[00:00:12.540] – Speaker 2
Well, hey, I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading experts and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the world of youth today. I know today’s topic is a hot one, pertinent to parents and caregivers across the board, not to mention the fact that it’s been in the news a lot here in Ontario lately. Today, we’re talking to Matthew Johnson, who is the Director of Education for MediaSmarts, Canada’s Centre for Digital Media Literacy. He’s the author of many of Media Smarts resources and serves as a member of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Digital Health Task Force. He’s also on advisory committees for the Information and Privacy Commission of Ontario and the Sexual Information and Education Council of Canada, among others. Matthew has taken a break from his incredibly important work to talk to us today about digital literacy and how digital technology impacts our kids. I’m thrilled for you to hear this conversation, so let’s dive in. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods.
[00:01:37.390] – Speaker 2
Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Welcome to the podcast, Matthew.
[00:02:12.230] – Speaker 1
Thanks.
[00:02:12.910] – Speaker 2
Looking forward to this topic that we’re going to dive into. It’s one I know so many parents and people that work with young people and just anybody’s really interested in when we’re talking about technology and all that. Before we dive into the good content, let’s get to know you a little bit beyond the bio. What shaped your world when you were growing up?
[00:02:31.170] – Speaker 1
What really did shape my world when I was growing up was media. Like a lot of late ’70s, early ’80s kids, watched a lot of TV, read a lot of comic books, played early video games. I think that a lot of people who come to media literacy come in from a skeptical place, and skepticism is absolutely warranted. But I think it is important to come in with that love of media and understand understanding that this is something that’s important for young people. It doesn’t just entertain, it shapes who we are.
[00:03:07.910] – Speaker 2
I can remember probably dating myself as well, seeing the first Atari gaming system and playing it with my friends. I wasn’t allowed to have one at the time, but eventually, I got my parents to let me have an Atari gaming system. I remember the day I got one, it was the greatest thing. It does have some parallels, different versions of technology, but they’ve been shaping our world, at least since I was a kid.
[00:03:36.670] – Speaker 1
We’re still asking a lot of the same questions about media that we were 20, 30, 40, even 100 years ago. So it really does help. That perspective really does help us get at what do we actually need to worry about.
[00:03:54.450] – Speaker 2
I hope you can tell us that later on, but that’s awesome. So what is shaping your role today? Tell us a little bit about what you like to do for fun, a little bit about you.
[00:04:03.750] – Speaker 1
Well, aside from my work, which, of course, is a really big part of my life, I have a wife and two sons that keep me busy. They’re 13 and a 15-year-old. Oh, wow. My younger son is very interested in video games. He makes video games on scratch, and he’s learning some other programming languages. My older son is very interested in the environment and animals, so we’re always learning about those things. Really, a big part of our lives is just enjoying the time that we have together as a family. Lately, we’ve been rewatching the Studio Ghibli movies because we saw The Boy and the Heron came to theaters, and we had never seen one on the big screen before. So now we’ve got a project whenever one of them is showing at a repertory theater or anything else on a big screen, we make sure to see it then because it really does makes a huge, huge difference between even a good size TV and a proper screen.
[00:05:06.880] – Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, which I think is true for a lot of that. But that’s great. That’s really interesting. Tell us a little bit about your work. What are you doing now for your job and how does it connect to young people, kids? How are you helping shape the world of young people today?
[00:05:25.970] – Speaker 1
So I’m the Director of Education for Media Smarts, which is Canada’s Center for digital media literacy. We’ve been around for almost 30 years now. Depending on how you count, this is our 30th anniversary because we started in 1994 as a branch of the National Film Board, and then we were spun off into a separate charity in 1996. So we’re either 28 or 30 years old, depending on how you count. And what our mission has been since the very beginning has been to make sure that young Canadians are able to understand and to actively engage with all of the media that they use and consume. That’s changed a lot in 30 years. The media that they use has changed a lot. The challenges and the issues have changed some, although less than you might think. So as Director of Education, I’m responsible for developing our resources. We have really three streams of what we do. We do research, We’ve been doing an ongoing research project called Young Canadians in a Wireless World for more than 20 years. We just finished releasing the reports from phase four of that study. We also do communications and outreach, and then we do programs.
