Environment

We live in a more polluted world plus increasingly are the subject of environmental changes resulting from global warming.     Now in some ways we are making progress with lead no longer included in petrol and the move to electric vehicle, plus the reduction of smoking in the UK however smog is still an issue in some cities.   There are also chemicals used in the production of modern goods or as by products of modern processes which all end up in the environment and eventually in our bodies.   How do we focus when our bodies are subject to pollutants over a prolonged period?   The answer according to Hari is simply that we cannot focus as well as we might have been able to in the past.

Reduced free play

Freedom to explore, to play and to have fun and make mistakes is a key part of the human learning process.   We have evolved as a species over millions of years using this approach however more recently, we have reduced the opportunities for freedom and exploration.    We increasingly supervise or even track our children to the extent that they don’t develop the social and resilience skills they may have once developed through play.    I feel we do this for the reasons of seeking to keep children safe based on a perception of a more dangerous world, but this is a perception rather than a reality, resulting from the ease with which we receive news of when things go wrong and our human tendency to overweigh the importance of what comes easily to mind.    As such we restrict our children from playing unobserved and freely.     And the reality in terms of safety is that we are likely safer than we have ever been before.  Hari makes the point of the likelihood of a child kidnapping, something we worry about and which drives our need to supervise and limit children’s freedom, being less than the likelihood of being hit by lightning.  I don’t think we keep children indoors and monitored to protect them from a lightning strike!

Food

Another issue impacting on our ability to focus is our changing diet.  Gone, largely, are the healthy home cooked meals involving fresh ingredients, which might be served around the family dinner table complete with family discussion.   The modern diet increasingly involves microwave or other convenience foods, foods loaded with preservatives and other additives, or high in salt or sugar content, often consumed on the go or while distracted by TV or social media content.   These aren’t the ideal ingredients to develop our ability to focus and in fact negatively impact on this human capability.

Sleep

Sleep and in fact the reducing amount of time spent engaged in quality sleep is another issue which Hari identified.    Now some of this is certainly the result of technology and our on-demand access to TV and movies, plus to addictive social media apps which encourage doom scrolling, however I also would suggest part of it relates to the increasingly fast pace of life and the need to squeeze every second of every day for the maximum we can get out of it.  This means we might get less than eight hours of sleep, maybe even only five or six hours, or less.This points to the increasing focus on the need to be more efficient, to be faster, to do more and to focus on growth and improvement.

Focus on growth

And this is the one which I think is a driver for some of the other issues, particularly the environment and our change in diet, the focus on growth, on doing better and doing more.    The world focusses on growth, so the world gets more frantic, faster, busier so we have less time to do tasks and need to move on quickly;  This builds a habit.   We also have the economic focus meaning tech vendors prioritise profit over societal good, in the name of growth, being a more profitable or bigger company this year when compared to last year.   This all drives a focus on doing whatever we can do to drive growth even where it isn’t positive for society as a whole.   Now I was always a fan of the educational concept of continual professional development however on reflection here my worry is that this is unsustainable, we cannot constantly develop and get better when faced with an infinite timescale.   In fact this driver, this need for growth, may make things worse and mean we are less focussed on identifying what really matters and what we need to do to achieve this.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Hari’s book as it clearly established that technology and social media are part of the problem we now face in relation to our ability to concentrate and to focus, but they are not the whole, or the root, of the problem.   There are a number of factors feeding this problem including the environment we live in, our increasing risk adverse nature which leads to a reduction in opportunity for children to play and experiment, the poorer nature of the modern diet, reduced periods spent in quality sleep, and also the driving force focussed on growth above all else.  

This brings us neatly to where Hari begins in trying to solve the problem by cutting out technology and social media use for a period of time, or banning mobile phones as a school might decide to do.    This impacts on part of the problem but it doesn’t cover the other factors;   Maybe we need to have a broader discussion in schools in relation to focus and the things that might affect it? Maybe the problem is bigger than schools can address, and needs a more community or societal approach?

