Students were already using a lot of technology before the pandemic arrived - but the need to isolate at home during lockdowns and study online drove this forward at a rapid pace.
While this use of technology has been vital over the past few years and has led to many positive developments, it has also brought many concerns around the amount of time children spend online to the fore once again, from safeguarding concerns to mental health issues associated with social media platforms and digital interactions.
This is why the concept of digital wellbeing has become crucial post-pandemic. It has become apparent just how much time students are spending online via their smartphones, laptops and tablets.
In fact, so ubiquitous did this technology become that in our school we realised we had to start proactively talking to our students about digital wellbeing - not only to ensure that they moderate their technology use but also to understand how they are using technology, why and when - and how to integrate this into healthy, productive study habits.
So, with input from the Digital Wellness Institute, here’s how we aimed to do just that.
Tips to improve digital wellbeing in schools
1. Focus on the work environment
Firstly, we talked to students about how to create a home-working environment suitable for work and study that is productive for them.
This involved asking them to describe their environment at home for work or revision and how it differs from their work environment at school.
To do this, each student drew their workspace on a piece of paper and discussed it in pairs, before a few of them volunteered to feed back on their work environment to the whole group.
For some, this workspace was their bedroom; for others, the kitchen counter or the living room. This made for an interesting discussion because it allowed the students to reflect on the main “distractors” in their environment and whether these had an impact on their productivity, and what they could change.
2. The Tech Graveyard
From here, we ran an exercise in which we gave each student a “Tech Graveyard” sheet, asking them to draw a simple floor plan of their living space, highlighting the areas where they keep or charge their tech, and the places they keep unused or outdated devices; for example, old phones, PlayStation consoles, Fitbits, laptops and tablets, such as iPads.
They reflected on which devices they can or should part with, while noting a calendar date when they will “stop, drop and sort”.
This was an effective exercise to get students thinking more deeply about creating spaces that are distraction-free in order to help them work more efficiently.
It also helped to open up discussions about how they can recycle electronic items or how to dispose of sensitive data, both of which are important components of digital wellbeing.
3. Develop mindful practice
As a group, we spent some time reflecting on the students’ use of technology, asking when the last time was when they felt overwhelmed by digital clutter; for example, too many documents or files opened on their browser or on their desktop, or folders full of documents that serve no purpose any longer or that are disorganised.
We discussed whether they felt they suffered from GOT syndrome, which, according to Amy Blankson, founder of the Digital Wellness Institute, is a feeling that we have “got” to keep things, even if we haven’t used them for months or they are outdated and no longer working properly.
From this, we also asked the students to apply the ”Really?! Rule” - do I really need to check my phone or laptop every five minutes? Do I really need to scroll through Instagram so often? This creates a useful checkpoint for reducing screen time.
Alongside this, we encouraged students to regularly check their screen time on their phone or tablet, and got them to discuss the measurement with their peers and whether they felt positive or negative about the amount of time they spent on their devices.
4. Recognising bad habits
As part of this process, we discussed a number of concepts around technology in order to help students to recognise both healthy and unhealthy digital habits. These included:
- FOMO - The “fear of missing out”, and how social media can fuel anxiety amongst students.
- JOMO - the “joy of missing out”, and how it can sometimes feel good to not be on top of all things social media.
- Doom scrolling - a tendency to scroll through bad news.
- Sadfishing - the act of posting sensitive, emotional and personal material to gain sympathy.
- Clickbait - social media content with a misleading or sensationalist headline designed so that people to click on it.
- Digital minimalism - a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected activities that strongly support the things you value.
We asked students to write down their understanding of these terms on a piece of paper, which they placed anonymously in a jar, and which we then discussed as a group.
This is known as the “jar exercise” and provides a safe space for open and honest discussion. It was clear that for many students this was an eye-opening exercise.
5. Setting limits
Furthermore, students were encouraged to write down their own “invisible fences”, which are rules they set for themselves, designed to guide positive behaviours around technology and their working environment and encourage them to declutter.
Some of these rules included: only using their phone as a tool and not an escape; turning off their phone at dinner time; only checking emails five times a day; setting a time to declutter their laptop or inbox; and rewarding themselves for good behaviour.
Each morning, students then discussed the rules they had set with their tutor as part of their daily advisory time, during which they monitored their progress and were helped to stay on track.
6. Tech sustainability
Finally, we looked at some of the issues around sustainability, exploring the ethics of tech companies, and looked at the value that technology brings to our lives in relation to the resources that are extracted from nature to create and recycle devices.
For example, students were staggered to learn that the average spam email causes emissions equivalent to 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per message, with spam filtering saving 135 TWh of electricity per year. That’s equivalent to 13 million cars off the road.
The stats we discussed helped to provide a clear link between our own decluttering practices and clearing the planet of digital clutter, too.
With climate change and the environment such a pertinent issue for young people in particular, taking an in-depth look at the environmental impact of technology and data was one of the most effective ways to ignite a rethink of the way they incorporate digital into their everyday lives.
The impact
We received positive feedback from the students, who said the session had spurred them to think much more deeply about the impact of social media and technology on their lives, their learning and the planet.
As technology continues to advance, it’s important that schools embed the concept of digital wellbeing in both their pastoral and academic curriculum.
Giving students the time and space to bring awareness to themselves and their own lives will allow them to develop stronger connections, improve their mental health and, therefore, perform better at school.
Maria Mendez is head of Years 11 and 12 at Southbank International School in London
