The Negative Effects of the Use of Technology in the Classroom
by Mandy Sieglock

Television, tech devices, video games, cellular phones, and the Internet have changed and colored our world in ways we could not have imagined just thirty years ago. Tech is a major part of our everyday lives. The day in and day out, hour after waking hour use of technology by society leads to a crucial ethical dilemma: Do we expose young people to technology in the classroom when there is a growing body of research from doctors, researchers, and psychologists showing exposure to an abundance of technology harms a young person’s development, especially considering the young are already immersed in technology outside the school day? I think not. In this era of Google, Facebook, and YouTube, tech is relatively new and we do not have the benefit of historical hindsight, but we do have a responsibility as an educated society to pay heed to the studies of Gary Small, Patricia Greenfield and others who are researching the impact of large doses of technology on the young. Consideration must be given to their recent findings lest we wake up one day 20 years from now and find a generation of young people with serious physical, mental, and emotional problems caused by high exposure to tech at an early age.

The oversaturation of technology starts in infancy. A quick look at Diapers.com and you can see some of the iPad apps for newborns that are flooding the market—potties and cribs are outfitted with iPads as are activity seats. When infants become toddlers, they graduate from Baby Einstein tapes to Leap-pads. At school age, they wake up to cell phone alarms and complete their morning routine with headphones engaged, all the while texting their friends. At day’s end, they plug into their iPhones, play video games, watch TV, and do homework on their laptops. It is not an over-exaggeration to say most of a young person’s waking hours are spent plugged into a phone while sitting in front of a screen. It is this continual bombardment of technology on the young that is the problem. According to a 2009 Kaiser study, kids spend about 7.5 hours a day using technological gadgets like computers, phones, televisions, etc.. Youth are so plugged in to tech gadgets before and after school that it would be detrimental to their well-being to plug them in all day long at school, because too much technology is harmful to the young brain and body.

Too much technology is especially adversely affecting the young brain. Researchers are finding prolonged exposure is the culprit of a sensory imbalance which is negatively affecting neurological development. Touch and attachment is becoming under-stimulated while visual and auditory systems are becoming over-stimulated. This imbalance is the reason doctors are seeing the child’s brain’s anatomy, chemistry, and pathways altered and impaired. The New York Times article, Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say, reports that a survey by the Pew Internet Project in conjunction with the College Board and the National Writing Project, reported about 90 % of the 2,462 teachers surveyed said, “digital technologies were creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans”. A professor of behavioral science at Stanford Medical School, Mali Mann, MD, reported to TechNewsWorld that young brains “get used to too much auditory and visual stimulation -- and in the absence of these stimulations, they do not know what to do with themselves. They get anxious, restless, bored and aggressive."

If young people cannot sit still and focus, it follows they would have a hard time solving complex problems in school. This premise is substantiated by Patricia Greenfield of UCLA who after analyzing 50+ studies relating to the effect of media on young brains, asserts that it is all a result of a shortened attention span due to the rewiring of their brains. Even CNN reported the manner in which the human brain works may be changing, because “Multimedia content has been linked in some kids to limited attention span, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk of depression and diminished long-term memory.” Neuroscientist Gary Small and GiGi Vorgan co-authors of iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind believe “the remarkable evolution of the human brain is caused by today’s constant technological presence.” They feel “the Internet is altering the way young minds are developing and functioning with the frontal lobes of over-wired kids’ brains maturing with shortcuts and new pathways to access information” and believe we need to understand the “astonishing impact of this new brain evolution on our society and our future, as well as a warning of its potential dangers—ADD, social isolation, and Internet addiction.”

With the onslaught of technology in a student’s day, it follows there is a reduction in the amount of time a teacher spends with the student. Of course, teachers are still involved in student learning, but to a lesser degree. In elementary schools across the country youth are learning history by playing interactive games like Jeopardy, learning to solve math problems using step by step animation, and learning languages with Rosetta Stone. In addition, many homeschooled and college students take classes online. School districts in North Carolina, New York, LA, and Chicago are already providing their students with a tablet. It is only a matter of time before being “online” in school will be commonplace if society allows it. One problem with this is that students who are not getting the physical contact they need from their parents, now will not get the attention from teachers, either. This lack of human connection, dialogue, and eye contact due to technology overuse is what therapists say is causing the high increase in mental illnesses, like attachment disorders, depression, anxiety, bipolar, ADHD, and obsessive compulsive disorders.

All the technology is also harming the eyes and ears of young kids. Doctors have long known youth are more apt to have hearing loss with long term earplug use and vision problems with long term straining over a screen. Hunching over a laptop is also causing a rise in neck and back issues. A 2002 study at the International Occupational Ergonomics and Safety Association Conference by Cheryl Bennett reported that when using laptops, 60% of students 10-17 years old complained of neck and back pain. Obesity is another concern. Kids need to be physical to stay healthy and fit, and if they spend an exorbitant amount of time sitting in front of a TV screen or computer; their health will suffer. Worse yet, the bond between parent and child is becoming weaker since they are spending fewer and fewer hours together. Proof of this is a study of more than 3,000 young people published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, which states, “the more hours teenagers spend using a computer or watching TV, the weaker their emotional bonds with their parents.” That weak bond makes a kid more apt to participate in behaviors such as —drinking, smoking, and drug use. Researchers at Canada’s Queen’s University found “youths with the highest level of computer use were 50% more likely to engage in risky behaviors.”

Despite the negative effects of kids using technology in the classroom, there are positive effects, too, of which I am the first to tout. Technology at school allows the students: educational resources at their fingertips, equal access to information, increased efficiency, increased communication, and a better chance at securing a job after graduation due to computer proficiency, to name but a few examples. The problem lies in the fact that as positive as the impact of technology is, the abundance of technology young kids are exposed to in and outside the classroom is detrimental their physical, mental, and emotional development.

A viable solution for a good balance of technology would be for parents to monitor their children’s use at home more and for teachers to set a time each day for technology rather than incorporating technology into the entire day’s program. For example, in music class students could play actual instruments rather than playing them on the iPad; and rather than using Rosetta Stone, they could converse with their classmates. Part of the solution is educating kids themselves on the consequences of overuse. The young need to be taught to self-limit their media devices. Teachers need to be educated on the importance of making connections with their students, insisting on dialogue, eye contact, and touch. Another good solution would be for parents to follow the American Academy of Pediatric guidelines of an hour or two of electronic entertainment a day for anyone over the age of two and no media for anyone under the age of two due to the lasting negative effects on language development, reading skills, and short-term memory. The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and their health, well-being, and future must be protected. Society needs to take a hard look at the use and overuse of technology and strike a good balance for the incorporation of technology in the lives of young people.