Screen Time

Throughout the course of my junior year, I've noticed that I am spending significantly more time on my computer than I have during past school years. I have surprisingly come to the conclusion that the reason for this is not because I am spending more time browsing sites or checking my facebook, but because my classes have required me to do so.

All four of my main classes this year require me to use my computer on a weekly, if not daily basis. Whether I am blogging, accessing an online textbook, checking solutions on blackboard, or completing an online homework assignment through "Webassign," I am spending a good chunk of my after-school-academic-time staring at a computer screen.

I do think that incorporating the web into the school curriculum can be beneficial to students' learning. It gives kids easier access to school materials and helps connect students outside of class (as this very blog is doing). Not to mention that working on the computer will probably be more appealing to teenage students than working with pencil and paper, increasing students' interests in their studies- which can only be a good thing.

So yes, I do see the benefits of having students do online schoolwork. However, call me old-fashioned, but I can't help but wonder how healthy all this screen time is for us. Screen time meaning time spent using a device such as a computer, television, phone, ipod, gaming system...etc. Disregarding school related usage,  I probably use four of those five devices multiple times throughout each day, which I don't think is uncommon for any American teenager. This means that on top of all that, we will spend even more time staring at screens to complete our schoolwork.

This is why I am conflicted. I know that students can benefit from doing schoolwork online, but I also know that it can't be healthy to have such a large amount of screen time. What possible solutions are there to this issue? Is it the school's responsibility to help discourage screen time?