Negotiating Control: Distractions, Stress, and Boredom

Adults’ Expectations: A Discourse of Control

Policies regulating the use of mobile media are often constructed as a way to protect schools from legal liability associated with predators, sexting, bullying, and pornography (Cramer and Hayes 2010). As early as the 1980s, schools in the US began banning pagers because they feared they would be used to traffic drugs—fears that were fallaciously fueled by media panics (Sims 1988; Trump 1995, 2009). Similarly, in accordance with the official policy, students at Freeway High were told to leave all personal technology devices in their lockers, pockets, or purses during school. Rightly concerned that devices left in their lockers would be stolen, most students carried small devices with them. Because laptops were difficult to carry all day, and because lockers were not secure, many participants chose not to bring laptops to school. If a student was seen using a mobile device, or if one made a noise during class, it was up to the teacher’s discretion to administer a warning or to confiscate the device; in the latter case, a parent would sometimes be asked to come to the school and retrieve the device.¹

In addition to liability, schools are also concerned about other risks. Two reasons frequently cited as justifications for banning mobile devices at school include reducing the risk of distraction and reducing risk of increased stress that can be a result of constant mobile phone usage (the latter is often lumped together within a rhetoric of media addiction, but as will be explained, I purposefully avoid the term). Certainly distraction and increased stress are legitimate concerns related to the use of mobile media at school. I want to review some of the research that supports banning mobile media on both of these two premises, and also consider alternate explanations and approaches that demonstrate that these concerns do not wholly justify banning the use of mobile media in schools. I will also incorporate the perspectives of participants at Freeway High in order to contextualize and examine the array of opinions and approaches.

Controlling Mobile Media

When asked why her school enforced a restrictive policy regarding mobile media, Anna speculated the rules were there to “keep people on task”:

Try and keep them working on school work so everyone can pass, the district looks good, they get paychecks, everyone gets paid. Because if you’re sitting there on YouTube all day you might not be learning anything at all. … Then at the same time it sounds like they’re going too far with [the rules] in general. I don’t know. It’s one of those situations where you’re not really sure why the rule’s there, but at the same time if it wasn’t there it might be worse. At least it stops some people who don’t know what the proxy is or something from getting on [to blocked sites]. Then again, who’s to stop them from just sitting there not doing anything in general? It’s not like they need their phone to not pay attention.

Anna’s statement echoes other participants who also expressed ambiguity toward the technology rules. Most students understood, to a certain extent, that the rules were designed to keep students “on task”; however, virtually all participants felt the rules went too far. Some felt they limited creativity; others adamantly believed they were more productive when they could listen to music, look up tutorials and information online, or read and take notes on their mobile devices. For example, Cassandra (18 years old, biracial ²) got frustrated that teachers did not allow her to use her phone in class: “I like using the notepad on my phone [to take notes], but I can’t because of my teachers. And sometimes we have to turn in our notes or we’re allowed to use our notes on tests, but I can’t have my phone out during a test looking at my notes.” Other participants also commented that they preferred to take notes on a mobile device because it was faster and more convenient, and because they always had the device with them. These practices were discouraged or banned because of the threat of distraction.

Such policies are not new. By the late 1990s, most schools banned or strictly regulated mobile devices in order to minimize classroom disruptions, as was advised by the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services (Cell phones and text messaging in schools, n.d.).³ Likewise, teachers at Freeway cited concern about the possibility of distraction that personal technology posed. Mobile phones undoubtedly have the potential to disrupt formal learning environments by distracting teachers and students. Indeed, I witnessed plenty of instances in which students at Freeway were distracted by their mobile devices during class. However, I also witnessed plenty of instances in which a student was distracted by other students, by a stuck zipper on a jacket, by an air vent blowing cold air on his or her papers, and by emotional distractions related to such matters as the instability of the student’s home life, a lack of lunch money, or the struggle of the student’s mother to find a job. In other words, with or without a mobile device, students get distracted at school.

While I will argue that banning mobile media misses valuable opportunities for developing literacies, there are those on the other side of the debate who argue that mobile devices have no place in formal education at any level, including college (Felipe 2015). There are some compelling arguments for completely banning mobile devices, and they are worth consideration.

For example, a recent study in the UK found that test scores improved by 6.4 percent after a school banned mobile phones, and that low-performing students were the ones most likely to see improvements in their test scores (Beland and Murphy 2015). The underlying assumption of that study is that mobile phones pose a distraction that inhibits learning. The logic supposes that when the phones are removed, distractions are minimized and attention increases, leading to improved test scores. This argument and data led Beland and Murphy to conclude that “schools could significantly reduce the education achievement gap by prohibiting mobile phone use in schools” (ibid., p. 3). From a particular angle, this makes a lot of sense, which is likely to be the reason why, in the first six months after the study was published, it gained a lot of national and international attention in news and education circles.⁴ But it should be noted that, though the sample was large, the results must be interpreted within a particular context: 16-year-old students, at 91 schools in four cities in England, who were taking rigorous qualification exams in 2013. We must exercise caution before assuming the findings are representative of other populations or that the results can be directly applied to a US context.

