What can teachers, schools and students do if they want to maximise the ability to learn given the reality of the current attention-grabbing internet economy?
Here, I will discuss the value of four different strategies.
• First, we could make learning more fun so that it can successfully compete against the distractions on the internet.
• Second, we could train students to self-regulate better and to manage their attention in the face of distractions.
• Third, we could ban devices.
• Fourth, we could adapt connected devices so that they promote learning rather than hinder it.
Let’s consider each possibility in turn.
Make learning more fun
We could make learning more fun and more of a regular habit by using some of the tactics I discuss in my book: many apps let you build a “streak” of days studying, collect points or badges and upgrade your online avatar.
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However, on its own, this is not enough.
First, connected devices encourage scattered, fragmented attention. The challenge for educators isn’t just to grab attention but to sustain it.
Second, perhaps the most potent methods of getting our attention are ethically dubious. They play on our insecurities about our relationships with our peers, or feed us outrageous or false information.
Tristan Harris, a prominent critic of the modern internet economy, has called such tactics a “race to the bottom of the brain stem”. Education needs to stand above such a dubious competition, particularly when young children are involved.
Third, we need to be wary of assuming that well-designed, high-quality and fun lessons will prevent distraction. This is not the case. It is possible to get distracted even in such a lesson.
For an example of this, in my book, I cite an undergraduate study by Glass and Kang. It sorted students into two groups: one that could bring their devices to a lecture, and one that could not. Both groups received the same lecture, and the students with the devices got distracted and did worse on the final assessment.
The problem here can’t be with the quality of the lecture, because the no-device group were given exactly the same lecture, and they all learned more. If the lecture was ineffective, then presumably the no-device group would have got distracted too, just by different means.
The presence of technology makes it more likely students will be distracted. Of course, we should strive to make lessons as fun and engaging as possible. But devices can cause distraction regardless of the quality of the lesson.
Train students to self-regulate
What about training students to regulate their attention more effectively? In my book, I explain how gaining background knowledge about a subject makes it more likely that you can learn independently from a torrent of information on a search page, and navigate an online text with lots of hyperlinks. So perhaps some kind of training could help students respond more effectively to distractions.
However, dealing with distractions is far trickier than learning how to study independently. It is possible to learn how to study independently: it’s just that the most successful tactic involves gaining specific content knowledge rather than the more popular one of doing independent projects.
But when it comes to dealing with the types of personalised and persistent distractions of the modern internet, it’s not clear that anyone, even an adult, is particularly good at it.
Trying to manage distractions by multitasking isn’t particularly effective. And when we look at the way adults respond to digital distraction, we find that many of them are reverting to far more aggressive tactics than just self-regulation: either banning devices outright or altering them to remove their most distracting features.
Let’s consider each tactic in turn.
Ban devices
In my book, I feature a couple of studies showing that banning connected devices in undergraduate lectures can improve academic performance. Probably the strongest case for a general ban is on mobile phones, which encourage frequent interruptions and notifications, not the kinds of deeper thought often needed in the classroom.
A 2015 survey of secondary schools in England found that students in schools who had implemented phone bans did better on their GCSE exams than students in schools with no phone ban. The positive effects were particularly pronounced for disadvantaged students. Still, we can’t expect to ban all devices, all of the time, because we need a way of getting the benefits of the many useful educational applications and websites.
Adapt connected devices
One way of getting the best of what technology offers without all of the negatives is to adapt devices to eliminate distractions. Over the last few years, a number of professionals whose work depends on focus and concentration have taken this path.
We can see this in the success of blocking software like Freedom, Cold Turkey and Focus, which let you block certain websites for certain periods of time, or set time-limits for their use.
You can also edit the default setting on many devices to eliminate some of the more distracting features like notifications and badges.
Web blockers could be used more extensively in schools, but perhaps in the longer term, the better solution is for educators and technologists to think more seriously about designing devices that promote learning.
The best kind of learning device might be a tablet or laptop that has no notifications as a default and that has easy-to-set lock modes that block the internet. Learning apps could also automatically block the internet and notifications when you are using them.
These types of changes would not be easy, particularly for devices that rely on cloud software to work, but we have to think seriously about them if we want students to use devices to learn.
We should also consider the value of single-purpose devices.
Instead of students responding to a multiple-choice question on a phone or a tablet, they could do so with a remote-control panel that has no other functions, and therefore no other distractions.
And not every lesson needs to feature a device. It’s possible to get a great deal of value from a device without using it in every lesson.
Teachers vs Tech? The case for an ed tech revolution by Daisy Christodoulou is published by Oxford University Press on 5 March, £17.99.
