Smartphones, Online Safety & children's Mental Health in Schools
Published: August 2024
Smartphones and Addiction
Dopamine is a brain chemical associated with pleasure. It is released when we anticipate a reward—similar to the excitement before a holiday. This feel-good sensation occurs as our brain expects something positive, such as receiving a nice comment on a photo, a message from a friend, or progressing in a game.
Social media and gaming platforms are intentionally designed to trigger these “variable reward schedules,” which encourage the brain to release more dopamine. This increase in dopamine enhances feelings of enjoyment and reinforces addictive behaviors, making us crave more.
Major tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google compete for our attention because it directly translates into profit (humanetech.com). The more time we spend scrolling and clicking, the more revenue they generate.
Why teachers need to know about smartphones
At schools, we need to be aware that so many of their children will have smartphones and that they will be given smartphones at younger and younger ages. We need to recognize that they are a part of our children’s life. How can you make sure your pupils are safe online?
The next thing is to think: how do we prepare them to stay safe online?
How do we prepare them to make the right decisions?
And how do we build relationships with them so that they can freely talk to us about their feelings and what they’re doing online?
How to build relationships to create safety
We need to think about building relationships of mutual trust so that children can say when they’re feeling bullied because cyberbullying is huge. It’s not just the same school bullying which happens in school: it can happen in their bedroom, it can happen wherever their smartphone is.
So we need to have those relationships where children feel they can talk about how they are feeling as a result of what people are doing to them or saying to them online.
How do we keep up with all the tech changes?
We also can’t keep up with all the changes. So as much as we try to, as professionals and as parents, we can’t keep up with all the changes. So we need to keep asking the children. We need to keep on getting that feedback, hearing that student and pupil voice.
How to listen to students’ concerns?
Ways your students can keep you up to date: we can do surveys, we can do quizzes at the end of PSHE lessons, and we can have those conversations whereby children can say,
“There’s a new app, everybody’s on it This is what’s happening This is how it’s making me feel.”
so that we can keep in touch as adults and teach them, because it’s not going away, but we need to teach them how to use it appropriately.
Schools duty of care for online safety
This is so flooding the children’s world and at such a pace, and the change is happening at such a pace that as schools, we have a duty of care towards the children, and we should be making sure that we keep coming back to that same message with them.
But we’re also sharing it with parents, letting parents know the age restriction on Apps, saying to parents that we strongly advise you not to be buying smartphones for your primary age children, and not to be allowing them on apps that are developmentally beyond their years.
Children can’t understand, they don’t understand what’s going to happen if they put a photograph online. They don’t get that that’s there for good, and it can be used in any way.
So it’s that constant reminding to parents as well as the teaching to children. We’re trying to get that pincer attack on both and not letting that go.
Keep a feedback loop on new tech with your class
Just the conversations, the feedback from children will keep reminding us as educational professionals that we need to keep giving those positive messages out about how to stay safe.
Further reading: Guidance on Mobile Phones in schools from UK GOV.