The data of Beland and Murphy are persuasive, and perhaps their study makes a case for banning mobile phones in particular contexts—for example, during preparation for high-stake exams, such as the state-mandated standardized tests that students in the US must pass. However, the Beland and Murphy study does not assess the relationship between mobile phones and overall academic success or career preparation. I am cautious of conclusions that claim test scores alone will “close education gaps.” Equating gaps in test scores to overall educational achievement gaps presents a narrow focus of academic success and heavy-handedly blames technology as a root cause of educational inequality. Yet in the United States, and more specifically in Texas, standardized test scores have been heavily criticized for not accurately reflecting and predicting trends in academic success (Sacks 1999; Weiss 2012). In his 1999 book Standardized Minds, the educator Peter Sacks writes:

Evidence strongly suggests that standardized testing flies in the face of recent advances in our understanding of how people learn to think and reason. Repeatedly in the research over the past few years, especially in the grade school arena (K–12), one finds evidence that traditional tests reinforce passive, rote learning of facts and formulas, quite contrary to the active, critical thinking skills many educators now believe schools should be encouraging. … At the K–12 level, teachers often don’t believe that tests accurately measure their students’ abilities, and do believe that widespread practice of ‘teaching to the test’ renders tests scores virtually meaningless. (p. 9, emphasis added)

Rather than educating students as critical thinkers and productive citizens, the primary purpose of standardized achievement tests is to allow school boards and funding agencies to rate the effectiveness of teachers, schools, and school districts (Popham 1999; Weiss 2012). A ban on mobile phones might close the gap in test scores, but that does not mean that a ban better prepares students for academic success after graduation, nor does it indicate better preparation for the workforce. On the contrary, as I explore in the following sections, learning how to manage the use of mobile devices is a necessary and valuable digital literacy that schools ought to help students develop. The emphasis on test scores alone overlooks other educational, creative, and empowering benefits of responsibly incorporating mobile media into the classroom—benefits such as facilitating collaborative distance learning (Ally 2009), enhancing engagement via interactivity (Huizenga et al. 2009), and bridging gaps between formal education and out-of-school learning (Ito et al. 2010).

Another recent study, conducted in 2016 at the US Military Academy at West Point, made similar claims that support banning mobile devices at school. The faculty members who conducted the study found that removing tablets and laptops from an introductory economics course led to an improvement in students’ grades, especially among males and students with high grade-point averages (Carter, Greenberg, and Walker 2016). The researchers compared the final exam grades of students who were allowed to use laptops and tablets against those of students who were not allowed to use them and found that those who did not use such devices in class scored higher than those who did. These results seem compelling. The experiment clearly demonstrates a negative correlation between in-class technology use and exam scores. But Carter et al. (ibid., p. 28) are hesitant to offer conclusive explanations for the results: “We … cannot test whether the laptop or tablet leads to worse note taking, whether the increased availability of distractions for computer users (email, Facebook, Twitter, news, other classes, etc.) leads to lower grades or whether professors teach differently when students are on their computers.” Inserting technology into a classroom is likely to disrupt traditional modes of learning and engagement, and I would never suggest it does not present a distraction. However, in order to take advantage of the availability of technology in the classroom, education must change its approach to learning and evaluation. In other words, the dyadic one-way transmission of information from professor to student may not be best suited to teaching with and through technology. A collaborative, peer-driven, problem-solving approach to learning may be better for integrating technology in the classroom. In this model the teacher is not the expert at the front of the room merely imparting information for students to jot down; instead, the teacher charges students with the task of creatively solving problems and seeking out answers collaboratively. Similarly, exams that ask students to regurgitate information they have heard and transcribed in class may be best accomplished in the absence of technology.

My point is that we cannot insert technology into a classroom, continue to teach as we always have, rely on traditional assessment tools, and then draw the conclusion that technology is detrimental to learning. By analogy, if we wanted to measure whether or not technology made people more social, we should not measure only the amount of face-to-face communication. If we did that, we might erroneously come to the conclusion that technology leads to less sociality. Yet if we expanded our definition of sociality to also measure and account for mediated conversations via phone calls, text messaging, emails, social media, etc., we would find that technology affords greater communicative contact and can enhance personal communication and sociality (Baym 2010). Or, if we wanted to measure how yoga affects health and we measured only weight loss, we might wrongly conclude that yoga does not significantly lead to improved health. But if we were to also measure increased strength, flexibility, balance, and stress levels, we would draw very different conclusions about the relationship between yoga and health (Heid 2014). The studies cited above rely on limited variables and measurements that support their findings but overlook other tools of assessment and effects. Technology affords different modes of engagement, collaboration, and learning and necessitates a transformation in how we teach and how we evaluate learning outcomes. Studies of the standardized tests used in the UK and of the classroom trials at West Point merely demonstrate that technology does not enhance traditional models of learning and knowledge dissemination when we measure outcomes as we measured them in the past; they fallaciously rely on traditional assessments to evaluate new engagements. They fail to consider how technology can be positively incorporated into new approaches to pedagogy and new teaching styles, as well as the need to develop new tools for assessment.