Artificial intelligence

I don’t see the discussion of artificial intelligence in education going away as there is such potential.  The use of AI to support students, to help teachers and rebalance workload and much more.    It also makes for a good talking point for conferences or for developments.    I have two problems though.   One being that I think there will be a lot of talk, especially from vendors, without the reliable evidence supporting the impact and benefit of their tools.    As such I feel there will be a lot of misdirection of effort and resources when looking across schools in general.    Two is that artificial intelligence is all well and good, but it needs the relevant access to devices, to infrastructure, to support and to trained and confident teachers.    These digital divides need to be addressed before schools in general can then seek to use AI and leverage its potential benefits.

Online Exams

The issue of online or digital exams feels partly related to the sudden growth in AI and the resulting potential for AI marking of student work and therefore for AI based marking of student exams.    Again, I see this as another talking point for the year ahead but again am not sure we will see much real progress, possibly seeing less progress in this area than in AI.     The issue is that exam boards are taking things very tentatively so there first step will be “paper under glass” style exams which simply take the paper version of an exam and digitise it rather than seeking to modify the exam or examination process to benefit from the new digital medium.    For me the key benefit of online exams will be realised when they are adaptive in nature so can be taken anywhere and at any time.   This then means that schools wouldn’t need access to hundreds of computers for their students to sit an English GCSE exam as the students could sit the exam in batches over the day or over a number of days.    This would help towards the digital divides issue as it impacts online exams as schools wouldn’t need as many devices, but they would still need the infrastructure and the support to make digital exams work.

Mobile Phones and Social Media

Oh yes, and then there’s this old chestnut!   I suspect the phones and social media discussion will trundle on.   Students are being given phones without any parental controls and then schools are having to deal with this.   And some schools are taking the prohibition approach which is unlikely to succeed and may just deplete patience and resources.   I continue to believe we should be seeking to manage student mobile phones in school, so might restrict use in some areas and at some times but embrace and use them at other times.   We need to spend time with students talking about social media and its risks and benefits helping to shape the digital citizens which the world needs.

I also note here that social media is being blamed for the lack of focus and ease of distraction in students, and through association it is the fault of smart phones.    The world isn’t that simple, and having recently finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari I am not more aware that other factors such as increasing levels of societal pressure to succeed, increased consumption of processed foods and our on-demand culture are all having an impact on our children.    Yes, social media, and by extension smart phones are playing their part but they are not the root and sole cause of the issues in relation to attention which we are seeing in schools and more broadly with children.

Fake news and deepfakes

This links to AI and also to mobile phones and social media, in the increasing ease with which fake news content can be convincingly developed including the use of images and video, and then shared online.    As fake news becomes an increasing issue, which I suspect the US elections will draw some focus on, there will be an increasing need for schools to consider how they discuss and address this challenge with their students.   More locally within education and within schools will be where we start to see increasing use of AI tools to create “deepfakes” by students and involving other fellow students, either “just having a laugh” or for the purposes of bullying.     This will be very challenging as the sharing of such content will quickly stretch beyond the perimeter of schools, spread through social media, messaging apps and the like, but where the victim and likely the perpetrators will be within the school.   

Wellbeing

This one came to me last, but if I was re-writing this I would likely put it first.   We talk about wellbeing very much but every year we look to see if the exam grades have gone up and are faced with increasingly compliance requirements around safeguarding or attendance or many other areas.    Improvements in results, or even the efforts to improve results mean more work, which means more effort and more stress.    More compliance hoops equally mean more effort and more work.    So how can we address wellbeing if educators are constantly being asked to do more than they did previously.   And exam results and compliance are just two possible examples of the “do more” culture which pervades society possibly driven by the need for economic and other growth as something to aim for.    Although growth and improvement is something laudable to seek, it cannot be continuous over time, not without deploying additional resources both in terms of money and human resources.    As such there needs to be a logical conclusion to the “do more” culture and my preference would be for us to decide and manage this rather than for it to happen to us.    AI can help with workload for example giving more time for wellbeing however my concern here is that this frees up some time to simply do more stuff, albeit stuff which might have an impact, but not positively on wellbeing.

