How Technology Is Changing Students (And What 2 Million Teachers Are Seeing Too)

Quality content as always, thanks Gabe.

I definitely agree that apps like TikTok are giving people shorter attention spans. I mean, I'm Autistic and get distracted easily, but most of the time, it's not my phone. It's stuff that's infront of me

Also..what you said about helping Students overcome social anxiety. Uh..i don't think you'll like to hear this as a teacher but. I dropped out of school when i was 15. So, i still deal with social anxiety. I'm trying to work on it, but yeah..

I'm thankful I grew up and graduated in the 80's. I don't think I could have learned from classes online. Same with college. In-class learning is engaging and interactive. Not to mention the social aspect. But I'm not proficient with computers and I hate to replace my cellphone and have to learn how to operate a new one..... That said, it seems that this generation of kids is less educated.

I think that tech can be used for good (educational purposes) but kids are not interested in that

Parents need to not send their kids to school with a phone. Imagine if our parents sent us to school with a Nintendo. It’s no different.

"Short attention span even with adults" - You got that right! I just finished my masters degree and I encountered a few cohorts who need to be told what to do.

I'm in my 30s, but feel like the the voices of the "old-school" teachers on our staff resonate much more with me than the new hires. I started teaching traditional advanced high school physics and ap physics in 2010, and just finished my 15th year. It's so sad to witness just how much these screens and algorithm addictions affect my students, and to know how capable they truly would be if they could just put down the phones. It's so sad to see them and know how capable they are, and they just don't even know it.

Our school is the only school left in my district that even has full actual traditional physics and ap physics, all the rest just have freshmen "conceptual physics" which is more just like a middle school physical science/earth science class. This is the first year since I started that we didn't get enough signed up for ap physics to offer it next year... they just don't want the challenge and the workload. They just want to go home and scroll.

Can kids learn more gritty skills through sports, music, clubs? How can all students accomplish this? Graduation requirements?

Start the day with exercises on their phones.
Recess
All other exercises without phones.
Extend day by 30 minutes - with no homework ever.

Excellent topic. Glad you are covering it. Unfortunately, AI will completely alter the jobs of the future for young people today. Their parents do not understand what that future will look like for their children and our often times incapable of assisting their growth and a positive way given that AI will limit jobs. America is also not going to be a powerful economy of the future with most production permanently in Asia, South America, and Mexico. I fear for these young kids today as their future is limited by the outcome of AI and the shift in a global economy. Critical thinking is going to be permanently hindered by AI tools.

Thank you so much for addressing this. All this tech is making our job as teachers redundant. Eventually, there will be no need for us.

pass us the secret OF link, i aint no snitch

It's sad that students have forgotten how to read, write, do simple math and reason....

In my school, technology wasn’t so advanced that it was portable. What would I do with a laptop or a Nokia phone?

However, I then went to another school where they were very strict about bringing tech and I think it did make me think on my feet more and I didn’t miss my gizmos.

The internet was down in my daughters classroom yesterday. Happiest and most regulated she has come home all year.

To help students overcome social anxiety, think about using the "speed dating" format for students to share briefly and quickly with one other person. There is no pressure for one student to be the focus of all their peers. Also, this gives students an "excuse" to talk to new friends 🙂

I am in awe that kids can have phones in class nowadays. When I went to school in the 90s and 00s, we had to keep our flip phones in our lockers. If our teachers saw them, they got confiscated.
Thankfully, I am able to homeschool my 3 kids. They always get complemented on how well behaved they are when we go anywhere in public because they have learned to wait and be patient without a screen. They bring a book or have a conversation.
My kids are learning how to navigate technology for very specific educational purposes, but it has a healthy limit.

SLEEP! Many of them are up all hours of the night on their devices, and it affects them during the day.

The number one problem in school today is that kids are bored and cannot see any use for what they are learning in school as far as how it will help them in the future. Public education needs a complete overhaul. Teachers want to teach every kid the same thing at the same age and expect them to master it and that’s just not how kids brains work. All the research and data in neuroscience supports the fact that kids learn at their own speed and pace and retain information best when they are invested in what they are learning. When they show up to school each day and are told what to do and when to do it, they are not invested in what they are learning and check out mentally. We need to figure out how to set up an environment in public education where kids are supported in what they want to learn and free to develop their own interest and give teach them skills and knowledge they need to be successful in that area rather than focusing on what some random curriculum says they should do or know. I have no idea how to make this happen, but I guarantee if we did this we wouldn’t have a problem with attention spans.

This is spot on and so depressing. I have taught 5th and 6th graders for 21 years and things have changed drastically in that time.

