Time matters. The older I get, the less time I have left and the faster it seems to go by. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Time matters.
The older I get, the less time I have left and the faster it seems to go by. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion Time matters. The older I get, the less time I have left and the faster it seems to go by.
So, I increasingly resent the customer satisfaction surveys about every purchase I have ever made from businesses that unfortunately have my email address. Telemarketers. Opinion polls.
Robocalls from politicians. Queues in store skimping on checkout staff, with the computerized voice at the self-checkout chiming, with no sense of irony, “Tell us how we did today.” Ruth Bonneville / Free Press Road work delays — one of the thing columnist Peter Denton doesn’t have time for.
Traffic jams — especially due to construction done piecemeal at a leisurely pace, with no thought of traffic flow or time of day. Muzak-ed on hold for hours, while being told every 55 seconds that my call is important to them. Waiting for appointments with professionals who are always running an hour late, when I don’t have the luxury of such poor scheduling in my own job.
OK, maybe I am just being cranky — but you get my point. Time matters more, when there are other things you need to do. But the biggest time-waster in my day is actually my own fault: my cellphone, which consumes an increasing share of what little free time I have, just as it afflicts my students.
So, when I heard about government efforts to control cellphone use in schools this fall, I admit my first reaction was to celebrate. But then reality returned. For many reasons, what has been proposed for Manitoba schools simply won’t work.
It is an old answer to a new problem – an electronic version of prohibition. Oldsters (like me) will always lose to a younger generation that better understands the technology and how to use it. Imposing cellphone restrictions will work about as well as parental efforts to control other activities deemed illegal by oldsters.
For example, banning smoking on school property didn’t reduce teenage smoking. Forbidding alcohol and drug use by underage teens, despite the battery of rules and punishments, has always been ineffectual. If someone wants to smoke, drink, or do drugs, they will find a way around whatever their parents’ generation uses to prevent them.
The parallels are appropriate, because this is all about controlling potentially addictive behaviour. While I signed up to be a teacher, not a technology cop, efforts to control cellphones in my own classes have had meagre results. Public shaming is marginally effective (“we will pause the lecture until Freddie is finished texting his important message”).
Correlating cellphone use in class and academic performance, I tell them they can expect a 15 per cent drop in their final marks, which frightens some into compliance. In discussing the issue with students, FOMO (fear of missing out) is endemic. There is also a general feeling of anxiety about not having constant access to their phones.
Cellphones have become electronic pacifiers, with playlists of soothing music, and continuing familiar games. When I walked into the classroom, I used to have to quiet people down. Now, with all their headphones, it feels like I am entering a library.
So, banning or restricting cellphones in schools won’t work. If you only allow them at breaks or lunchtime, forget any physical recreation or human interaction. It will be like chow time at the zoo, as everyone (including the teachers) hungrily lunges for their devices.
Screen-time limits are just as futile — check out how many books there are in school libraries these days, as opposed to work stations and e-resources, or how much teaching interactively involves the internet instead of textbooks. Yes, we need a culture shift around cellphones — when, where and how much to use them. But not just in schools — adults need to put them away, too.
Lately, thinking about wasted time, I’ve been trying other approaches. That culture shift involves the value we place on our own time, however it is spent — consciously doing what matters most to us, focusing on what is important in our own lives. Some of my students admit to using their cellphones every moment they are awake; the average, however, seems to be between five and six hours a day or roughly 40 hours a week.
That is a full-time job equivalent, spent playing bubble games, doom-scrolling through social media and watching cat videos. Monday mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Well, time matters.
I simply point out that every hour students spend on their phone is an hour they spend doing something else — anything else. Whether it is exercise, sleeping, reading, doing homework, working at a job, enjoying a social life with other humans, sports, hobbies — that cellphone usage adds up to a lot of lost time they will never regain. We could all improve the quality of our lives with some well-spent extra time, every day.
Show students evidence of what that extra time in their own day could mean, and there would be fewer reasons for them to cling, anxiously, to their cellphones — in school or elsewhere. After all, time matters to them, too. Advertisement Advertisement.