[00:06:46.070] – Speaker 1
We do programs, we do resources for students, resources for teachers, resources for parents, resources for general audiences. I either develop or I oversee the development of all of those. And so at any given time, I’ve usually got four or five different things going on right now, looking at a range of things from algorithms and AI to critical thinking and verification to mental health and media, and always, of course, keeping up on the issues that never go away, things like advertising, things like body image and stereotyping, things like cyberbullying.
[00:07:26.190] – Speaker 2
Well, there is so much to unpack about the topic of technology and its impact on young people, especially in light of recent news events. And for those, we record this and then release it at later dates. And just to get some of our listeners caught up, we live in Ontario. Matthew is from Ottawa. I’m around Toronto. It’s really popped up in the news lately about the school systems and how they’re tackling technology and banning phones and what that all looks like. Before we get into all of that, I want to start at the beginning. We know that digital technology It often gets demonized because of some of the true and assumptions we have about how harmful it is. But it’s also changed our lives for the better in so many ways. We know it’s here to stay. It’s not going away. That’s where people like you come in at Media Smarts. You’re about teaching kids the skills to engage with media as informed digital citizens. Right off the bat, you got to tell us what it means to be an informed digital citizen for a kid, and what do they need to know what that’s all about?
[00:08:30.920] – Speaker 2
What does that look like?
[00:08:33.240] – Speaker 1
Really, we define digital media literacy in a couple of different ways. One of the ways is through the idea of understanding a number of key concepts, key concepts that were developed to look at all media back in the 1980s. They’re really the foundation of media literacy education here in Ontario. And because Ontario was one the first jurisdictions in the world to integrate media literacy into the formal curriculum, they’ve been hugely influential around the world. And those are based on the idea that media are constructions, that every media work that you engage with, whether you’re using it, whether you’re consuming it or both, it was made by somebody, and those people made choices. Some of those choices were conscious, some of those were unconscious, but it’s the result of the decisions that were made by the people who made that. And there are a number of other key concepts that come out of that relating to the idea, for instance, that most media have commercial considerations. They are made to make money. They cost money to make. The media have social and political implications because they communicate to us what the world is like. So even if there isn’t an intentional message, we still take a message about reality from it.
[00:09:56.720] – Speaker 1
And the idea that audiences negotiate meaning, that the meaning of a media work isn’t just created by the creators. We bring our own experience and our own interpretation to it. And then the second set of key concepts we developed a few years ago to reflect the ways that digital media are different, and that is the idea that digital media are networked. So unlike traditional media, media from when we were kids, where a small number of people spend a lot of money making and producing content, and it comes to us in a line, and we can’t really respond to it, and we’re more or less isolated from other audiences. Digital media is networked. Everyone’s connected to everyone else. And so that has a series of consequences as well. So that’s one way of looking at it. That’s what we call the idea of understanding digital media or media in general. And then we have the knowledge framework, and this is the categories of knowledge that we feel young people need to learn to know over the course of their education. Privacy and security, things like ethics and empathy, things like community engagement. And then we have what we call the DO competencies, which I think is probably the easiest to explain, where we say that to be media literate, you need to be able to access media, which is, first of all, that’s precondition, you have to actually be able to access it.
[00:11:33.010] – Speaker 1
But also there are access skills. Some of those are general, like just being able to use a computer or a browser, and some of them are more specific, like being able to use a search engine or a database. Then there are the use skills, which are about using media as tools, whether that’s digital media or using a tool like a video camera or a film camera. There are the understand skills, which are the ability to critically engage with the media that using and consuming, to understand and analyze how it was made and the implications of that, to understand the affordances and defaults of digital tools, and understand how those influence, how we use them, and to have a broader sense of the implications to broader society. And that connects us to our last competency, which is to to engage, to engage with media itself, to consciously be a critical reader, consumer, and user, but also to use these tools to be an engaged citizen. So first of all, taking an active part in shaping the norms and values of our online communities, and of course, using media tools to be an active citizen offline as well, using them to make a difference in the offline world.