Handwriting, yes! My kids and I are all working on our penmanship this summer. We homeschool, so I make sure my kids get opportunities for handwriting notes and some assignments. But they still need lots of work on it.

Last year for leap year, I had my third graders write about what they thought they would be doing in four years. A huge portion of the class wrote one sentence: “I will have a phone.” 😞

Gabe: I graduated from a Master's degree in the 80s, just when spreadsheets and word was starting to help me be more efficient. We, would then type on that rotary type writer in the library, waiting for a chance to use it. Within a year or so, WordPerfect, the precursor of Word Docs, and Lotus 123, the precursor to Excel, came into being.

It frustrated me that my professors who taught the tech classes did NOT pay any attention to us getting proficient in this technology.

Point being, that technology is very easy to learn and pick up, including cell phone use and apps.

I always advise younger people, to learn to communicate in writing and speech, and you will be very successful. This will help with ANY field, including science, technology, marketing etc. Your thoughts on helping people get over their social anxiety are absolutely key.

Writing skills are critical. Please do everything you can to assist with this hand, eye, and thought coordination, it wires the brain early in a manner of critical thinking immeasurably.

They are being infected (nice play on words) with short attention spans, which was mentioned. They are also extremely rude, self centered, violent, and unbearable to deal with. I’m sure much of this is due to the rude, violent, and toxic content they watch. They are at times sexually deviant. I’ve seen young people twerking on tables, using foul language, and groaning in completely inappropriate ways. Kids are aware and exposed to things kids shouldn’t be viewing. They are also dumb. I know that sounds harsh, but they just don’t have the skills to compete. I’ve worked with both American and Chinese kids, and American kids are so far behind the Chinese kids in intellectual and social development. If things don’t change, in 20 years (or less) America won’t be able to compete in the global economy.

Personally I think tech should be limited to upper middle school and high school only. Keep them out of the elementary and primary schools.

The performing arts are a great way to assist in these soft skills that students have lost. We don’t work heavily with technology but work on interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and relationships! Get your children in theatre, choir, band and dance! These are the skills companies are paying for because they are the most valuable skills. The fine arts are life arts!!

It is over they have become morons who are addicted to social media. Their brains 🧠 have been utterly rewired. Cellphones 📱 are addictive and are leading to a life which is full of envy and boredom. Pathetic and destructive.

You might like the book Screen Schooled! Two veteran teachers exploring the impact that the overuse and misuse of technology in the classroom.

I think much older generations did a better job of grading on handwriting. My middle school math teacher taught a short calligraphy class, but in general we were never graded on handwriting in the 90s and early 2000s.

It is not necessary to expose students to technology before junior or senior year of high school. Tech changes so rapidly and has become so user accessible that even toddlers run circles around parents. What is needed are gradually acquired foundational skills including fine motor skills acquired through repetition, practice and patience, all things that the instant gratification served up by technology deliberately usurp. The placement surveys coming back from parents regarding expectations and desires for their children in the following school year have overwhelmingly stated their wishes for a reduction or elimination of digital tech in their child's classroom. I think that says volumes.

Stop showing ten minute 'educational' videos in class. Retention lasts about as long as the video. Assign reading from paper books and require hand written notes in cursive. THEN show the video knowing they have thorough background knowledge that will be reinforced with class discussion after. There are ways to use technology to reinforce knowledge gained through effort rather than dopamine rush 'entertainment'.

Great information! I am running a PD for teachers at my school this coming Fall on integrating AI into the classroom and changing teachers' views on lesson design from having students producing traditional rote assignments to creating assignments that employ critical thinking as you discussed here. Good stuff! I will be including a link in my training documents for treachers at my school to be able to watch your video. I have been trying to explain all of your major points to my admin and fellow teachers over the past year and you did it in a little over 15 minutes for me! :)

Teachers need to learn to utilize AI now so that they understand the technology, how it can be implemented into their classroom beneficially and to insure students aren't abusing the technology by changing the way we design our lessons implementing more critical thinking.

The Anxious Generation is an important book that examines the massive switch in child development from “play-based childhood” to “phone-based childhood“. It’s referred to as the “Great Rewiring of Childhood” and is such an important book for educators and families.

Regarding handwriting, when the middle school students returned to in-person learning after the height of the pandemic, many found the act of handwriting challenging. Frequent pausing during paper-pencil note taking was necessary as their physical stamina had become greatly reduced. Regardless, Chrome book usage, keyboarding, and writing analysis apps have become more of the norm.

El pensamiento crítico se tiene que desarrollar para lograr la mejor sociedad mundial 🎉🎉🎉.

