Digital Wellness

I have to say, this week was a tough one for me in my course. It had me looking at the health and wellness aspects of being online. Although I was initially excited about it, I found the videos and articles I read very dark. Even the ones that were supposed to be light, or when we were asked to find the light in dark ones, I was overwhelmingly desolate all week.

To start off with, we looked at the impacts of screen time on physical health. Although it’s recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics that screen time be limited to less than 2 hours a day, Houghton, et al. (2015) found that American children over the age of 8 are spending, on average, 6.43 hours a day of screen time. Spending this much time on technology has the following impact on children: sleep interruption, brain development and sedentary behaviours which have been linked to Type II diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

Ok. Great. How can we change that?

 

Next, we looked at the mental health implications of being involved in the digital world. In the film ‘#Being Thirteen’ hosted by Anderson Cooper, all that was racing through my head was  “Wow. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a teenager in society today.” 

This is an actual clip from the video when he was speaking to a 13 year old girl about Social Combat (using social media to boost their own popularity or to knock others down the social ladder):

Once again, how can we change that?

Of this I’m not certain. However, we were asked what we would do about cyberbullying and how we could be proactive instead of reactive. My thoughts instantly raced to two things: 1. Dr. Jody Carrington. If you haven’t checked her out yet you really need to! Like now. Stop reading this post and check her out. Seriously. And 2. CCRCE’s focusing on becoming an ALLY. Empowering students IN THE MOMENT to become an ally and stand up for each other is imperative. What adults say isn’t going to change what teens think. But change WILL happen if they become allies for each other.

So, this week was a tough one for me mentally. I hope that next week I get to see the lighter side of the digital world!

References

Chignecto Central Regional Centre for Education. 2020. How to be an ALLY. [Image].            https://www.ccrce.ca/stand-up

CNN. 2015. Being Thirteen: Inside The Secret World of Teens.                                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-9LtTtkg04&feature=youtu.be

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2017. Screen Time vs. Lean Time Infographic.     [Image]. http://medbox.iiab.me/modules/en-cdc/www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dch/multimedia/infographics/getmoving.htm

Houghton, S., Hunter, S. C., Rosenberg, M., Wood, L., Zadow, C., Martin, K., & Shilton, T. (2015). Virtually impossible: limiting Australian children and adolescents daily screen based media use. BMC public health, 15, 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-15-5

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