[00:13:00.780] – Speaker 1
And that’s one of the wonderful things about digital media that I do think gets overlooked, is that it gives everybody the power to be engaged, active citizens. We don’t have to wait for the next election, and we don’t have to wait until we turn 18. We have a chance to make our voices heard and to make a difference in ways that we didn’t in the old media environment.
[00:13:26.230] – Speaker 2
That’s really helpful, and I love that framework. I think When I think about young people, I think when you talked about some of the practices, behaviors, skills that you can learn, I think learning how to use is funny because I’m Gen X. I’m pretty comfortable with technology, but hand something to my daughter and she knows how to use it like she was born with it in her hand. She can just get on and figure it out really quickly. Some of us older people, that’s the key a step from being an informed digital citizen. But I’m curious, especially as parents, when we think about today’s media and technology for young people, we often think about it as they’re consuming it rather than engaging in it? So for young kids, what would you do? What does it look like for them to really use and engage in the technology?
[00:14:23.780] – Speaker 1
Well, it really depends on what they’re interested in and what they’re doing online. But to begin with, it can be a matter of being an active and engaged consumer. So when you’re watching YouTube, for instance, it can be a matter of looking for what you want to see, what you’re interested in, rather than just watching what comes up in the up next bar. It could be a matter of curating. And that’s a wonderful thing that parents can do together with kids is create your own playlists or create your own channel and curate the content that’s there. We also know even relatively young kids do spend time in online communities. We know Roblox, for instance, and Minecraft are both hugely popular with young kids. And both of those have communities that you can be involved in. Of course, any given server or any given Roblox game is going to have people on it at any given time. But those platforms as well, more broadly, have cultures and communities. And so teaching kids from very early on, first of all, that they have a responsibility to the other people on those platforms, but also that they have the ability to shape the values of those platforms, that when they see something that they think isn’t right, when they see a new player being trolled or something like that, that their voice will make a difference.
[00:15:57.170] – Speaker 1
We can also have relatively young kids be a positive part of the online commons. So one of the things that we teach kids is how to participate positively in wikis. And you’re not necessarily going to start with Wikipedia itself, although it’s great for kids to know how Wikipedia works. But in many cases, they’re going to be more interested earlier on in the wikis that are around various fandoms. And when they learn that they can participate there, they can be a part of improving that when they find a mistake or when they find a gap, or again, when they become involved in a community where often the editors on these sites will be saying, We don’t have anything on such and such a game. We’d love an article or we’d love just a paragraph. That’s an opportunity for them to become involved in making things better for the community and adding to the sum total of the internet in a positive way.
[00:17:07.320] – Speaker 2
So when we talk about actual curriculum and educating kids around this stuff, you were the architect on a digital literacy framework for Canadian K-12 schools. And I’m wondering, you mentioned about Ontario being an early adopter to this. How widespread is this in schools as part of the curricula? Is it a policy that schools have media literacy? And what’s from a high level involved in educating kids through the school system on this?
[00:17:39.100] – Speaker 1
So it varies from province to province. I don’t think there are currently any provinces that use our framework exactly, although I know that New Brunswick has a digital literacy framework that’s based very closely on ours. And we’ve also been involved in the development of new curriculum around the across the country, particularly most recently in Ontario, where we were involved in the development of the new language curriculum, to make sure that even if they’re not necessarily using our framework as it’s written, they’re basing their curriculum on what we’ve identified as those key concepts and those key topics. So where you are in the country has a big influence on what you’re going to learn. We do know that Every province does have media literacy integrated into its formal curriculum in one way or another, and so do the territories. How it’s done varies from province to province, and of course, how recently it’s been done. It varies from province to province. Some of them are still working in a model that doesn’t really reflect the ways that network media is different from traditional media. And then it’s integrated in the curriculum in different ways. So in Ontario, for instance, it’s part of the learning skills, but it’s also integrated into the curriculum proper.
