At our 2025 launch night a few weeks ago I spoke about our theme for the year, Relational Teaching. This is one of our 5 Teaching and Learning Principles. I dedicated some of my talk to speaking about the connection between relationships and technology and, more specifically, the dangers for students using smart phones.
In his outstanding book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt cited some disturbing statistics. He said that between 2010 and 2020, the number of teenagers who experienced one or more major depressive episodes in a 12-month period increased by 145% for girls and 161% for boys. Haidt attributes the increase primarily to smartphone ownership.
Reliable research indicates that teenage girls primarily use their smartphones for social media, while most boys use their phones for online games, TikTok videos, and, disturbingly, pornography. While I acknowledge that social media and many online games are not inherently harmful, their overuse, along with the times of day they are used, can be damaging to relationships and contribute to anxiety in children.
Consider the hypothetical, yet realistic, case of a teenage girl who reads a social media post about one of her friends that upsets her at 9:30 pm. The girl struggles to fall asleep and checks her phone again after 10:30pm, only to read another, even more upsetting, social media message. Unwisely, she responds to the message, eventually falls asleep after midnight, and goes to school tired the next day. She struggles to concentrate, and at recess, another student comments on her social media post from the night before. The girl gets upset again and doesn't pay attention in class for the rest of the day
