It can’t be true, technology making kids sick???

This week  our lovely debaters had a chance to dabble with the idea that Technology is making our kids unhealthy.  Aubrey,  Jayme, and Jennifer had the task of trying to convince us that technology was really making us suck.  They had some fabulous points for their side of the debate and they suggested that we read.  The first article is a Huffington Post article,  Sneaky ways technology is messing with your body and mind.  The article mentions that tech is really taking a toll holistically. The whole tech neck thing is actually a serious problem, I just saw a diagram on Facebook about how our spines are actually curling up because of technology use.  I went back into my Facebook and searched and searched to find the article, turns out it was my hip grandma who posted the article The Harm of Looking Down at Your Cell Phone Does to Your Spine. This article that my grandma shared mentions that staring down at your device is like having an eight-year old sitting on your head while you are standing. It is scary to think that just typing a message, reading an e-mail, or browsing the Internet,  puts you at risk of spine injury.  With that in mind you also have to consider  you’re enduring about 60 pounds of pressure. It is even more scary to think that the average person spends two to four hours a day in this position. Dr. Kenneth K. Hansraj, chief of spinal surgery at New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine points out that the quickest way that we can avoid this neck injury is to put the phones down once and for all.  Unfortunately, we know that dropping the phone is not likely not going to happen.  Some of the solutions that the Dr. suggests is that we try to hold our phone straight in front of us instead of bending your head down. Wow, my grandma is right on trend with all this tech stuff!

Back to the Huffinton Post article, thinking about all that bacteria on a phone is super gross.  We should defiantly be cleaning our gadgets more often. The eye strain things is so true for me, late at night or early in the morning I am guilty of using my cell phone in bed.  I may have even dropped it a few times ahaha. Ooohh no, is this cell phoning around at night is messing with my sleep cycle too.  I am defiantly a constant Face Book feed checker too. The suffering from withdrawls also goes to show how long a person can last without their cell phone.  I will drive home to get it, even if I know that everyone knows that I am at work and could reach me there if need be.  I really enjoyed this article as i relate to so many of the points it may be concerning that my holistic health is being effected by technology.

The quick video Five crazy ways social media is changing your brain right now defiantly hit home for me as well.  I know that when it comes to Facebooking around, I am for sure guilty of having the addiction that is mentioned in this video.  As I sit here at the kitchen table working on my blog and watching video’s , the phantom phone effect is something my husband admitted that he swears he feels buzzing, pulls out his phone and it is just his imagination.

The flip side of the debate was represented by Heather, Andres, and Roxanne.  They had their work cut out for the as they had to highlight that technology is not making our kids unhealthy.  The first article that was chosen for our class to explore was Determining the effects of technology on children.  The article opens with how beneficial technology in the classroom is. I will admit that my students are writing way more now that many of my daily writing assignment are being done of the computer using Google Docs.   Many of the points discussed in this article have been mentioned in previous debates about the benefits of technology.  There is no need to convince me, I know exactly how great technology is.  The article goes on to point out that technology is not going anywhere and we should look at both sides of the coin.

I believe that part of growing up in this internet age is understanding the big risks of the internet.  The article Researchers: Forget Internet abstinence; Teens need some online risk suggests that we need to get teens to handle small risk situations, and learn from there. Teens used strategies of ignoring content or leaving the site.  Teens did share with parents and friends when they can across explicit content.  It is important as a parent and a educator  to keep up with the trends so we can keep our kids healthy.

Turning bystanders into upstanders against bullying is a great resource that classroom teachers can use to show students how to be upstanders.

All in all I totally love the debates and the learning that we are doing in this class.  It is opening both my and my husband’s eyes (he has the unpaid version haha) about issue that we face with technology. Everyone understands that technology is moving at such a rapid pace, we just have to do our best to understand both the pro’s and the cons.  More learning as we go!!