[00:19:11.690] – Speaker 1
In British Columbia, there’s a whole digital literacy curriculum, but it’s parallel. Students in BC don’t actually take digital literacy classes. It’s expected to be integrated into existing courses. So it’s up to the teacher and to the administrator to decide how much that happens. One of the resources that we have on our website that teachers tell us is really valuable is we actually every year make sure that we’re up to date on the curriculum of each province and territory. We identify curricular expectations that connect to digital media literacy, both ones that explicitly talk about it and ones that can be connected to it. So for instance, if a curriculum talks about bullying, we can connect that to cyberbullying, even if it doesn’t specifically mention cyberbullying. And then we connect those to our resources that meet those. So if you’re teaching grade seven in Ontario, you can look up all the different parts of the grade seven curriculum in Ontario on those charts, you can see which parts of the curriculum connect to digital media literacy, and you can actually get resources right there to teach those curriculum connections.
[00:20:30.500] – Speaker 2
So it sounds like it’s varied across. There’s no standard. But from your perspective, what would be the consistent major topics that would come up in a digital literacy framework through school?
[00:20:45.620] – Speaker 1
Well, so what’s really important to us is that we treat digital media literacy as a holistic topic. Because so many of the same issues use cross categories. So we know that, for instance, understanding a business model of how media companies make money is deeply connected to understanding online privacy, because the reason why social media and search engines and video sites collect all of this data about us is because they make money by selling selling that data or selling access to that data to advertisers. And you can’t really understand the privacy implications of those things until you understand the business model. In the same way, we know that things like gender stereotyping have a huge influence on how people behave online. We did a study a couple of years ago where we looked at sharing of sex of intimate images, and we found that people in the study who held traditional Vendor stereotypes were many times more likely to have shared someone’s sexed without that person’s permission. So it’s important, of course, to teach the specific skills, to teach about sexting, to teach about privacy. But we also do have to make sure that we’re addressing them in this way that recognizes how these skills are connected.
[00:22:24.800] – Speaker 1
And we also know that those traditional media literacy skills, things like advertising, things like body image and stereotyping, these are just as important in the digital age as they were before, and they’re just as important as the things that may seem possibly more urgent, like cyberbullying or online safety.
[00:22:46.740] – Speaker 2
I think when you think of it from a parent perspective, it’s nice to know that in the school system there is some thinking about this and there’s some curricula that may might address it, some programs that teachers can access and resources. But I think a lot of these things, Matthew, it’s one thing to know the school is doing, and it’s another thing for us to complement that as at home. And so how much of this process is up to parents to do, and what would we do as parents to get more familiar with what’s happening at school? But also, what should we be aware of as parents as we help kids become more digital literate and even for ourselves? What can we do at home to complement what’s happening in the schools?
[00:23:41.450] – Speaker 1
I think the most important thing for parents to know is that we are the most valuable resource for our kids. We are the people they turn to for help, we’re the people they turn to for advice, and we’re the people they turn to as role models. So we found that consistently in our research that when kids have difficulties online, parents are one of the top places they turn to. We also found, surprisingly, that most kids feel their parents are more tech savvy than they are. So to a certain extent, that image that we have of our kids as immediately knowing everything about every gadget they pick up, that’s a little bit of an illusion. And honestly, I was a teacher for a while before I came to this job, and I do remember taking a class of high school students into the computer lab and setting them a research task and having them all start by just googling the research question and clicking the very first hit that came up and learning at that moment that the fluency is not the same thing as literacy or expertise. But it’s not just the technical side that our kids turn to us for.
[00:24:59.420] – Speaker 1
It’s guidance, it’s support. And so we do say the most important thing we can do for our kids is just to talk to them on a regular basis about their media lives. What games are they playing? What websites are they going to? Who’s their favorite YouTuber? What social networks? If they’re on social networks, what social networks do they want to use? What social networks are they using? Why do they want to use them? What do What do they want to do there? What are their friends doing? Having this regular conversation means that, first of all, when issues come up, it’s not new. We already have this channel of communication open. It also means that we have a better sense of what they’re doing, and it means that they’re not going to necessarily feel inhibited about coming to us. Part of that conversation is what we call co-viewing. And we have a guide called Co-viewing with your Kids, which I often recommend as the first thing if parents are going to look at our resources, that’s one of the first things I recommend they look at because it is a guide to getting that conversation started.