I do not discount the findings of the aforementioned studies, which provide evidence that technology can be detrimental to traditional educational settings. But I believe that we should expand our approach to understanding and evaluating the affordances and limitations of technology as a tool for enhanced learning. Decisions about technology need not be all-or-nothing decisions. In particular learning contexts—such as lectures and one-way transfers of information—perhaps it is best to prohibit technology. But in other contexts, such as group work, project-based learning, and problem solving, technology may enhance rather than detract from students’ engagement and learning. Technology affords different modes of classroom engagement, teaching, and learning that resonate with how today’s students learn informally outside the classroom. Unfortunately, the results of studies such as those mentioned above often are egregiously over-generalized and incorrectly used to justify bans on technology in the classroom.

Controlling Distractions

Technology, as a tool for enhancing learning, challenges the normative assumption that distractions are inherently risky or harmful. If we take a step back we can see that to justify completely banning mobile devices on the premise that it reduces distractions is overly simplistic and problematic. First, it presumes that an ideal “distraction-free learning environment” is possible, beneficial, and necessary. Students have always found ways to deliberately and intentionally distract themselves during class, for example, by doodling, writing and passing notes to friends, reading a magazine tucked away in their school book, making to-do lists, daydreaming, staring out the window, or working on assignments or personal interests that are not related to course material. In other words, we know the mobile technology did not create the temptation of distractions in the classroom; however, it can of course exacerbate temptations and distractions. Obviously teachers ought to strive to reduce distractions, however, to ban mobile media simply because it poses a distraction is fallacious. By that logic, teachers also ought to ban pens and paper, which have the potential to distract students as well. Students can and do use pens to draw, write notes to their friends, work on other homework assignments, and so forth and so forth. Of course, the idea of banning pens seems ludicrous and would never hold up—nor should it—for the simple fact that students need pens and paper to aid in learning. In the same way that the pen and paper has the potential to be a distraction, we also recognize its inherent value as an appropriate tool in the classroom. Why then should mobile devices be banned simply because they pose a potential threat or distraction in the classroom? We must expand the conversation beyond harm-driven expectations of mobile media to also consider their potential as tools and resources in the classroom.

Another problem with the assumption that banning mobile media is productive—or rather that distractions are harmful—is that it overlooks the reality that outside of school young people must constantly negotiate norms and rules for when and where they should use mobile devices. Managing distractions is not unique to the school environment. In the workplace, adults must learn how to simultaneously use technology as a tool for productivity, while also minimizing the temptation to use technology as a distraction. In preparation for adulthood and the workplace, schools ought to help students create boundaries, develop and enforce norms, and manage the distractions that mobile devices present. Within this vein of thinking, it is important to point out that not all teachers agree with the restrictive policies. Mr. Warren was increasingly frustrated with the ban on personal devices: “Now, when we have our students go on field trips to the real world and go to see companies, they see the people with the cell phones out on the tables. Do they see them being used irresponsibly? No. Not really. They aren’t tempted. They know how to use technology responsibly.” His comment highlights the ways in which the distractibility argument has constructed technology as a distraction for young people when actually it has the potential to be a distraction for anyone, including adults. Like adults, students must learn how to manage distractions. Mr. Warren may have overstated the claim that adults are not tempted by distractions, but his observation is accurate insofar as adults in the workplace learn how to manage distractions. In the same way, schools can and should teach students how to manage and resist distractions. Learning responsible and acceptable use of technology, and learning to resist temptations, is a valuable skill for young people while they are in school; it also prepares them for their roles and responsibilities as adults in the workforce.

Outside of school, young people’s use of technology is not strictly managed; they must learn to use technology responsibly, and that includes resisting temptations of distractibility. According to Howard Rheingold (2012), learning to manage our attention is a valuable literacy that takes deliberate practice. Rheingold’s argument draws from research that goes so far as to maintain that some distractions, rather than being harmful, are necessary and beneficial for survival. For example, it would be dangerous to be so focused on an important task that one wouldn’t be aware of the smell of smoke in the next room. No matter how focused or important a task, we need to be distracted at times—for instance, to alert us that there is a fire. This is an extreme example, of course, but the point is that not all distractions are negative, risky, or harmful. From an evolutionary perspective, humans have learned how to block out or pay attention to distractions that are beneficial for survival.

