School is Way Worse for Kids Than Social Media. Eli-Stark-Elster
One of my favorite tests: "Compared to What?" We read about the terrible things that social media and video games do to children's development. I do not say such things are untrue. In my day it was comic books and TV that rotted the brain, and I imagine it did. Either my junior or senior year of high school, I watched "Gilligan's Island" three times every night - two of them the same episode. I know see it as a good form of zoning out. When you have anxiety sufficient to require at least 60 minutes - often 120 - to fall asleep every night, the brain seeks something mindless enough to relax, interesting enough to keep you in the chair.
School was great because I got to see my friends before, after, and between classes. But many of my classes I would go in prepared to start slowly counting until the end of the class as soon as paying attention became intolerable, but having to look attentive. Even being challenged wore off rather quickly. I loved the first two weeks of advanced summer studies, 4 hours a day, six days a week of the same subject, plus homework that was new ground we were supposed to capture by morning. Weeks three and four were okay. Week five I was starting to wane. Week six I was checked out again.
I suppose it was dime novels that started us on the road to ruin, eh?
For instance: did you know that daily social media use increases the likelihood a child will commit suicide by 12-18%? Or that teenagers are far more likely to visit the ER for psychiatric problems if they have an Instagram account? Or that a child’s amount of social media use, past a certain threshold, correlates exponentially with poorer sleep, lower reported wellbeing, and more severe mental health symptoms?
If that was all true for social media— and again, none of it is — you and I both would agree that people under 16 or so should not have access to platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. Imagine allowing your child to enter any system that would make them 12-18% more likely to kill themselves. That would be insane. You wouldn’t let your kid anywhere near that system, and the public would protest until it was eliminated once for all.
Great. So let’s get rid of school.
Yes, there’s the obvious twist — all the data I just listed is true for the effects of school. The modern education system is probably the single biggest threat to the mental health of children.
I don't know what I would design instead. I am pretty sure I would order the complete set of Junior Classics comic books. How else would I ever read Silas Marner?
"evolved to play freely with their friends" Maybe when they're very young. But older kids worked. And learned, of course, but they had (and have in most less-rich societies) responsibilities and significant roles to play.
ReplyDeleteI remember a few years back looking up suicide rates for youth over the last century, and finding no obvious pattern--it was all over the map. It was yearly, not monthly--so I'm not questioning his monthly rate graph.
I ran this by some educator friends, and their considered opinion is that a certain amount of harm is good for students. "Surely some harm is good. I have some homeschooled kids in my family. Sparing them the harm of public school has made them annoying nightmares.... their issues stem from never experiencing peer judgment.... The world will treat them harshly and they won't have the experience to deal with it."
ReplyDeleteI do regularly encounter the sentiment online that more bullying would solve a lot of our problems, especially with the sort of theater kids who seem to be running much of the activist Left.
I don't, of course, agree with either of these positions; but I mention them to show that they have currency both among left-wing teachers and among right-wing online commentators. Maybe it's the cycle of abuse we hear about: having been abused ourselves as children by public school, we as a society have come to view the abuse as valuable and a necessary right of passage to adulthood.
I think there is tradeoff here. I have said as an oversimplification that it is good to have some obstacles in life. Perhaps one large one or a few mediums. Being average but excelling, or being disadvantaged but muddling along are both excellent accomplishments. Only when they mount up, so that the chance of success is small, do I seriously worry.
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