As we are on our way to become educators, we realize that technology is a large part of our society today. As educators we would like to find a way to fit technology into our teachings and educate our students about technology so that they understand the best possible ways to use it. Our inquiry question is: what are the effects of screen time on children? This is relevant because there are many youth that have too much screen time, and each person needs to know the risks that come with too much screen time. As educators, we should be the ones that educate these youth. We will be discussing the relationship between this topic to teaching and learning, the pros, cons, and risks, and we will discuss some strategies, best practices, and tips regarding our findings.  

Our focus will mainly be on the risks of screen time, and what we can do to prevent these risks. There are many effects of screen time on youth. Lissak states that research shows that duration, content, after-dark use, media type, and number of devices are all large components in determining screen time effects (Lissak, 2018). Additionally, there are many physical health effects such as poor sleep, and psychological health effects such as ADHD-related behaviour that we will be discussing (Lissak, 2018). To add to this, according to Przybylski and Weinstein, the amount of time that young people spend on technology is concerning due to the negative effects on mental well-being (Przybylski & Weinstein, 2017). There are obviously many risks we need to be aware about but there are also ways to mitigate these risks. We will talk about how we can help young people limit screen time, understand when the body is overworked by technology, and share ways to alternate sitting still and being active.

References

Lissak, G. (2018, July). Adverse physiological and psychological effects of screen time.  Science Direct. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/science/article/pii/S001393511830015X?via%3Dihub#s0010

Przybylski & Weinstein. (2017). A large-scale test of the Goldilocks hypothesis. Association

for Psychological Science. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797616678438