In his book Net Smart, Rheingold expertly and simply puts forth the idea that attention skills are a digital literacy that must be intentionally and deliberately developed (2012, pp. 42–43): “The executive control we all exercise when we maintain focus on a task becomes useful when we move from understanding attention to controlling it. … Gaining control of your attention while you are online requires, first of all, intention. When you formulate a goal, you need to intend to achieve it. Goals and intentions enable your executive control to attune to the part of your information environment that matters most, and tune out what is irrelevant, at least for the purpose of your goal.” Avoiding a technologically deterministic approach, Rheingold recognizes that fine tuning of attention skills dates back as far as humankind, but also recognizes that the development and domestication of technology necessitates the evolution of new skills and literacies.

The incessant buzzing of a mobile phone in our pocket, or the constant bleep of an email notification in our browser, or the flashing notification of a new tweet is potentially distracting, even to the point that it could have negative effects on productivity. For that reason, the removal of such distractions can be used to explain the test results of Beland and Murphy’s UK school test scores study or Carter, Greenberg, and Walker’s economics classroom trials. But compulsory authoritative approaches to regulating media—and therefore distractions—miss the point. Students do not need distraction-free environments, but rather, they must learn how to develop appropriate and effective attention literacies so that they can learn how to responsibly manage distractions on their own, outside of authoritative control. Schools have the opportunity to help students develop and shape the norms necessary for appropriately managing mobile media use in a beneficial manner. Helping students manage distractions can only be accomplished through the incorporation of mobile devices at school, rather than a punitive ban on personal technology. Banning mobile devices in order to create “distraction-free” learning at school constructs a superficial environment that ignores the reality that young people, just like adults, must learn to negotiate the distractions posed by mobile media.

Further, the discourse around distraction, media, and youth tends to assume that young people themselves are unaware of distractions. The discourse often positions youth as passive dupes who are unable to manage distractions, who are oblivious to the risks of distraction, or who can only manage distraction through authoritative control. These assumptions and constructions of youth and technology are evident of the harm-driven expectations that are common in policies of panic (see chapter 2). This rhetoric is also seen in headlines such as NBC’s “Students can’t resist distraction for two minutes … and neither can you” (Sullivan 2013) and this Slate headline: “You’ll Never Learn! Students can’t resist multitasking, and it’s impairing their memory” (Paul 2013). Such assumptions fail to recognize young people’s own agency with regard to both unintentional and intentional distraction. Amina (17 years old, East African) articulates her own understanding of deliberate distraction.

Okay. So, another thing that we’ve heard is that technology is a big distraction. What do you think about that?

Amina:

Oh, yeah. We all know it. We all know it. We all talk about how we have a paper to do, but “Look at me. I’m on Facebook.” Or we’ll talk about homework that’s not going to get done. Yeah. We always talk about Facebook and Twitter. We know it’s a distraction.

Okay. You and your friends talk about all that stuff a lot?

Amina:

Everyone talks about it. We all know it’s a distraction. I feel like a lot of other people are always talking about how our phones and computers are a distraction without us being aware of it. But that’s not true. We’re aware that it’s a distraction. You only do what you want to do and that will be your distraction. I feel like Twitter and Facebook are only a distraction because we want to be on Twitter and Facebook. Playing basketball could be a distraction if all you want to do is play basketball. Video games are a distraction if all you want to do is play video games. Anything can be a distraction.

So, that’s interesting. Are you saying that adults oftentimes say that?

Amina:

Just the idea of when the teacher’s talking about “Oh, you’re always on your phone. It distracts you. You never get your work done.” It’s not because oh no, we’re doomed for life. What are we going to do? It’s because we want to be on our phones. If we don’t want to be on our phones it won’t be a distraction. Sooner or later it will get old and it won’t be a distraction anymore. That’s probably going to be when we get older or when we go to college or however we get over it.

Amina’s interview reveals the extent to which students are acutely aware of distractions, but she transfers the debate to a framework of choice, rather than passivity or victimhood. Teachers—and adult society more broadly—can benefit from listening to Amina and other teens when they discuss distractions and media. Teens don’t need adults to eradicate distractions—an impossible goal anyway—but rather, they need help making smart and responsible decisions. Amina assumes as she gets older she will be less distracted my media. However, Rheingold’s (2012) research demonstrates that adults also need help developing and employing attention literacy strategies that minimize distractions. Setting healthy and productive boundaries is not simply a youth problem, but schools can help young people manage distractions.