[00:26:17.730] – Speaker 1
And co-viewing, of course, can mean actually watching or listening to or playing with your kids, and we do recommend that strongly. But it also just means having that ongoing conversation and modeling the idea of being a critical consumer, of asking questions about what you’re consuming and using. But another aspect of that conversation is also setting rules. Once again, going back to the earliest days of our research, we found consistently that having rules in the home about how kids should behave online does make a difference to what kids actually do, even for teenagers. And it’s not necessarily Not necessarily because kids are worried about punishment. They don’t have to be laws. It really just does seem to be that you are communicating, first of all, the values that you expect them to live by. But you’re also communicating the procedures and routines that you want them to follow. So that, for instance, if they want to download a new app or they want to make an in-app purchase or something like that, there’s a set procedure. You get information about it, you come to me, we talk about it, we make a decision together. That takes away the ambiguity.
[00:27:39.980] – Speaker 1
It means they’re a lot less likely to do something that you would rather they didn’t because you’ve rehearsed this already.
[00:27:47.160] – Speaker 2
As I’m listening to this, there’s just this idea of engaging with kids in their world. I think sometimes we’re a bit removed and we have our own the information or stuff we’re doing. But I love what you’re talking about. You’re talking about curating and doing that together. I remember we went on a road trip. I have an 18-year-old daughter, as most of our listeners know, but it was a few years ago. She’s probably 16, and we decided we’d put together a playlist for the road trip to South Carolina and pick all our favorite songs and put it together. But then we also had to have key songs when we were crossing into different states. So take me home country roads when we went into West Virginia and New York state of mind when we went into New York. And so we were engaging together in technology. And I’m putting that together with what you were saying earlier about how we can use technology to engage in the world around us. We had a number of seasons ago, an author named Richard Kalata, who wrote the book Digital for Good. And he was talking to us about, he says, When they go on family trips, he tells his kids to get out their phones because they have to take photos of things and put together a bit of a slideshow or a picture book of the family holiday together that captures their favorite memories of it.
[00:29:16.840] – Speaker 2
So rather than being traveling saying, put your phones away, he’s saying, no, get your phones out because we’re going to create something together and use what we have for the good of our family. I just love that idea of partnering together. And we do know as parents that there is a lot of good and advantage to it, but there are some risks. And you’ve highlighted a few as we go. I’ve gone through the conversation. I was talking to our producer who was telling me that when her school parent council was looking for a guest speaker, the majority were concerned with finding someone who could talk to the kids about online predators, which is obviously something that does happen. But Richard Kalata from the International Society of Technology and Education, when he was on a while ago, talked about how the more ubiquitous danger of the digital world is largely fund by advertising, which you’ve mentioned before. His view is that we have to do a better job of explaining the business model behind our apps that our kids are using to our kids, talk to them about what data they’re willing to give up in exchange for functionality.
[00:30:24.250] – Speaker 2
We should be teaching our kids why they are shown certain things online to know that it’s an algorithm based on data points, controlling what they see, for instance. I can tell you would agree with that as we’re talking, but how would we do that as parents? Do you think that’s an important tool to give our kids and information to help them? And then how would we do that to come alongside our kids in that area?
[00:30:51.350] – Speaker 1
Well, early on, that’s something that we’re going to be doing ourselves because early on, kids are using devices that we’re supervising, either a computer or maybe a tablet, maybe a past back phone. But we’re the ones early on who are deciding what apps to download, what to do with the settings, what browser, plugins to use. So it is important for parents to know how important it is, for instance, to have an ad blocker when kids are using web browsers, because, for instance, not only does do ad blockers limit data collection, they also limit exposure to a lot of inappropriate content. A lot of the inappropriate content that kids encounter comes through things like pop-up ads. Having an ad blocker limits that because kids, particularly younger kids, they’re not usually that interested in seeking out inappropriate content. A lot of research shows that they’re much more interested in avoiding it. And so using something like an ad blocker to limit that can be really helpful. Using the settings on your phone. So of course, if you have an iPhone or an iPad, you can literally turn off data collection from the phone. Now, the app can still collect information on what you do with the app, but with an iPhone, it asks you when you download an app, it asks you, can this app collect data from the phone?
