Dear Parents
KLIKD
The Grade 7s were quite astounded and somewhat amused this week when I told them about a few noticeable differences about what media and communication was available to me as a child – no television in South Africa yet, no personal computers, no mobile devices of any kind, and telephones – one telephone in the lounge and if I was allowed to make a call (for which I had to have a very good reason), did so under the scrutiny and full earshot of my mother and father as well as my grandfather who lived with us at the time. And a call was no longer than two minutes, after all I had already seen my friends at school during the day.
What occasioned this “disclosure”? I have been working on the Klikd app with the boys and completed two of the modules, “Me, an addict?” and “Digital Distraction” with them. These looked at the amount of time spent online, how much time on social media, what messages do they respond to, what keeps them online, and so on. Their feedback was extremely interesting and somewhat alarming too; on average about three hours a day online, of which about one to one and a half hours on social media; going on YouTube or TikTok and staying on watching video after video, games, and messaging from friends on Instagram and Snapchat, wanting to see the message as soon as hearing the “ping”, replying as soon as possible and then the backwards and forwards of the conversation.
Modern technology makes all of this possible and so entertainment, music, sport and connection are available to us, anywhere and all the time, like never before. Fantastic! But how much is too much? The boys actually laughed at themselves and admitted that, while they enjoy what is available, the time they give to it is probably too much.
The Klikd app does not offer a lecturing, punitive tone, but rather gets boys to reflect on themselves, their time online and what they can do about it. (Other modules will deal with cyber-bullying, sexting, etc.) It also raises some questions for us as the adults, teachers and parents, in terms of what we are modelling for our children. Are our phones always at our sides, are we watching tv and on our phones at the same time, and so on.
We are more connected via our devices than ever before and it provides wonderful opportunities, but how much is enough? Is fomo real? What is downtime and is tech-free time good? Our boys are busy at school but is their online time getting in the way of other hobbies, family times, reading? We can control the time our boys are on their mobile devices, but I would also suggest that we discuss the issues.
We need to control our boys’ time online and the content they may have access to appropriate to their age, but I think it is also important to discuss the issues being raised around usage. They will, no doubt, ask us about ours too!
DIWALI
We wish all our Hindu families a very Happy Diwali on Monday. May it be a wonderful celebration with family and friends.
Enjoy the weekend.
Kind regards
GREG BROWN
HEADMASTER |