In her research focusing on teens’ social uses of mobile media, Nicola Green (2003) argues that we ought to shift our focus away from the differences between teen and adult uses of mobile media. She contends that by focusing on differences between teen and adult use of technology that we erroneously construct teens as a uniform category and ignore the differences within teen populations. I would add that identifying particular practices as teen practices ignores the similarities between teen and adult media use as well. The ways teens use mobile media are not inherently in opposition to the ways adults use mobile media—yes, sometimes as a distraction, but also as a way to enhance a learning environment. But additionally, constructing problems as “youth” problems, opens doors for surveillance and policy intervention not typically applicable to adults (Shade 2011). Distractions from mobile devices are not a youth problem, but rather we should extend our focus to “attention literacy” as a skill that both young people and adults must develop and practice. School environments could incorporate mobile media as a way to scaffold students as they learn to manage distractibility in school and beyond. There must to be a balance between completely restricting mobile media and forgoing any level of control. This harkens back to Cramer and Hayes (2010) point from the beginning of the chapter, electronic device policies should expand beyond “unacceptable use” and instead focus on “acceptable use.”

Such strategies could include writing down goals, focusing on tasks for set periods of time, allowing students opportunities to multitask or take media breaks, determining what kinds of classroom activities are conducive to technology use, and helping students evaluate what is working and what isn’t. In other words, it’s about helping students “be mindful” (to use Rheingold’s language) about their practices. Teachers could help students reflect on what aids and detracts from productivity, media being merely one variable in the equation. A larger reflective approach would help students identify when, where, and how they are most productive. For example, what time of day they are most alert, how much sleep they need to focus, if noisy or quiet spaces are better, if they need to work alone or with a friend, and so forth. This extends attention literacy beyond an overly technologically determinist focus on media in order to situate technology as part of a broader understanding of attention and distraction.

We can also look to the affordances of technology to help manage distractions. While most mobile phone apps default to push notifications, these can be turned off. Facebook provides a way to unsubscribe from notifications both in a browser and on a phone, a strategy that can be beneficial when certain updates are not relevant or are a distraction. Gmail has a “do not disturb” feature that essentially blocks your access to your email for a specified period of time and does not alert you to new messages. A student recently alerted me to a new app, called Pocket Points,⁵ that allows students to earn points for keeping their phones locked during class; the points can be redeemed for discounted food on and around campus. Both Android and Apple mobile devices have a customizable “do not disturb” feature that you can schedule to prevent notifications during certain times of day, such as bedtime or during class. The notifications are still visible, but they do not actively alert you of incoming information (both allow exceptions for your favorite people, or if someone calls multiple times in a short period, as would be done in an emergency). Although these strategies and techniques are easy to implement, they are not widely publicized within the interfaces or platforms, and thus schools could help students learn about these features and encourage using them in particular contexts. This would help them agentively manage distractions in productive and intentional ways.

As a reminder, I am specifically addressing a high school context; a scaffolding approach would be necessary to prepare students for this mode of trust and responsibility. For example, in elementary school personal devices may best be banned, but students could be given opportunities to earn privileges (or lose privileges) as they get older. By high school, the focus would expand beyond mere trust and responsible use, but include specific strategies for fine-tuning and developing attention literacy strategies. This shifts focus from mobile media as a risk that must be controlled to expectations of opportunities for enhanced learning. It also turns attention away from expectations of misuse, and instead empowers and respects students to develop necessary and beneficial attention literacies that they will undoubtedly need to learn as students at school, but also as adults at work, and responsible citizens in society. Distraction is a risk, but failing to help teens manage distractions autonomously is an even bigger risk.

Controlling Stress

Another argument for banning mobile devices in the classroom is that they increase stress and anxiety for young people (Billieuz et al. 2007; Brosseau 2013; Takao, Takahashi, and Kitamura 2009; Vitelli 2013). As happens with almost all media technologies when they are new, adults are concerned about the negative effects a technology will have on the emotional, psychological, social, and physical well-being of young people. Headlines and news stories are full of anxiety-inducing expectations of harm that highlight the inherent risk of young people’s media engagement and practices. When considering the emotional and psychological anxiety associated with constant mobile media interaction, the concerns are often related to social pressures to always be connected to peers, to family members, and to what is happening online. Culture has created a new word—FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)⁶—to describe the anxiety young people experience in an information-saturated world. Social media are often blamed for contributing to a “desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing” (Przbylski et al. 2013, p. 1841). Like other harm-driven expectations and phenomena, FOMO is an adult-generated explanation of what young people might be experiencing (Schreckinger 2014). The communication scholar Joseph Reagle (2015) provides an historical analysis of how anxiety related to “missing out” is actually “a continuation of century-old issues” dating back to the printing press and the telegraph. The desires to see and be seen did not arrive with social media, but are grounded in broader social issues Reagle refers to as “conspicuous sociality.” Some young people do experience feelings of addiction and anxiety in relation to their phones or their online social lives. However, we must recognize this is a small percentage of the population and that media cannot be solely blamed for feelings of anxiety or isolation, which are typically indicative of other mental health, social, developmental, or environmental issues.

