Hitting the Digital Wall
There is a theory in a form of homeschooling called unschooling which states, (oversimplified), that if left alone to video games and Cheezits for long enough, the child’s brain and body will demand something of substance, a book or an apple, something that can sustain them. It says that natural curiosity will inspire them to walk away from mindless media in search of more.
I have homeschooled my kids on and off for years, but have never been brave enough to test this. I secretly suspect that this theory was stronger pre-iGen, when games were pixelated and slow, before phones and constant connectivity provided hours of rabbit holes to fall down.
But I swear, almost a year into the pandemic, it is happening. In the last twenty-four hours, two iGens passing through our kitchen have announced unequivocally that they are done with screens, done with their phones. One threw theirs out. The other deleted everything off his phone except email and messages. They want books. They want humans. They want experience. They want to make memories. I can’t say I blame them.
I teach college students and we study The Atlantic article by preeminent generational study authority, Jean Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” It always sparks conversation—some of it defensive, blaming things like parenting styles, the rising costs of living, a less guaranteed future, and now, a pandemic—on the current level of anxiety and disconnect.
We talk about times in their childhood when their phones have been lost, broken or confiscated. I tell them about my son who lost his phone for four months, how he read eleven novels, learned to play the guitar, and skipped through seventh grade.
My 101 students read a follow-up article on the Wait til 8th site. When I ask them what age they think kids should have phones, they all agree “older than I was”. We watch The Social Dilemma. One student says his mom tracked how often he looked at his phone during the documentary—over 100 times. His little sister was over 200.
We talk about an experiment I do in an upper-level elective in literature, PostApocalyptic Fiction 255, where we commit to locking our phones in the classroom from Friday to Monday to simulate the tech-free dystopic wastelands we study in One Second After, Into the Forest and The Road.
They ask, “Can we try that in this class?”
“Will you keep our phones for the weekend?”
“Please?”
I think we have hit the collective screen wall. I think ubiquitous connectivity—the buffet of everything digital in the world available for endless gorging—has lost its appeal. Add to that a pandemic, that school, friends, yoga, meetings, family celebrations, holiday traditions and athletic practices happen virtually and stick a fork in us, we are done.
Next month, my sister and our sister-wife cousin have rented a cabin in the mountains. We’re taking our (ten!!) kids, books, board games, a camera, crafts, and snacks. We are taking no phones, no iPads or touches. We are hungry for the Catskill weekends of our childhood—boredom and unscripted musicals, hikes and frog catching, fairy houses and deep dives into chapter books in hammocks.
It could be awful—the howls of young protest when we pitched this could be heard from space. We imagine the first 24 hours are purely for twitchy detox.
But it could be wonderful.
I’ll report back.