Conclusion

The above are just five areas I see being cornerstones of educational discussion in the academic year ahead.   I suspect other things will arise such as equity of opportunity, although I note this links to pretty much all of the above.   There will also be other themes which arise but it will be interesting to see how these particular five themes develop during the course of 2024/25.

And so with that let me wish everyone a successful academic year.    Let the fun begin!

The recent issue with riots in the UK and the link to posts being made on social media got me once again thinking about fake news and about fundamentalism and how technology amplifies what I feel is a societal issue, plus how there is no perfect solution to this problem.

Is societal cohesion breaking down?

In recent years, societal cohesion appears to be fraying, with the rise of “us vs. them” thinking, amplified by both social and mainstream media. Social media platforms often promote binary arguments, encouraging people to view those outside their group—whether divided by race, religion, or ideology—as the enemy, with the short form nature of social media only adding to this.   Even attempts to address the issue, such as highlighting how a particular group might be marginalised or be targets of abuse often only serves to strengthen the polarisation and the view of “us and them”.     I also note, that this “in group”, “us”, vs, “out group”, “them” thinking is partly hardwired into us as humans in our unconscious bias with those like us stimulating a different reaction at a brain chemistry level than those who are not like us.

All of this polarization fosters echo chambers, where in-group members are conditioned to see the “other” as a threat. In such an environment, it hardly matters who the “them” is; the division itself becomes the focus. This breakdown in unity provides fertile ground for extremists and anarchists, who exploit the growing divide to further their agendas, often using civil unrest as a smokescreen for crime and violence.    The recent riots being just one example of this.

Preventing hate speech

So, we recognise there is an issue, and that extremists and anarchists are seeking to exploit this to their own gain often using social media.   The issue is that preventing hate speech in the vast sea of online content presents a significant challenge. With millions of posts generated daily, identifying harmful speech is like finding a needle in a haystack, often requiring sophisticated algorithms alongside human oversight. Yet, the question of who defines “hate speech” is also complex. While clear instances of racial, religious, or gender-based abuse are widely condemned, the grey areas are more contentious. Cultural norms, political contexts, and free speech concerns mean that definitions of hate speech can vary, raising questions about who gets to draw the line—and whether some voices may be unfairly silenced in the process.    Consider the issue in Gaza currently where I would suggest that there are two very different perspectives on the Israeli and Palestinian sides as to what might be hate speech, and anyone viewing from outside is likely to come down more towards one side or the other, but are either wrong or right?

Maintaining freedom of speech

While preventing hate speech is crucial, it’s equally important to safeguard freedom of speech. There’s a growing concern that governments could misuse their powers under the guise of regulation to suppress dissent or unpopular opinions, leading to oppression. In such scenarios, controlling the narrative becomes a powerful tool, with authorities shaping public discourse to suit their agenda. We have already seen some governments around the world actually seeking to turn off the internet at a national level in order to control the flow of information and we also know that targeting communications systems is a key initial phase of military operations.     This manipulation or control of information can easily blur the lines between truth and propaganda.   So how do we find a balance between preventing hate speech while maintaining freedom of speech and who makes the decisions as to where this balance lies?

Hate speech, fake news and the truth

And its even more complex than finding a balance;   Hate speech, fake news, and truth may seem like clear and distinct concepts, but identifying them in practice is far more complex. What one person considers hate speech could be seen as free expression by another, and fake news might be interpreted differently depending on one’s beliefs or sources of information. The truth, often thought to be absolute, can be clouded by bias, context, and perception, making it subjective and open to interpretation. In this highly polarized and fast-moving digital world, the line between these terms becomes increasingly blurred, as individuals and institutions apply their own definitions based on personal, political, or cultural lenses.