[00:32:24.840] – Speaker 1
And you can say no. You can’t do that yet with an Android phone, but there is an app called DuckDuckGo that has a feature called app tracking protection that does exactly the same thing. We do recommend if you have kids who are using an Android tablet or an Android phone, download DuckDuckGo. It’s free. Turn on app tracking protection. And similarly, a lot of apps have settings. More and more apps are allowing you to either turn off data collection or turn off target targeted advertising or both. And we recommend doing both. You can also have them forget everything they know about you. And over time, you pass this responsibility onto your kids. And TikTok, for instance, is a really great opportunity to do this because, of course, the TikTok algorithm is so responsive. So you can make a project of start by having TikTok forget everything it knows about you or if you already have an account, and then see if you can train it to only show you videos about a particular thing because it’s very sensitive to What you swipe away immediately and what you watch to the end. Interestingly, likes on a video don’t seem to have much influence on the algorithm.
[00:33:54.710] – Speaker 1
But if you choose, okay, every time I see a video with a cat in it, I’m going to watch it to the end. And every time I see a video that doesn’t have a cat in it, I’m going to swipe it away immediately. Takes about 15 minutes in my experience, and you can train it to show you basically nothing but cat videos or whatever you want. But the The second thing is that kids learn that they are in control. Even in something that’s totally algorithmic, like TikTok, they can consciously choose to train that algorithm rather than sending the signals unconsciously, which, of course, we’re doing all the time, even when we’re doing something that feels like a traditional media experience. And that, again, goes back to that idea that digital media are It worked. So when we’re watching Netflix, for instance, it may feel just like we’re watching TV. But the fact of the matter is that when we’re watching Netflix, Netflix is watching us, and it’s watching those exact same metrics, what we watch to the end And what we watch four episodes in a row and things like that. And it’s using that to try to recommend things to us to keep us coming back to Netflix.
[00:35:10.380] – Speaker 1
And it even does that in terms of what it shows you on the homepage, that the things that it thinks you’re most likely to like are at the top left. And as you move right or move down, you get further and further away from what it thinks you like. But of course, one of the things that came up in our research with youth about when we were them about algorithms is in many cases, these algorithms are not actually very accurate, and they were very concerned that they were missing out on things because the algorithm thought they were different than they actually are.
[00:35:46.110] – Speaker 2
That’s really interesting. I just was thinking back to my own. I made the mistake of clicking twice when I was on Instagram at New Balance Shoes because I was looking at new shoes, and now I can’t escape from New Balance in my feed. It’s there all the time. I love what you’re saying about how to help kids learn about that and also use the algorithm to their advantage, not just, quote, unquote, be used by it. Just in lieu of our time, I’d love to get back to the schools for a second. We’re talking about education, the school system for a second. There’s been a lot in the news lately regarding technology and social media use at school. Ontario students will have new rules around on cell phones at school come September with students in grades K to 6 to have cell phones powered off and put away for the duration of the school day while grades 7 to 12 will have to do the same, but only during instructional time. This also came on the heels of an announcement in the news that four of Ontario’s boards, school boards, including the Toronto district, the biggest one, were suing some of the largest social media companies, alleging that their products, I think it was Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, that their products are designed and have negatively rewired the way kids think, behave, learn, ultimately disrupting the way schools operate.
[00:37:11.600] – Speaker 2
I have a two-part question. What do you think about the cell phone a band in schools from your perspective? Do you think it moves away from what we’re talking about, helping kids be responsible digital citizens, or is it more about guardrails and policing usage? So that’s part one. And then maybe part two, do you have any insight or perspective from yours on the lawsuit? Does the school boards have any merit to that? What’s that all about? So maybe we’ll start with the the cell phone ban. What do you think about that?
[00:37:43.050] – Speaker 1
Well, first of all, my sense What makes us that in practice, it’s not really that different from the rules already in place in a lot of schools and a lot of school boards. So my older son is in high school, as I mentioned, and all of his classes have what are called a phone hotel, which is basically one of those things you put on your closet door to hold shoes, except instead of holding shoes, it holds cell phones. And the idea is you put the phone in the hotel and you only at the beginning of class, and you only take it out if the teacher says, Okay, we’re going to use our phones for some instructional purpose. It took a little while for those teachers, his teachers, to be convinced that he doesn’t have a phone. But honestly, I think that’s It’s a pretty good policy. I worry about framing it as a ban because we ban things that are bad. When we call something a ban, it’s suggesting that it is bad. And I don’t think that that’s a helpful framing because really what we want to be teaching kids is that these are tools that we use at particular times for particular purposes.
