Education Week - May 8, 2024 - 8

Can SEL Help Students Curb Their Own
Cellphone Use?
Experts say that a combination of SEL
skills and better school policies would
help curb student cellphone use
By Lauraine Langreo
& Arianna Prothero
With notifications distracting
students during class time, fights
spilling over from social media into
the hallways, and students at lunch
buried in their phones rather than
in conversation with each other,
phones have become a major concern
for many educators.
The problem, say experts, is that
adolescents are uniquely vulnerable
to the siren song of cellphones. And
while some schools have taken the
drastic step of banning the devices
altogether, that kind of policy can be
hard to implement against resistance
from both students and parents. Plus,
most educators currently work in
schools without cellphone bans.
This is where social-emotional
learning might help: Educators can
teach students the social-emotional
skills they need to help break their
addictive, unhealthy phone habits.
" There is an obvious set of umbrella
skills, like impulse control,
and basically all of the skills that
we use to stop ourselves from
doing something that maybe we
shouldn't do, " said Sophie Barnes,
a researcher for the Ecological
Approaches to Social Emotional
Learning Laboratory at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education. " But
I think that there are opportunities
beyond that with cellphone use. In
particular, I'm thinking about relationship
and communication skills. "
Why cellphones are like catnip
for kids' brains
To leverage SEL to help students
manage their cellphone use, it's
helpful to first understand how the
adolescent brain works and why this
technology is like catnip.
Developmentally, adolescents are
in a period of rapid physical and physiological
change, according to experts.
" Cognitively, there's a lot of
growth and development. And in
terms of identity, youth are really
figuring out who they are and who
they want to be, " Barnes said.
During this developmental period,
" adolescents are really vulnerable
to wanting to belong, " she said. So,
if they're not finding belonging in
school or in other real-world situations,
they're finding belonging
" though their cellphone, through the
internet, and those virtual worlds. "
This need to belong is biological,
said David Yeager, a professor of psychology
at the University of Texas at
Austin. He also points out that adolescents'
obsession with their social
status is likely driven by evolution,
not vanity. In early human history,
fitting in meant survival while ostracization
meant death.
Adolescents, who are at the stage
where they are moving beyond the
protection of their parents and are
more reliant on a group of people
outside their family for safety, are
wired to be especially sensitive to
what others think of them, he said.
" Studies typically find [that] adolescents,
compared with young children
and adults, shift their attention
more rapidly to the social rewards
in a situation, " said Yeager. " The
phone doesn't have magic powers
of status and respect, but because
of the applications, the object represents
the doorway to the single
biggest driver of motivation for this
developmental stage. "
Adolescence is also a time when
students are both wanting more independence
from adults and when
adults start to give them more freedom,
said Barnes, such as how they
spend their time, and with whom
they spend it.
Instead of banning phones,
adults-whether in school or in
other settings-should give adolescents
" the skills to have a better
relationship with it " and use it effectively,
Barnes said.
There are several social-emotional
skills that educators can teach
that will help students better manage
their cellphone use. Those skills
include self-regulation, impulse
control, self-awareness, reflection,
and relationship and communication
skills, according to Barnes.
Self-regulation includes developing
better impulse control, said
Barnes. And with better self-awareness
skills, adolescents can think
about and reflect on the role that
cellphones play in their lives, and
how using the devices makes them
feel, she said.
Strengthening young people's
communication and relationship
skills will help them " develop the
ability to connect in person " that
could hopefully " decrease some
of the dependence on the virtual
world, " Barnes said.
In the classroom, teaching these
skills could come in different forms.
For instance, to help build on students'
communication and relationship skills,
educators could design a classroom activity
in which students have opportunities
to talk to people they don't normally
interact with, Barnes said.
With guidance from the teacher,
students in a classroom could also
work together to create rules around
cellphone use, Barnes said. That kind
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 8, 2024 | www.edweek.org
"
Cognitively, there's
a lot of growth and
development. And
in terms of identity,
youth are really
figuring out who
they are and who
they want to be.
SOPHIE BARNES
Researcher, Ecological
Approaches to Social
Emotional Learning Laboratory
of collaboration could prompt conversations
around the pros and cons
of cellphones, how youth feel about
their cellphone use, what their goals
are for curbing use of the devices, and
what they can do as a class to help
each other reach those goals.
Another important skill for students
to develop related to their cellphone
use is the ability to reframe or
relabel what they might at first see
as a negative situation or interaction
on social media into a more positive
one. But to do that, it's important to
understand how people react to various
social stressors, said Yeager.
People respond differently to something
they see as a challenge versus a
threat. Challenge stress is motivating
and can be positive, he said. Threat
stress in a social situation, on the
other hand, stirs up a host of unpleasant
physiological responses, such as
increases in heartrate and cortisol
levels. That can make it very difficult
to concentrate on learning.
" When you are under that threat, it
dominates your [thinking], it's hard
to come back to homeostasis, " said
Yeager. For example, if a student
sees something on social media they
perceive as a threat to their social
standing right before starting math
class, they're going to spend at least
the first 10 minutes of class battling
those physiological responses and focusing
on their phone, not on learning
math, said Yeager.
" But if you give students the skill
of reappraising difficulties as a challenge
instead of a threat, recovery
time is a lot faster, " he said. " So, one
idea is having this skill of thinking
about a social difficulty as an opportunity
for growth or a challenge that
you're going to overcome. "
Educators' own social-emotional
skills related to cellphone use are
also a part of the equation.
Teachers should acknowledge it's
also hard for them to limit their cellphone
use sometimes, too. Barnes
said they should ask themselves:
What's difficult for us about cellphone
use, and what do we do to
curb addictive, unhealthy behaviors?
They should share those reflections
with their students.
More empathy from educators can
go a long way, said Yeager. It's not helpful
for educators to see teens' constant
cellphone use simply as a sign of defiance
or a lack of impulse control.
" The power struggle between
adults and teenagers in the hallways
over phones could be making the
problem worse, " he said. " I think that
if adults learn to see teenagers' phone
use in a more compassionate way, that
our entire economy has squeezed this
huge source of information about
their social well-being into this tiny
device, it's totally reasonable for them
to pay attention to that device. "
It's about a lot more than
self-control
But social-emotional learning
alone is probably not enough to curb
unhealthy cellphone use, said Yeager.
It was adults, after all, who created
cellphones and social media,
he pointed out.
Students' social-emotional skills
need an assist from adults and an
approach to SEL that's more expansive
than teaching explicit skills.
People who have good self-control
don't simply have limitless willpower,
said Yeager. What they are good at is
modifying their environments, such
as leaving their cellphone in their
locker instead of their desk, so they
don't have to rely on willpower.
Policies that require students to
put their phones in a pouch at the
beginning of classes or require students
to keep them in their lockers
are examples of policies created by
adults that can help students, Yeager
said. Those types of policies could
be a step in the right direction, especially
if schools work to get students'
buy-in ahead of time. Some students
have said they are less stressed and
learn better when they are not constantly
checking their phones.
Instead of telling adolescents that
they need more self-control, Yeager
suggested a better strategy might be
for adults to facilitate activities that
create alternative routes for kids to
build that all-important social status-or
said another way: things kids
can be good at.
Schools can provide some of these
opportunities through clubs, sports,
and leadership programs, said Yeager.
And he thinks it's an approach
that will be more universally beneficial
for students.
" The most self-disciplined kids,
they are already getting straight
A's, " said Yeager. " They're not
who I'm worried about. I'm worried
about the kid who is getting
C's and D's. They need status and
respect more than anybody and
they're going to go to their phones
even more because they need an
alternative way to feel good about
themselves. "
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