The EdTech Moment

With the kids of today, the concern lies with the quality of content rather than the quantity of time spent on devices and digital media. With the younger lot, you often find them staring at a happy-go-lucky cartoon figure jumping around the screen or other interesting captivating videos. I would not completely side with it being healthy or unhealthy, as I said it about the quality. The addiction can either be counterproductive or  beneficial, based on what they are addicted to. Hence, the prerogative lies with the sensible adults or grown-ups around to monitor, guide and streamline the direction in to productive content.

So what is with this screen addiction, so often and lot spoken about for Gen Z. The most alarming and atrocious effect is the non-realisation on the part of the sufferer (like the case for all addictions) that they find very little or no meaning in interactions in the physical world.

Visions from Silicon Valley, the leaders of arguably the world’s foremost innovation hub and the largest exporter of tech ideas, often travel around the world and take on various shapes and forms stitching together the global tech and startup fabric. Even the tech giants here want to cut down the screen time for kids and young adults. The fact of the matter is that screen exposure has today become a necessity and not a privilege like yesteryears. "Food, Clothing, Shelter.... Screen" is the new basic needs of humanity.

A half-a-decade old study titled, “A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis: Quantifying the Relations Between Digital-Screen Use and the Mental Well Being of Adolescents” collected information on over 120K young smart devices users to determine if mental wellbeing went down with screen use. The survey showed that while some screen time is great for mental wellbeing, as the amount of time increases, the mental wellbeing falls down. So clearly there’s a sweet spot that the parents have to target.

Children need the right balance of real-world experiences and digital learning and this habit needs to be inculcated among kids in their free time. When Gen X, GenY, to some extent the Millennials were growing up, after homework and other curriculum-related tasks, they would go outside and play and discover new things outdoors and explore the world around them. Now all the information comes to kids through some digital medium. With everything going digital, no one is surprised that children don’t get the same real-world experiences as students used to do in the past. Even schools are being run on tablets with teachers often staring at screens themselves.

Having said this, the exposure to new concepts and ideas through digital learning has broadened the scope of conversations even among kids. Going beyond textbooks means creating a new generation of students that know about the things that are happening outside the classroom and also developing interpersonal skills in a better manner. Though, parents do rue the fact that teacher-student interaction has changed dramatically over the years.

When it comes to technology, education systems need an operating manual and beyond data, perhaps the parents, school and the government need to look at screen time checks within regulations so that kids also get the chance to look at the world outside the tiny rectangle in their palms, or in front of them on the wall.