A few years ago I was astonished when a girl in Year 11 (not Queenwood) showed me her mobile phone use statistics.
Her Screentime data for the past week showed she had spent 55 hours on her phone, of which 35 hours were on Snapchat. So on top of her school day and study schedule, she was clocking 8 hours a day, 7 days per week, on her phone. And her Snapchat commitment alone was the equivalent of a full-time job. (Since then, I have seen even worse.)
Such numbers are shocking but it’s useful to consider how she could have developed such habits. To accrue these hours, she would need to have free access to her phone at school. In fact, she really needed to be attached to her phone at all times. She confirmed that she did use her phone through the day and would typically fall asleep with her phone in her hand. She did play some sport with her school team but even when she spent time with her friends, much of their social interaction was still mediated via their phones.
There are massive failures here – and not just from the girl. Schools need to create environments which promote face-to-face social interaction and it’s clear that Queenwood parents thoroughly approve of our approach, which creates a precious phone-free space for the girls each day. Many parents back this up at home with thoughtful and proactive guidance for their daughters on their use of devices and particularly of social media. But, as always in parenting, there are complications.
There is no question that we all have good intentions in this area. No parent would want their daughter to end up with an addiction like the girl I have described, and trying to wind back a 55-hour social media habit is exceptionally difficult. Too often, though, we can sleepwalk into an unhealthy situation so our priority should be to heighten awareness before problems arise and prevent those habits forming.
Here are some practical suggestions:
As a starting point, it is useful to get a sense of how you, as a family, are spending your time online. Screentime (Apple) and Digital Wellbeing (Android) give useful statistics: daily and weekly averages, increase/decrease over time and which apps claim most of our attention. You can see detailed patterns of usage eg showing number of ‘pickups’ daily, what app you first use after pickup, what times of day you are using your phone and how many notifications you receive in a day, and this can be quite revealing. For example, I have turned off almost all notifications on my phone but I just checked for this newsletter and I still averaged 60(!) a day this week. Clearly, I should limit this even further.
Once you look, you might be surprised at your own habits, and I suspect there will be more surprises when you look at your children’s – but what a great way to start a conversation! And if you are brave enough to share your own statistics with them, that would be an excellent opening to start a non-judgmental discussion about what we would all like our habits to be.
There’s also a very basic point: you can’t get addicted to something you don’t have. There is absolutely no need for Junior School girls, or younger Senior School girls, to have a smart phone. Yes, every tween or teen will claim that ‘everybody else has one’ but it’s not true. If your children are in primary school, stand firm. You will not just be supporting your own daughter’s wellbeing, you will also be supporting the other parents because you are carving out a social space for your pre-teen which does not involve devices. It is important that a critical mass of children stay off devices at this age, so there is no question of being left out. We ask parents to support each other in this.
Junior School girls do not need a smart phone (or watch) and should certainly not be on social media. Not only are they likely to use it badly at this age, it also opens the door to bad habits. I’m not suggesting that children should avoid these things forever but we need to remember that right now they are children. We all accept that our children will almost certainly grow up to drink coffee or consume alcohol but no-one thinks that the best preparation for adulthood is to get them started at the age of ten. With devices and social media, the question is how we keep these behaviours in age-appropriate boundaries while our children are still maturing and developing their skills of self-regulation.
There is some good basic advice for parents on the eSafety Commissioner website (eg on parental controls and time online) which is particularly appropriate for younger girls. I am a huge fan of things like Family Sharing and Guided Access.
Older students may benefit from apps which raise their awareness about how they spend their time and help them set their own goals, such as more productive study times or more regular exercise. There are plenty of good apps for this of varying degrees of control (eg Flipd, Moment, Forest, Freedom and many, many others) and even nuclear options for the incorrigible (eg Selfcontrol).
But if you take away only one message from this newsletter, it is this: watch The Social Dilemma (Netflix) with your daughter. So many young people I know have dramatically changed their habits after viewing this fascinating documentary. You can watch the trailer here.
At our focus groups last year, parents told us helping young people navigate the online world and manage their digital lives was the area where they felt least confident as a parent. We would like to offer appropriate support and guidance – perhaps through seminars or hands-on workshops – but would like to understand that interest better. If you are interested in participating in something like this, please contact our Director of Community Relations to let us know and, especially, to tell us where you’d most like some help.