Conclusion

In an age of rapid information sharing and deepening societal divides, navigating the complexities of hate speech, fake news, and truth requires careful balance. While it’s vital to combat harmful rhetoric and misinformation, we must also safeguard freedom of speech and avoid allowing subjective interpretations to silence genuine expression. As technology evolves, so too must our approaches to maintaining societal cohesion, fostering open dialogue, and ensuring that efforts to regulate speech don’t become tools for oppression. Ultimately, finding common ground in an increasingly fragmented world will depend on our collective ability to engage with diverse perspectives and uphold democratic values.   My feeling is that we are heading one way, and it is the wrong way, towards a breakdown of societal cohesion, but I feel social media is just amplifying and contributing to the issue rather than being the root cause.    I wonder, are we more insular as a society when compared with 20 or 30 years ago?    Are our groups or local communities less diverse but in a more diverse world?     Are we more inclined to discussion and disagreement in terms of binary positions?   

The news tends to point towards simple answers such as preventing or policing hate speech as a solution, but the issue is that things are seldom that simple.   I also think it is worth considering that all of the press around the riots in the UK are referring to maybe a few 1000 people involved in criminal activity, but that’s out of a population of over 69million.    Are we ever going to be able to stop such a minority bent on chaos, damage and mayhem, and therefore does the very act of discussing them simply feed their aims?

I found myself wondering this ahead of the schools and academies show sat having something to eat on my own, while tweeting and otherwise engaging with individuals from all over the world via social media.     Isnt connection a key feature of social media in allowing us to have large “friends” groups which we can access even when geographically apart?    Shouldn’t I therefore have felt connected rather than isolated as I sat there?

A broadcast medium

One possible reason for my feeling of isolation may be the fact that todays social media is very much a broadcast medium.   We post outwards on twitter, we post outwards of Facebook, on TikTok and on other social media platforms.  They are no longer a simple extension of our “in-real life” connections, our friends and our families.   We hope that someone will reply and engage with what we have posted, or at least will provide a like, however this is a hope rather than an expectation.   So maybe the isolation therefore relates to the fact that my social media engagement amounts to throwing out posts and updates in much the same way a message in a bottle is cast into the sea in the hope that someone may read it.    It isn’t the two way conversation and engagement, the “social” experience which it pretends to be.

The human animal

This brings us nicely to another possible explanation being how we as humans have been conditioned through centuries of evolution to behave and respond.   We are used to smallish social groups rather than the 1000’s of followers we may achieve on social media.    Could it be that the we don’t have the same connection online with the 1000s we send our posts out towards, at least not to the same extent we might have a connection with the stranger we bump into and have a drink with in the pub? I will admit to having a conversation earlier in the day with a stranger in a busy pub and that this was engaging and enjoyable, and made me feel connected.

We are used to the social experience of face to face interactions, of getting verbal, facial and other non-verbal ques in our interactions with people.     We have a physiological response to the presence and interaction with those we know and like, while we have a different physiological response with those we don’t get on with.    Am not sure, however I suspect there may equally be a physiological response when interacting with people online however I suspect in some ways it may be a lesser response although I will also acknowledge in some cases the response may be greater or even extreme, spurred on by the safety of being a keyboard warrior distanced from any physical risk which could arise through face to face arguments.   I would suggest though, if we take the extreme cases out of the equation the average physiological response to online interactions is less than that for face to face interactions.  And so it may be that the online interactions feel a little numb when compared with face to face interactions.

Conclusion: An illusion of connection but not a very good one

The above is simply a little musing.   I have made some great connections with some great people via social media so as a vehicle towards face to face connections it is invaluable.    But does the supposed “social” nature of social media, the 1000s of online connections, make us think we are more connected than we end up feeling?    And if so, does the difference between how connected we think we are versus how connected we feel lead to a greater feeling of isolation?   Is the feeling of isolation a response or a result of this disparity?

If I was to draw any sort of conclusion I think it would be this;   For me, I am happiest when engaged in conversation in person even where with strangers.   Social media presents an illusion of connection and not a very good one, but this illusion can impact on us.    I think that is why I felt isolated as I sat there.   The solution, to stop engaging in social media in hope of a connection and to spark up a conversation with someone, to do what we as humans have been doing for centuries and engage with a fellow human being in a face to face conversation where I can actually feel properly connected.

I recently deleted TikTok from my phone for what I think is the third time.   The issue is I find myself rather hopelessly flicking through the videos, particularly the funny pet videos and comedy videos.   Now normally it is in a moment of spare time that I think it is worth having a look at TikTok, however time then seems to fade away as I get engrossed and the couple of minutes of video viewing turns into 30mins or more.

