The "Key Findings" section in, Generation M2, a study of youth's use of media in the present day, gave a brief outline of the statistics of the report. Generally, this section of the reading was not surprising to me. It noted, quite obviously, that the use of media amongst America's use has increased over the last years, dramatically in certain areas, including cell phone use and social networking devices. The noted decreases were in reading, which again, came as no surprise to this reader. There are many ramifications from this study, and I believe that it begs the question of whose responsibility it is to monitor children's and teenagers' use of media and technology. Initially, as I was reading the findings, I thought to myself that the responsibility should lie with the parents. However, as educators we know that our students' home lives are not always the best situations, and so schools should take on some responsibility in teaching children how to correctly use technology.
Two points that I would like to discuss are (1) the emotional and psychological findings of report, and (2) the differences in media use between "tweens" in different ethnic groups. I believe that this first point makes a strong case for why educators should help their students understand the proper uses of technology. As the text points out, as tech use is increasing amongst the younger generation, it seems that it is bringing along many social and emotional issues; to me, that signals that some parents are not doing their due diligence in monitoring media use in their home. For those students who are not getting good direction for media use at home (and the study points out that parental restrictions DO help children), teachers need to step in, as they should with any other issue to the fullest extent allowed.
The second point I found interesting was that there seems to be much more technology use by children who are Hispanic or Black compared to those who are white. I do not want to make any assumptions about the first two cultures or the tendencies of the home lives of those in the Hispanic and Black cultures; I am not from either of those cultures, nor am I an expert of those cultures. However, I think it would be worth further exploration by educators or a study like Generation M2 to try an account for these differences.
For myself as a future teacher, and I believe for all teachers, we have the responsibility to monitor students' use of technology in school, as well as teach them how to use it responsibly and intelligently. I would love to use technology in my class as much as possible because it is something students can easily relate to (as the study obviously shows us). As I believe it is my duty as a teacher to promote social justice and social responsibility, I should promote these ideas in technology as well.
You make good points. Managing student media use will be a challenge. I am wondering if helping to make them more conscious of their media use would be helpful. For example, having students keep a "media use log", and then seeing how their use compares to the survey, and reflecting on how they spent and could have spent their time? Or (I read about something like this) maybe challenging the students to go on a "media fast" (maybe too difficult, perhaps just a "texting fast", for a weekend say), and then journal about how it goes, how they are feeling, etc.
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