[00:38:59.210] – Speaker 1
And I think We have a responsibility to teach them to use them. So I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say up to grade six, probably you shouldn’t have a phone in class. But the other thing is we do need to be teaching kids digital media literacy. And there are environments where you need student devices to make sure there are enough devices. There are schools don’t have enough Chromebooks or laptops or tablets. There are times when those phones are going to make the difference. And maybe that’s going to be true even before grade six. We also know that in most cases, it is not kids who are asking for phones. It is parents who are giving phones to their kids. We asked students where they got their first phone and why, and The single largest, about two-thirds of the kids said that they got their first phone. It was given to them by their parents, and their parents gave it to them because they wanted to keep in touch with them. So if parents are willing to not be able to reach their kids during class time, then that’s one thing. But I think that’s going to take a realignment on parents’ part as well.
[00:40:26.550] – Speaker 1
That I think a lot of parents have gotten accustomed to to being able to contact their kids at all times during the school day. And I think that’s not necessarily modeling good behavior, because we know, for instance, that one of the reasons why kids often have phones in the bedroom and one of the reasons why phones get in the way of sleep is because they feel like they have to be present and available for their friends. And the feeling that you have to be present and available for your parents is modeling that idea.
[00:40:59.690] – Speaker 2
Interesting. Yeah.
[00:41:01.410] – Speaker 1
So the other thing I would say is that, again, going back to the idea of not framing it as a ban, particularly in high school and especially the older high school years, we need to be actively teaching kids how to manage the distractions that come with a phone, because this is something we all deal with, whether we’ve got a phone in our pocket or whether we’re using a computer that we can always have another tab open. These are distraction devices as much as they are tools. There are ways of using them without being distracted, but we need to be taught those. We need to practice them. We need to have an opportunity to learn because when they’re in university, when they’re in the work world, there aren’t going to be these rules. It’s going to be up to them, as it is up to us, to manage these distractions.
[00:41:55.170] – Speaker 2
What about the lawsuit? What are your thoughts on that?
[00:41:58.910] – Speaker 1
I can’t I can really comment on the lawsuit. I can say that we don’t use the term addictive or addiction when it comes to digital devices because the science just isn’t there. And we also have good evidence to think that, again, that addiction frame is unhelpful, that when we view them as addictive, it makes us passive victims. Whereas when we view it in terms of of a habit where we can train ourselves into better habits rather than worse habits, that seems to result in better outcomes. Of course, we have to recognize that when we’re trying to train ourselves into better habits, we’re swimming upstream because these apps and the devices as well are designed to make us keep using them. They’re designed to make us come back at least once a day. Daily active users is one of things that these companies report to their shareholders and to advertisers. They’re designed to keep us on them longer. So I don’t want to frame these as neutral things. It is a challenge to train ourselves into better habits, but we can do it. And of course, just because something isn’t addictive doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful.
[00:43:21.980] – Speaker 1
I mean, all of those cars in the 1970s, those dangerous cars, they weren’t addictive, but they were still harmful until they had seatbelts made mandatory and they were improved in various ways. So I don’t think it’s saying that these aren’t necessarily harmful to say that they’re not addictive. It’s just, I think, a much more useful, accurate, and empowering framing.
[00:43:50.980] – Speaker 2
For those, anyone who’s interested in some of the research, not necessarily, like you said, on addiction, but just the connectedness between particularly social media, not technology, and where young people are at today. Jonathan Hyte, who’s a professor at NYU and social scientist, had a book that’s just out called An Anxious Generation, which really dives into the research that him and some colleagues have done around mental health for young people and social media, and has some really interesting insights that I think would partner really well with the work that you’re doing. And so I want to wrap up our time, Matthew, by pointing parents to your resources. And just as a starter, for those listening who are parents, well, let me start with teachers. If you haven’t been to mediasmarts. Ca, you need to because there’s tons of teacher resources and connections to what digital media literacy is all about. And for parents, there’s a ton of resources as well. So as I’ve gone through it, too. It can be a bit overwhelming because there’s so much you have available, Matthew, that I wonder if you can… And I know some of it’s very specific on what people are interested in, but from a parent perspective, when you go to the resources, what might be some great places for them to start to really gain more information on the topics we’ve talked about today or just continue to educate and encourage themselves in what it means to be a digital citizen?
