I stare into the glowing window of my laptop. My eyes now strain to read every word on the screen. The endless queue of tabs I have open blurs, and it’s impossible to draw any significance from the thousands of pixels that gaze back at me. I slam the computer shut, looking up for the first time in hours. I unfurl my hunched spine, setting off a series of cracking noises. Am I too young for arthritis to set in? I realize how dry my eyes are—I feel like I have to blink double-time to compensate for the strain they are under. My eyes are my windows to the world, but every day it feels like they’re closing just a little bit more.
The screen has consumed us. It has devoured our academic lives—every powerpoint, every assignment, every test, everything is now online. It has devoured our leisure—Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Netflix, Among Us, YouTube are all parasites of our time. The screen is always famished, eager to devour more of our lives until every moment is pixelated, until every moment is spent online.
Increased reliance on our screens is damaging to our physical and mental health, for both students and teachers. Instead of our school days being punctuated by brisk walks to and from classes, we can now lapse into being sedentary for hours on end, staring unblinkingly at our monitors. In just a few short months, students have developed health problems as a result of this lifestyle shift. According to a survey of IHS students conducted by the Tattler, these issues included dry and strained eyes, deterioration in vision, headaches, fatigue, back pain, and lack of exercise and time outdoors. An overwhelming majority of participants reported negative effects, and many expressed wishes that they could spend less time on screens.
The blue light emanating from our devices is yet another hazard: it’s been shown to interfere with melatonin secretion and disrupt sleep. As if extended exposure to blue light from electronics wasn’t harmful enough, the negative effects are even more potent in the evenings, when most students are online completing homework and thus staring at screens well into the night. The survey data corroborates this, as most students reported that they are staying up later than ever and having a harder time falling asleep than they did before the pandemic.
The breakneck pace of digital media is contributing to a growing need for instant gratification and a decrease in the teenage attention span. Sleep deprivation and increased screen time have also played a part in making numerous students more unfocused and tired, according to survey data. These issues are exacerbated by the fact that distractions are available at every turn. Social media, for example, has never been more readily accessible during school. It’s harder to pay attention in class, in part due to our learned impatience and in part due to the availability of social media and countless other distractions at home. Since teachers are already stretched thin from managing both their online and in-person students as well as grappling with new technology, it’s infeasible for them to supervise students and keep them on task.
The lack of access to adequate tools for success in this primarily digital learning environment has been a source of stress and anxiety for many. Those who have to contend with slow network speeds, sluggish computers, or antiquated software have a pronounced disadvantage in almost any conceivable academic scenario despite the efforts of the district to remedy these inequities. The more time that is spent online, the harder it will be for students impeded by these barriers to keep up with the pace of instruction. More time should be spent away from a screen and offline, where the playing field may be more level.
Decreasing screen time must be a collaborative effort. Students, dictated by their activities and assignments, cannot significantly reduce their screen time if their classes, homework, clubs, sports, and other miscellaneous activities are all online. Thus, the problem must be universally recognized, with teachers and students both working towards reducing screen time.
Teachers must give assignments that allow students to spend less time on a screen. Instead of requiring students to submit work on a Google Doc, for example, students should also be allowed to do their work on a paper copy and submit a photo of their handwritten work. Textbook work, which was once hated for its monotony, now can serve as a way to lessen screen time. Audio assignments, such as podcasts, are another example.
Further, teachers should avoid making online classes an 85-minute online affair. For students accustomed to 45 minute periods, continued 85 minute focus is challenging. Since it is difficult to create a fully offline class, small measures can prove to be very helpful. Offering more breaks during classes, assigning classwork that can be printed out and done away from the main call: both of these are examples of small tweaks that can ease the burden on students.
However, although teachers can help students reduce their cumulative screen time, the responsibility still rests on students to manage their screen time efficiently. Leisure screen time, such as the time spent watching YouTube videos or scrolling through TikTok, should be monitored and reduced by students, especially immediately after a long online school day. Students must be aware that since school is fully digital, school must be included in their cumulative screen time, and students must adjust their leisurely habits accordingly.
As school has digitized, we, as students, have been entrusted with more responsibility. There are no administrators to herd us to class nor are there teachers to tell us to put our phones away. The time when teachers had the time to compel us to do the right thing is gone. In this current dystopian world of Google Meets and Canvas modules, we have to learn to take care of ourselves, and thrive even in circumstances that stifle our creativity, health, and social lives.
We must go to classes on time, finish our homework, and find some sparks of intellectual curiosity within a world that is defined in 720p. We must monitor our screen time, find different ways to get outside and exercise, and sleep at a reasonable time (3AM is not reasonable). We must meet and interact with friends, either through the Internet or in socially distanced gatherings. We must look forward to college or getting a job or whatever else we may pursue once we leave high school, and these considerations seem to become exponentially more pressing and stressful with each day.
Being a Teenager™ in 2020 can feel overwhelming. The pressure to be a diligent student, to be a good friend both online and in person, to be politically and socially aware, to be responsible, all in the midst of a pandemic; these pressures all contribute to the constant anxiety that seems to pervade our generation.
Twenty years ago, perhaps some visionary high school student bored in 7th period imagined a utopia in which school was virtual, a utopia where school was vividly colored, meticulously planned, thoroughly optimized, and all accessible through technology. Buffering Google Meets, failed Canvas submissions, and unhealthy eyestrain certainly could not have been the utopia they imagined.
However, with continued social distancing measures and general caution, we can hope that the world will return to some semblance of normalcy. We can hope that we will interact through something better than the laggy audio and low-resolution video of Google Meet. We can hope that one day, we can congregate in a cramped G-wing hallway. Until then, however, we must learn to adapt in this digital world. And please, let’s spend less time on our screens—our eyes will thank us.