Within popular media and academia, mobile phone use has been dubiously linked to sleep loss (Phillips 2011), social isolation (Carral 2015; Turkle 2011), anxiety (Brosseau 2013), and narcissism (Firestone 2013). The psychologist Suzanne Phillips (2011) wrote an article for Psych Central titled “Teens sleeping with cell phones is a clear and present danger.” In it, she presents evidence that “texting as an addiction jeopardizes sleep, cognitive functioning and real relating—making dependence on it greater and greater.” She describes how cell phone use can foster feelings of obligation and even equates the brain’s response to the pleasure of texting with that of heroin. Despite the pathological and alarming evidence presented in Phillips’ article, she concludes by urging parents to “plan with their teens to [help] relive the ‘on call’ demands [of staying connected]” and makes the point that self-regulation is better than policing teens’ mobile media use. There is a history of associating new behaviors or intense interests (obsessions) as pathological instead of habitual or intentional; this is particularly the case when describing the practices and interests of women and young people (boyd 2014; Giroux 2009; Ringrose 2006). Failing to recognize the motivations and intent behind young people’s use of technology, “many adults project their priorities onto teens and pathologize their children’s interactions with technology” (boyd 2014, p. 83). The pathologizing discourse problematically positions teens as lacking agency and is driven by expectations of harm.

Concerns about the psychological and social effects of new technology are far from unique or new. Let’s take a brief look back at a few relevant examples. According to Socrates, writing was going to disrupt people’s memories, which of course it did (Baym 2010). Yet it would be hard to argue that the cost–benefit tradeoff of oral culture and writing culture was not worth it. Before mass media, news was heard in the town square or from the pulpit. With the development of newspapers, there were concerns that mass print would socially isolate us and reduce spirituality (Eisenstein 1983). In 1936, the magazine Gramophone reported that because of the radio children had “developed the habit of dividing attention between the humdrum preparation of the school assignments and the compelling excitement of the loudspeaker” (Bell 2010). Again, this might be true—radio stories probably did distract (entertain) children—but were the benefits of radio as a communication technology not worth the tradeoff? Fears about social isolation, distraction, and anxiety are not new. New technologies can be disruptive, but as a society we develop techniques for maximizing the benefits and learn how to minimize the potential risks and harms.

Perhaps the most appropriate comparison, however, is between the discourse on television in the early 1960s and the discourse on mobile phones today. In the early 1960s, television had been a common facet of American life for only about ten years (similar to the timeline of the smartphone today). Similar to today’s debate about the risks and benefits of mobile media, experts in the 1960s were debating the risks and benefits of television viewing both at home and in schools. There were concerns that television would distract young people, make them aggressive, and negatively influence their academic performance; there was also worry that the “fantasy world” of television would render school too boring (Schramm, Lyle, and Parker 1961). There were debates about television’s ability to stimulate or inhibit intellectual and creative activity and people were concerned that television would negatively affect family life, routines, and sociality (Spigel 1992). In a way, those concerns were valid. Research indicates that there are risks associated with too much television viewing, such as negative effects on physical health (Faith et al. 2001)⁷ and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes (Bissler and Conners 2012; McGhee and Frueh 1980; Ward 2015). But with time the overall anxiety about television has diminished as we have come to recognize that parents, schools, and children can exercise agency over the amount of television they watch, as well as the quality of content they view.

On the other hand, we have also learned that television can be educational and can have positive effects both in and out of the classroom (Anderson 1998). Television viewing has also been found to facilitate language acquisition (Fisch 2004) and contribute to cognitive development (Fisch 2004; Lesser 1974). And far from being antisocial, television as popular culture can bring people together by providing common topics of conversation—a phenomenon often referred to as the “water-cooler effect” (Anderson 2006). Likewise, despite fears of social isolation, television viewing can be inherently social, as is the case with live sporting events and award shows that encourage group watching (e.g., at sports bars and watch parties) and facilitate bonding via collective fandoms and identities (Earnheardt and Haridakis 2008). Many of these studies and concerns related to the early days of television-as-risk discourse are strikingly similar to the questions we are debating and researching about mobile media today, including questions of addiction, social isolation, and physical and mental health.