Why does this happen?

I am not a psychologist or sociologist or other “ist” who can provide a scientific theory on this but I would like to share my own ideas on why this happens.    Firstly, I think part of it is the multi-sensory nature of TikTok, with visual and audio content from the videos themselves, combined with the tactile nature of flicking through the videos.   I also think the act of flicking through the videos helps to keep people engaged due to requiring user action.

There is also the very purposely designed short nature of the videos, often with a conclusion or series of amusing events.    The short nature of videos limits the requirements for focus or concentration, while the conclusion is likely to deliver the fun or pleasurable moment at the end of the video. 

So limited amount of focus needed combined with near instant gratification, or I engage and swipe onto the next video.  Basically TikToks design is to be addictive and habit forming, offering little cognitive load but delivering enjoyment at the conclusion of every little short video.

Why delete it?

There is a lot of talk of how social media companies should be responsible and look at how addictive their platforms are especially for younger users however I also think we all as individuals need to also take some responsibility.     In my case my approach to this is to delete the app as I cant trust myself to use TikTok sparingly.    I could alternatively make us of app timers or similar to limit my usage of the app to a certain amount of time per day, however given the overall value of TikTok to me I have decided that this isnt appropriate.  I will however note, I suspect young users will find such an act of self-discipline even more difficult than I found it.

I think we need to acknowledge that the key aim, from a business perspective of the various social media applications, including TikTok, is to maximise the number of people of their platform and to maximise the time people spend on their platform.   As such it pays to make it addictive.

Conclusion

Am not sure my life will be that much worse off without TikTok but in a world where we often complain of not having enough time, and where we cannot invent or create more time (Note: am not sure that actually having 26hrs in a day would provide that much benefit as I suspect our current activities would just grow to fill the additional space), being able to free up some time by preventing myself from going down the TikTok rabbit hole can only be a good thing.

Or at least until I suffer a moment of boredom, depression or just simply human weakness, and reinstall TikTok once more, just to make sure I don’t miss out on a cat falling off the back of someone’s couch, or a dog comically bounding into a swimming pool.

A lot has been made of online abuse and the need for social media companies to better monitor and police their platforms.  A lot has also been made of the potential need to legislate in relation to online abuse, but how easy, or not, would this be to achieve?

The internet

One of the big challenges is the internet itself and its distributed design.  It is designed such that no one user, company or even country has control.   It represents a single solution which crosses the national boundaries of most if not all countries in the world giving everyone the potential to use and impact on the internet.    This represents a particular challenge when looking at legislation.    A government might say that all platforms accessible in their country must abide by their legislation but what teeth do they have to enforce this when the company is based in another country.    And how do you stop users simply using tools such as VPNs to bypass local restrictions; Just one look online at forums related to expats living in countries with significant national filtering in place will highlight discussions of VPNs and other tools which can be used to bypass restrictions and the relevant legislation the restrictions are employed to enforce.  Or do a little digging into the ongoing piracy of video content and you will see this is a continuing problem despite efforts over a number of years to stem this issue.

Cyber security

If policing was to be properly established governments would need to be able to identify the users in country, their online identities, plus their online activities.    This has issues in relation to privacy and the safety of whistle-blowers and activists which I will cover shortly, however also represents a cyber security risk.    Such a database would be an enticing target for cyber criminals as a source of information which could be used for identity fraud and common fraud, but also in terms of blackmail or even attempts at coercion or subtle behaviour modification.   And we have already seen national identity databases in other countries fall foul of data breaches.

Anonymity

There is a genuine need for anonymity, where anonymity is often cited as one of the reasons for online abuse being so common online.   Activist and whistle-blowers rely on anonymity for their own personal safety.  Government dissidents in countries with authoritarian governments need anonymity.    There is also the concern that once a database of online user identities, tied to real world identities, plus online activity is created, albeit for good reasons, that it might not be used for less ethical or moral purposes in the future, or that its use might have inappropriate but unintentional consequences.    And this is before we consider the technical possibility of removing anonymity in the first place, something which given the internets design is fraught with difficulties including easy ways for users to bypass restrictions.

