on social media intake and Im very happy that it did.” Anonymous Student
I only did this experiment with thirty-five students. Imagine what could happen if thirty-five million students participated in a digital detox activity like this? I can only fathom what the results would be. It would be a pivotal moment to empower America’s teenagers to become self-aware of their cell phone and social media habits. However, I’m confident the cell phone and social media engineers will generate new surreptitious ways to manipulate a woke teenage generation.