In 1961, the mass-media scholars Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edward Parker productively posed the question “Are schools doing everything possible to connect television to the intellectual growth of children?” (p. 184). Rather than suggesting that television should be viewed only outside of school or encouraging unregulated access to television at school, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker made this poignant and balanced suggestion:

Schools can be of enormous help, it seems to us. … Anything to which children devote one-sixth of their waking hours has obvious importance for schools. If children are helped to know good books from poor ones, good music from poor music, good art from bad art, there is no reason why they should not be helped to develop some standards for television. How to read the newspaper (borrowing Edgar Dale’s title) is a subject treated increasingly in school; ‘how to view television’ is just as important. Furthermore, television is a real resource for examples, assignments, and what the teachers call ‘enrichment.’ It seems to us all to the good to bring television into the real-life process of learning, to break down the barrier between passive fantasy experience and active use. (pp. 184–185, emphasis added)

The similarities between the cultural anxieties about television in the 1960s and the concerns we are facing today with mobile media allow us to look back and learn a few lessons from history. As with television (in the past and today), students spend a lot of time with mobile media; thus it is hard to argue that schools do not have a responsibility to help students manage media. In the 1960s, the average American child spent approximately one-sixth of his or her waking hours “using” television (Schramm, Lyle, and Parker 1961). Depending on where you look, screen time accounts for an estimated average of 7½ to 9 hours a day for the average American teen (Ahuja 2013; Common Sense Census 2015; Kaiser Family Foundation 2010). Similarly, the Pew Research Center found that 24 percent of American teens are online “almost constantly” and more than half go online several times a day (Lenhart 2015); these numbers are not dissimilar from statistics about adults, who also spend, on average, between 8 and 11 hours a day with media (Karaian 2015; Turrill 2014). Since teens spend at least as much time with media as they spend sleeping, in school, or with their parents, it is important that we consider what role media ought to play at school. According to the cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch (2009), “we [teachers] use social media in the classroom not because our students use it, but because we are afraid that social media might be using them—they are using social media blindly, without recognition of the new challenges and opportunities in might create.”

I can entertain the argument that school ought to be one place in which teens are able to get away from the distractions and pressures to engage with mobile and social media, perhaps school should offer a reprieve from the pressures of media. Yet when students were asked if their phones caused them stress, the most frequent response was “Like when it doesn’t work?” For students in this study, stress was related to technical limitations of their phones, especially for students with outdated phones. It was only when we explicitly asked about social pressures of always being connected, that students would think to tell those stories. None of the participants felt their phone or the constant availability was a negative thing or expressed much stress or anxiety about it. For the most part, the consensus was that if you could not reply or talk, you should at least send a short text saying that you’ll get back to the person later. This practice was an acceptable and agreed-upon social norm that students utilized with peers and with their parents. They did not say that this caused them stress; they simply considered it socially polite. Other students said that their phones could be annoying, but overall they felt they were managing mobile communication without much difficulty. Jada (16 years old, black) explained:

Jada:

Yes, my phone does get annoying at times. Because it’s, like, rude not to answer, and people will get the hint that you’re not answering purposely.

Really, so are you expected to answer when your friends text you or call? Do you feel a pressure to respond?

Jada:

Maybe sometimes, because maybe one of my friends they had the comment “Gah, what’s the point of having a phone [if you don’t answer]?” And I’m the wrong person to do that, I call back and stuff, so don’t do that. Just on my own time. Am I pressured? I don’t think so, but I know just to get [it] outta the way, just to get it [it] outta the way, yes, I’ll respond. I don’t know if you would call that pressure or not.

Just to expect it.

Jada:

Yes, because sometimes it’s irritating and I’m doing something, [and they will ask] “Oh, can I have this?” It just messes up my whole aura. When somebody calls, you think they’re going to call about something important, you answer and it’s something stupid. A question, you just don’t want to do but you don’t want to sound rude. But I don’t really care sometimes because I won’t answer if I don’t want to. And I know it’s seen as rude and they know that too, but, like, stop calling all the time.

So is it perceived rude to ignore people’s calls?

Jada:

Some people would consider it rude, but it’s just if you keep calling to ask favors and stuff, you’ll burn me out. Because I like doing it on my own terms, Hey, I’ll do it for you, when it’s mutual. But when it’s too much, I can’t work well with that.

Jada’s explanation points to the context of the call, specifically if someone continues to call instead of recognizing that she is deliberately not answering. She also gets frustrated when people ask favors of her that she does not want to do (a topic that came up several times in other contexts). However, she also noted this is a more frequent occurrence at home in the evenings or on the weekends, and not at school, since her friends are also at school and unavailable during that time. We must interpret Jada’s comments in the context of her current subject position, one that may not articulate the pressures associated with constant contact, but we also must validate her own explanations of her experiences. Adults can help young people balance pressures and reflect on feelings of anxiety.

