When online school was announced for the start of this year, the principals began to panic about “screen time.” In my elementary school, students spend 4-5 hours of their school day live on Zoom, not including time allotted for working on online assignments.
To be honest, I did not understand the screen time hype at first. I grew up watching hours and hours of Spongebob Squarepants, and it didn’t rot my brain. My parents never restricted screen time for me or my siblings when we were growing up, and they raised four brilliant, successful children. Limiting screen time felt like a new-fangled sort of thing that parents just started to care about this year. I could see that spending too much time zoned out on YouTube could possibly be a problem, but surely spending time in class would not be damaging screen time.
As I have taught online this year, my feelings about screen time have evolved. I still believe many of the things I said above, but I have a more nuanced understanding of the problems with screen time now that I spend my entire day in front of a screen every day.
Looking at a screen all day is taking a toll on my eyes. I know that should be obvious, but I bought blue light glasses specifically to combat my screen time, and I still find myself getting headaches at the end of the day. It’s a small, close place to be focusing my eyes all day, and any other external light hits my eyes from the side when I focus on the screen.
Another negative is having to look at my own face all day. Unless you are in a dance class or a round table discussion, there is not a reason to see your own face and everyone else’s faces all day long. There is some rest in being able to be unseen. On Zoom, I have to look at my face, and my students have to look at my face, and our classes are recorded so that posterity can look at my face. It’s exhausting to have to be “on” for so much of the day!
The final screen problem I have encountered is how sedentary one has to be to use a screen. Seth has a pretty amazing standing desk (you can ask him about his incredible Zoom setup), but I have been working from a sitting desk. Typing on a screen requires a table to use the keyboard. I have tried grading while standing or walking, but it makes it harder for my eyes to focus on the screen when it keeps moving. In Zoom classes, I feel motion sick when my students move their screens around, so I try to be still so that I don’t do that to them. Working on a screen requires a lot of stillness.
Overall, I am glad for what screens can do for me and my class. I get to see my students every day, and I have a way to keep track of their progress. I just wanted to recognize how my view of screens has changed. I used to think they were a pretty neutral way to convey information, but now I can see that some qualities intrinsic to screens can be harmful. I don’t know when I will be able to teach in-person again, but now that I recognize these effects I can work to counteract them.
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