In relation to anonymity, although this feels like a key factor in online abuse, in my experience a large amount of the abuse is actually committed from users principal online accounts, those most likely to be identifiable back to a real life person.    The abuse either occurs as a result of joining a crowd, of being or feeling empowered by others to be abusive or of simply going too far spurred on by the ease and apparent lack of immediate consequence when using social media.    As such, maybe the issue of anonymity is a bit of a red herring.

Conclusion

I continue to see a lot of what occurs on social media as an amplification of the real world and society.    It is just that this amplification is that bit starker in its display of the ugliness which can occur in society.   I will however counterbalance this to some extent with how social media sometimes presents the very best we as a race have to offer.   I suspect a key reason for this amplification is that social media removes some of the risk factors and adds ease.   It is easy to be abusive to someone online especially when you know they arent likely to punch you in the face as they might do in real life.   It is also easy to be supportive, helpful and vulnerable away from the potential of embarrassment which may occur face to face.    It is however worth noting how very far we have come as a society compared with 100yrs or even 10 or 20yrs ago.    It is just that social media continues to amplify the small minority who have not progressed to same extent.

So, what are we to do about this?

I don’t have an answer other than to suggest we need to be aware of the amplification, be aware of others feelings, views, etc and be generally nicer to one another.   And I know that sounds a little soft and wishy-washy but I am not sure what more I can suggest.   Sadly, we also need to accept that the abuse emanating from the minority will likely continue, and we need to continue to take the little steps we can in challenging and sanctioning such individuals.   This will likely need to continue as little steps, one abusive user or group at a time; A leap to ban anonymity or heavily legislate social media is unlikely to be successful.

Social Media acts as a magnifier on society.   This can both be a good thing and a bad thing.   In a good way it allows the quiet masses to have a voice and to express their opinion.   Before social media these people would not stand up or write an article in a newspaper or otherwise be able to express their views publicly.   Now they can easily like or share those posts they agree with, adding their voice to the message.   And if feeling strongly they can even add their own comments and thoughts reasonably safe in the knowledge that their voice won’t stand out.  We have seen this over the last few days as messages rejecting racism have been liked and shared in their thousands.   Social media has enabled a larger part of the population to contribute to the collective voice online.

But there is a flip side to this.  Social media provides a platform for a minority of people to share inappropriate comments with the masses, including racist views.    Prior to social media these people might have expressed the same racist views in public, but they never had much of an audience and the message never got very far.   Now, with social media, they can share their views instantly with millions of people.   They also feel safe in the knowledge that identifying them, where they have taken precautions, is not easy and therefore their comments are likely without consequence.    Social media has enabled this minority to engage a larger part of the population with their inappropriate messaging.

For me racism has no place in todays society and should be called out and challenged at every opportunity.    

I would however highlight an additional concern in relation to viewing society through social media, through the magnifier of social media, and how this can result in a distorted view on society.    Social media, to me, suggests that racism is more prevalent based on the large number of social media posts calling our racism, and by extension the suggestion of a larger number of racist tweets.   I am not sure, based on my experiences, it is more prevalent.   I suspect the availability bias is playing a part here.   I believe I heard racist comments more frequently when I was younger than I do now, so this might at least suggest we are heading in the right direction, albeit we can never stop until racism has been eliminated.

I also have concerns about the viral nature of social media, which can lead to massive outpourings of support or concern, etc, but for a short period of time, followed by people moving on to the next viral message.    Racism is linked to culture, and culture is changed gradually through consistent changes is behaviours, the stories that are told, etc.    Viral but short-lived messaging is likely to do little to impact culture and the prevalence of racism.  It is only prolonged and consistent changes in behaviour and messaging which will have this effect.   I personally started questioning the taking of the knee at the start of football events, as being a little bit of tokenism, however considering it again, maybe the consistent message conveyed is what we continue to need in the hope of long-term change.