[00:45:29.030] – Speaker 1
So we do have a parent It’s a separate section that’s divided in a couple of different categories. I would recommend starting with the tip sheet category because it’s divided into the different sections. Again, I would say the one, if you’re going to start with one of our resources, I would recommend the tip sheet Co-viewing with your kids because it has a lot of summaries of how you can start conversations on different issues, but it also has links to other resources. So if you’re reading through it and you feel, Oh, I really would like to talk more to my kids about body image issues, there is a link to our more specific tip sheets talking about body image and similarly for other topics. And one other resource that I’m going to recommend To parents of younger kids, because I really had a great time doing it, is a series of short videos that we did for TVO. This was done by a great production company that we consulted It’s called Wacky Media Songs. You can view it on TVO. You can also view it on YouTube. We have a guide with what we call springboards, which are little conversation starters you could have before and after each of the videos.
[00:46:48.170] – Speaker 1
And they really do cover absolutely everything from advertising to facts versus opinions to cyberbullying, even some technologically challenging things like algorithms, but all in ways that are really accessible and fun for younger kids.
[00:47:08.380] – Speaker 2
I would also suggest to parents, you mentioned at the beginning about the research work that you do, young Canadians in a wireless world, the ongoing research that you put out. There is access to that on your website under research and evaluation for parents who are a bit more interested in what’s the data telling us about how technology is being used, how much is it being used, and talks about some attitudes and behaviors. Anything to encourage us to what to look for in the research?
[00:47:43.560] – Speaker 1
Well, each of the Research papers does have an infographic, and it has a little executive summary as well. If you don’t feel like reading through a 30-page research paper, you have access to that. Those really do make it easier here to engage with, especially the infographics. We’ve done research papers recently about cyberbullying, about sexual content online, about finding and verifying information. So really, whatever it is you’re interested in, we have a research paper there. And there, of course, there’s also on the website, there are general interest articles, which are very thoroughly researched and heavily footnoted articles on all of the different topics we address. But each one of those also ends with practical suggestions for how we can address these issues, both in the home and the classroom. And again, of course, links to relevant resources for teachers and parents.
[00:48:49.890] – Speaker 2
That’s amazing. And so much content and really love the work that you do over there. And when we stumbled across this, we’re like, oh, man, we’ve got to talk to Matthew because there’s so much content here. And to get your perspective and point people to your website for all those resources. I think it’s been such an encouraging conversation. I think parents will spend a lot of time on your website getting the information that you provide. I love your heart and perspective for it and to help and equip young people. I’m wondering, just as we wrap up the conversation, Matthew, do you have any final thoughts or words of encouragement for parents who are working through the challenges of helping their child deal with the new digital reality, and maybe some that are just ready to give up and be like, The technology is bad. Let’s just get rid of it all. Any encouraging words you want to share as we wrap up the conversation?
[00:49:48.340] – Speaker 1
I’d say what really matters most is the role that technology is playing in your life and in your home. There may well be things that you want to change. There may well be The impacts that it’s having on you that aren’t necessarily what you want it to have. But you are in control of that. And in general, when we frame it that way, when we don’t make it about the technology, but when we make it about the quality of our lives, our kids are going to be there with us. And I can also say that sometimes our kids want us to be the bad guy. So as I said, one of the reasons frequently why kids feel they have to keep a phone in the bedroom is so that they can be available for their friends. We know if that just disappears, then their friends often will get offended or they’ll worry that their friends get offended. And sometimes they appreciate when they’re able to say, I’m sorry, I can’t be there to like your photo at 2:00 in the morning. My mean old dad said, I can’t have a phone in my room.
[00:50:59.920] – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s great. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for your insights today. I know I learned a lot and I was really encouraged in this topic. So thank you for what you do and your time talking to us today.
[00:51:13.240] – Speaker 1
Thanks for having me.
