Cyber Safety/STEM

About a month ago there was a lot of talk about social media in parliament as the Prime Minister said they were exploring an age range around 14-16 for social media access. I was interested in what some senior students thought about this and many said it’s not fair or we’ll just get our parents to sign us up and use their details. 

Then I put a quote up with some of the latest statistics coming out of the UK and US that says the average 18 year old is on track to spend 26 years of their life on a screen. "Wow that’s a lot" replied one student. "How long do we live for, on average", asked another student, so we looked that up. 

Then one student put their hand up and said "Who cares, what’s wrong with people spending 26 years or more of their lives on screens!". That honest comment really got me thinking. 

Many people are on their screens so much they don’t even realise what they are missing or don’t even think they are missing anything when they are on their screens. Now that’s scary!

I’ve mentioned The Phone Pledge in the newsletter before and recently they shared a direct quote from TikTok’s own research, “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.”

So the companies producing this content know it’s not good, many parents talk about issues they have with screens at home, teachers see the impact, but does anyone really care? As a Year 6 student said what’s wrong with spending so much time on screens!

As a parent myself I’m not going to stick my head in the sand and say it’s ok and I’ve joined Wait Mate and I’m interested in the thoughts of parents and carers in our community what we can do better at St Mary’s.

Please spend 5 minutes of your time filling out a simple survey so we can collect data and continue to improve in this digital space. Click here to complete the survey or scan the QR code below. Here are our user agreements F-2 Agreement and 3-6 User Agreement if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading if you have any questions feel free to email srichardson@smechuca.catholic.edu.au