Social media for me, isnt the problem here, but magnifies and possibly distorts it.   I am concerned that in seeking to address the issue at hand, currently racism in particular, we focus on social media and the social media companies.   Yes, they need to do all they can and possibly more than they are doing, but the issue is a societal one not a technology one.    Technology is just making it more visible, but maybe distorting the situation in the process.   

As such I think the key here is greater awareness as to how social media fits into situations like this.   How social media doesn’t just report and share news, but how it’s very use shapes the news and message being shared.   I hope this post maybe contributes a little to this awareness.

Social media messages are short and simple.

The social media world relies on simple messages, on a single image, 280 character or a 60 second video.  The message needs to be simple as it is designed to be addictive and get our attention, to fit into busy lives and to encourage us to flick from one message to the next, then the next.   I know I have found myself wasting 20mins just flicking through amusing TikTok videos for example.   This is what the platform providers want us to do.  They want to keep us on their platform as this is how they achieve their revenue, via advertising, so the longer we are on their platform the more data they can mine and the more advertising revenue they can achieve.

The world is simple?

My concern is that the features of the medium, in this case social media, influence the messages which are being conveyed.  But what does this mean for how we perceive the challenges of the world, as shared via social media?    I would suggest this is encouraging us to increasingly see the world complex problems and challenges, as being simple.    Almost every problem whether it be global warming, the covid19 pandemic or racism can be boiled down into a social media message.   And for everyone message sent someone will be able to argue a counter position using the same medium and the same inherently short bite sized social media message.  As such I think we may become less aware of the nuanced nature of the problems we are faced with.   Seeing every problem being boiled down to a simple message may convince us that the problems themselves are simpler than, in the real world, they are.

Increasing binary viewpoints

This simplicity also makes it easier to see problems in terms of black and white or binary positions.   It makes it easy to see a statement on social media as either true or false rather than seeing the complexity and therefore the infinite number of possibilities which may exist between two extreme positions.   And again, for every post stating one position there is at least one person, and often many, many, people, able to reply with an opposing binary view.   This in turn could help to explain the increasing divisions in society whether this be in relation to Brexit in the UK or Trumps presidency in the US, or a multitude of other news stories.

Reinforcement learning

Social media also makes us hyperconnected.   Having identified data about our usage patterns, social media platforms will purposefully expose us to content which fits with these patterns.    As a result, we will be repeatedly exposed to consistent messaging which, through reinforcement, may strengthen our commitment to the binary viewpoints we are encouraged to develop.   This may make our commitment to our position, in relation to specific issues, and to defending such positions more fixed and immovable.     It can also impact on our world view including what we see as truth, how positively or how divided we see the world we live in.  

Social: Time to consider the medium and the message

Social media is here to stay.   It may not be Facebook, Twitter or TikTok in the future, but social media is highly likely to continue in some shape or form.   Watching the news reporting as to concerns in relation to social media, they tend to focus on the messages being shared.  They focus on what social media companies should be doing to prevent extremism, suicide, etc.   I agree work needs to be done here however I also think we also need to look at the vehicle for these messages and what this may mean for the society we live in.

Final Thoughts

Social media represents a magnified version of real life due to the nature of the medium.   This has its advantages in making it easy to consume and contribute to.   The flipside however is it lacks the detail, the nuanced nature and complexity of real life.   We need to be more concious of this, and to ensure our students are also concious of this. Only through being concious of the impact on the medium can we seek to adjust for and minimise it.

We have all read about how social media, and related screen time, impact on the sleep patterns of children, how it may result in greater occurrences of mental health issues, that it reduces students ability to concentrate and that it may reduce achievement levels but what about the other side of things.

