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I believe there is space for social media in the lives of children and teenagers, but I do not think it belongs in a school. Cellphones can be fun, and provide entertainment for children, but there are serious mental health risks that come with them. According to NPR, “Young people who report spending the most time on smartphones — five to seven hours a day — are twice as likely to report being depressed as those who use their phones for one to two hours a day” (Kamenetz, 2019). The severe risks that come with extensive technology use are too powerful to ignore. What students do outside of the school is up to their parents and them, but in a school, there is no way to control what they are seeing and doing, and how it affects them.
Aside from the passive risks of social media causing depression and anxiety, it is also likely to introduce students to the world of cyberbullying. An example is Ronan Parke, the runner-up on Britain’s Got Talent. When exposed to the media at age, he began to be cyberbullied really bad by fans of the show. It got to the point that he had to get off social media and have a group of people run his accounts for him (Willett, 2019). He was one of the lucky ones, however. Many children who experience cyberbullying don’t have someone to turn to who can help or are afraid to seek it out, so they suffer in silence. It used to be that children who were bullied in school could get away from it at home, but now with social media, it can follow them. Cyberbullying can lead to less attendance, struggles with classwork and attention, and problems arising between students or even teachers (Likes vs. Learning: The Real Cost of Social Media for Schools, 2023) In some extreme cases, cyberbullying can lead to suicide.
While I see the argument that cell phones can bring students fun and calm them down, from personal experience, that is simply a disguise. In reality, cell phones and social media cause a dissociative effect, disconnecting their users from reality and forcing emotions to go blank, repressing them (McQuate, 2022). It’s not calming, it’s harmful. While there is a time and place for this, it is not in a school. It can be good for a brain break after school, or while winding down for the night, but during school, students should be focused and on top of their work, not floating in their own minds.
Resources
Kamenetz, A. (2019, August 27). NPR’s The Scientific Debate over Teens, Screens, and Mental Health. National Public Radio. Link
Likes vs. Learning: The Real Cost of Social Media for Schools. (2023). American Federation of Teachers. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2023/LikesVSLearning_Report.pdf
McQuate, S. (2022, May 23). “I don’t even remember what I read”: People enter a “dissociative state” when using social media. UW News. https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/05/23/people-enter-a-dissociative-state-when-using-social-media/
Willett, R. (Director). (2019). Plugged-In: The Toxicity of Social Media Revealed. [YouTube Video]. Brick in the Wall Media.