One of the things I've noticed most is how many students (middle schoolers, at least) don't seem to have the attention span to watch a movie. They'll beg to watch a movie instead of doing coursework, and within 5 minutes of putting on a movie that they asked to watch they're trying to play games on their computer or sneak out their phone or start being disruptive. In another example, I was teaching a music elective class for middle schoolers and we watched a musical for our musical unit: "In the Heights." I think within 10 minutes of starting the musical, a student walked up to me and literally (and very seriously) said "I'm not being entertained right now" to which I retorted "you're in school. You don't need to be entertained." He continued to complain throughout the two class sessions it took us to watch the musical--and it's not a boring musical.

Fear of public speaking has been around for many years. Toast Masters started in order to help people deal with the fear of public speaking. Critical thinking skills don't just magically appear. They are taught.

Our society has been focused on making life easier. We want to avoid boring, difficult tasks. We want to avoid failure and struggle. That is human nature. What we fail to understand is that it is through these struggles that we learn and grow. We develop resilience and ways to deal with problems.

It is through taking on boring , difficult tasks that we learn how to learn. The emotional and psychological issues stem from an easy life. They live in fear because they have no way to deal with the issues that life throws at them. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. We learned to cope with life's problems. We had no choice if we wanted to survive, let alone thrive. I think the young people know this intuitively. Their fear and anxiety are well founded. We are beginning to see the consequences of being over reliant on technology.

I too have seen the decline of basic social skills and attention span. Kids as young as 5 have phone and they would rather scroll than play at the park. While teachers have known about this shift for years, I don’t think parents realize what a disservice this is to children. Parents here is a message for you. Unplug-as a family. Go camping. Join youth programs such as scouting and 4-H, They are still around. Go check out local library programs together. Join youth recreational sports programs. Volunteer to help coach and learn new skills yourself. Spend some time at the local park. Ride bikes as a family on local bike trails. Anything that gets the whole family moving and touching grass together. Technology isn’t only affecting their social skills and attention span, it’s affecting their physical and mental health negatively too. Go, connect as a family and learn new skills together. They are only children once, get to know who they are without a device between you and them.

School is dead. This days it only serves as a daycare. Schools became war zones. Most kids would learn much more if they stayed at home, learning via Internet.

The school I attended had elementary classrooms take turns reciting poems in front of morning assemblies, solo presentations or paired presentations started in 5th grade. I think that’s huge for being able to observe cues. We were required to write in cursive for certain assignments and some teachers refused to allow mechanical pencils or pens in their rooms. Many students were involved in school sports as well as the arts be it choir or theater. None of these things seemed particularly significant at the time, but in total it made a world of difference.
Cheers to critical thinking, problem solving, and grit!

Definitely shorter attention spans and not willing to try doing anything if it's "hard."

Hi Gabe, I have taught forst grade for 8 years. I have noticed that technology is affecting students' language and speech. I had to have 5 kids in my classroom staffed for speech this year. I have never had that many. It is not only in my classroom, other KG and 1st grade teachers tell me that they are seeing this increase in speech problems and language development as well. Children are spending more time on decives and less time interacting with with other people. From an early age children are on their parents phones and tablets. This is a babysitter for kids and they are missing out on losts of interactions with people.
I agree with you about student handwriting. I could not find and reaources for teaching handwriting so I wrote a book "Little Ricky and the Driving Letters" and I made a companion resource book for parents and teachers to use for fun games, centers, and practice sheets. I has really helped my 1st graders.

Some online games keep kids connected to each other over the summer break.

Parenting. Our daughter has to read, at home, what WE parents choose for her. From Jules Verne to Daniel Kahneman, Dante to Varian and Feynman. Have to. It is a task, not an amusement.
And no cell phone, sorry. I don't care what other parents think: no cell phone. And since I worked with marketing (as a statistician) for several years, I point to her all the tricks in these contents.
I think, honestly, parents are outsourcing too much of raising kids to school.
Mother of 3 kids (2 adults, indeed), one of them is a teenager of 14. That had read more books (fiction and non-fiction) than I have. And discuss them with us.
Do your part as a parent. Paying bills is not enough; everybody does this in every place in the world.

Social Media/Gaming has nothing to do with tech.

I say "Bring back paper notebooks!" . Kids are not being responsible for chromebooks (they get lost/stolen, broken, forgotten easily) and it's the biggest economical waste on our parents' tax dollars. Learning to write by hand should be a mandatory skill to help our kids in hand mobility, as well as focus

Every teacher knows when their students are using AI because it's written so much better than we know our students are capable of doing - but who cares if they do? Senior management will turn a blind eye, parents won't care if their little darling gets an A, and the students will be laughing their socks off. The only person who'll be upset will be the teacher who's trying to do her job properly.