We live in a more stressful world than ever before.   When I did my standard grades and the odd O-level I wanted to achieve the best results possible but looking back I don’t feel there was any significant pressure.   I don’t remember discussions of leagues tables or comparisons of countries against other countries or even wide scale coverage of the headline results or subject by subject analysis.    These are all common theses days.   Our children are constantly having the narrative reinforced, that exams will shape their future and that they are therefore of massive importance.   This adds stress but where can students go to share their feelings of stress, to vent, to express and to get support and advice?    They could go to their parents, teachers or other adults but our children often find this difficult due to concerns about being judged or about the resulting impact of sharing.  Sharing with a teacher may result in being “put” in extra lessons or being seen to be “less able” whereas sharing with parents may result in having some of their liberties taken away in order to help them “focus” or “put in more effort”.     They must also consider that adults views on things will be based on their experiences which happened some years in the past and therefore do not fully have a bearing on the current world context and on the environment that the students find themselves in.   Social media provides a better option as students can share with their peers and get advice and support from people going through the same situation, in the same, current, context.   A quick look at social media heading up to A-Level and GCSE results day showed plenty of examples of students expressing their stress and worry over the impending results envelope, and/or text message.    This shows a concerning trend but may also have positive implications in that the students can use social media to vent their concerns and frustrations.   Social media also has plenty examples of students sharing words of support, comfort and advice with one another.

We now live in a world where students movements are more closely controlled and monitored.   Gone are the days of the lone instruction being to be “back before the street lights come on”.   Now parents seek to know where children are.    Parents may also ban students from some locales on the basis of perceived risk.  You also have shops banning groups of youths loitering and in some cases even installing devices to make such loitering painful.     There are less opportunities for our children to be social with each other.   Once again social media steps in.    Social media spans the gap allowing children to be social, to discuss and share their thoughts and feelings, even when the adults in their life and society in general is continuing to further curtail the opportunities they have for being social, for fulfilling a basic human instinct which I suspect is all the stronger in a youths teenage years.

I am not saying social media is all good nor am I willing to accept it is all bad.    In the world we now live in it simply “IS”.   What we therefore have to be mindful of is considering the positives and negatives and doing our best to maximise the positive opportunities while reducing as much as is reasonably possible the negatives.

The results;  Well over the last couple of weeks the combined totals from the apps across both the mobile devices I use, a phone and a tablet, suggest I access my mobile devices on average 34 times a day.    This represents checking my devices almost every 28 minutes if we assume 8 hours of sleep per day and therefore only 16 possible hours each day when I could access my device.

Taken in the context of the piece in the Independent (Barr, S. 2017) in relation to the average Brit who  accesses their devices 28 times per day, my personal access over the last couple of weeks of 34 times seems a little high.    It is certainly nothing compared to some teens who apparently check social media 100 times per day (Wallace, K, CNN, 2015).   That said, I cannot see why I should need to be accessing my devices every 28 minutes.

On reflection I must acknowledge that I have slightly different apps sets across both devices.   This may lead me to check both devices at the same time which could be doubling up my statistics.    This is something I may need to look at, either having the same apps on both devices, or having clears sets of apps on each devices, thereby avoiding the need to check each device separately throughout the day.  This may reduce the time taken when I have the urge to check my various apps, as I would only need to check a single device.   I also note that recently I have taken to exercising in the morning which involves using my phone for music as I run, making changes to my music as I go and also reviewing my distance traveled, etc, which all require me to access my phone.   Another factor is I use a tablet device in meetings and in my general work day which again would show up in my access statistics.

I have also put the data into Excel and looked at my usage by day.   It turns out my greatest usage is on a Sunday, then on a Friday and Saturday respectively.    For me this is a little concerning as shouldn’t I be focusing on enjoying the weekend as opposed to checking my devices on a Saturday or Sunday.   I quite often engage in twitter chats on both Saturday and Sunday which may account for some of the statistics.  The question is: Is this the best use of my weekend?

I think the key thing I draw from the activity of gathering some data on my access habits is one simply of conscious awareness.  All too often people are using their devices but not conscious of the frequency or time spent.   They are not conscious of the impact it may be having within their lives.   They do not see how much of their day is spent on social media consumption.    We easily succumb to social media and our mobile devices stealing away valuable time which could be better spent on other activities.    I at least had a feeling that something was wrong and have now gathered data which I can now use to decide on actions and then measure the success of any actions I may take.

Maybe this is something we should all be doing with students in our classrooms?   Ask them to install Checky for a period of time and record their device usage, followed by reviewing it after a couple of weeks as a class activity.   I am sure this would make for some very interesting discussions.