There is evidence to suggest that the constant availability and contact that mobile phones afford can cause young people stress or anxiety, but for the most part students in this book noted that was not often the case at school. In fact, “parents” was one of the most common answers about who they texted from school. Students frequently texted their parents to arrange transportation, sibling care, or to let them know about changes in after school plans. In the context of school, students expressed more frustration that mobile media were banned than about stress or pressure to always be connected. The common theme was that students wished their teachers would more actively incorporate media into education and the rhythm of the school day by allowing them opportunities to use their phones in productive ways (as will be further discussed later in this chapter.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

Concerns about anxiety in an “always on” world are valid to a certain extent and within particular contexts, but we should scrutinize a language of addiction that pathologizes young people’s practices and experiences. For one thing, pathologizing language exoticizes young people’s practices, which contributes to harm-driven expectations that neglect to take into consideration agency, motivations, and actual experiences. Yet, pathological language seeps into popular discourse on a regular basis. For example, “Screen addiction is taking a toll on children,” a 2015 post by Jane Brody on the New York Times’ Well blog, describes children as “heavy users of electronics” and refers to texting as “the next national epidemic.” Dramatized language is far too common within discourse about young people’s media practices. “The language of addiction,” boyd writes (2014, p. 78), “sensationalizes teens’ engagement with technology and suggests that mere participation leads to pathology.” This approach presumes that what young people are experiencing is an “illness” that needs to be “remedied” (Reagle 2015). The media scholar John Jones (2015) is critical of language that perpetuates fear and harm around media, both within popular culture and scholarship. In a response to a Washington Post op-ed piece written by a teacher who regretted incorporating the iPad into her classroom (Hall 2015), Jones wrote:

The intellectual support for this movement [banning media at school] has recently been provided by the questionable research of MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who provides concerning anecdotes that support the fears of anyone who has begun to suspect that our screens are having noxious effects on the human need to [fill in the blank]. … The basic problem with research like Turkle’s is that it magnifies anecdotes from this time of social upheaval of media creation and consumption into universal truths about technology, and it is not yet clear how our technology is actually changing us. Put differently, the unique social impact(s) of these technologies is hard to parse because they are not yet held in check by cultural expectations.

His opinion, like those of many other media scholars (Jenkins, Ito, and boyd 2016), iterates a point I made earlier in this section: When media are initially adapted into society, they are disruptive, but over time society develops cultural norms that help manage disruptions, maximize benefits, and minimize harms. It is risky to respond to new disruptive technologies before we have had a chance to develop cultural expectations and social norms that will regulate practices in more responsible ways. Lessig (2006) reminds us that there are many modes of regulation other than laws and rules. Technology can and should be regulated via agreed-upon social norms that establish etiquette and boundaries. This necessitates patience, time, and a trust that collective norms will balance the risks and opportunities of mobile media practices.⁸

Instead of overly focusing on the risk of addiction, we should focus on expectations of healthy boundaries. S. Craig Watkins argues that digital media have become such necessary and integral aspects of our daily lives that we incorporate technology—and check our phones—out of habit, more so than out of a compulsive harmful behavior. “Addiction,” he writes (2009, p. 134), implies something altogether different [than a digital lifestyle] and far more serious—a mental disorder that makes self-destructive behavior nearly impossible to stop.” Although addiction may accurately describe a small percentage of the population, such a rhetoric implies that young people lack agency or ability to change their behaviors, or to form healthier habits. More so, it feeds into harm-driven expectations that are used to exercise control over the already surveilled and controlled lives of young people. According to boyd (2014, p. 96), “as teens seek out new spaces where they have agency, adults invent new blockades to restrict the power of the young. The rhetoric of addiction is one example, a cultural device used to undermine teens’ efforts to reclaim a space. Restrictive adults act on their anxiety as well as their desire to protect young people, but in doing so, they perpetuate myths that produce the fears that prompt adults to place restrictions on teens in the first place.” This is evident in school policies that aim to overly regulate and restrict students’ access to mobile and social media at school. Banning mobile media aims to create a superficial environment of control and misses a powerful opportunity to help young people manage risk—including stress and pressure to always be connected—and instead attempts to eliminate the temptation and challenges altogether.

I propose that we approach feelings of stress and anxiety as indicative of a need to help young people manage their time, their social lives, and their media practices. In other words, as is true of non-mediated aspects of their lives, students need help identifying and maintaining healthy boundaries. This is true emotionally, socially, and physically in many areas of life—for example, developing healthy friendships, having a healthy physical lifestyle, and managing one’s time. Young people (and adults too) need guidance in the use of media. Schools offer a unique opportunity, or perhaps even have a responsibility and an obligation, to help students negotiate healthy boundaries by supporting the development and practice of new habits.

Students’ Expectations: Discourses of Trust and Negotiation

As is often the case in highly regimented spaces, students at Freeway High found ways to circumvent policies. The majority of participants did not passively accept the regulations and restrictions enacted via institutional policies, but rather they played active roles in subverting restrictive constraints. Michel de Certeau (1984) would describe these instances as tactical practices that allowed students to subvert the rules from within without transforming the strategic structures of the classroom. Some students actively sought ways to undermine barriers and filters; others relied on peer networks to help them bypass restrictions; others did not demonstrate a desire to bypass barriers. This section highlights some of the ways students resisted institutional constraints and barriers that attempted to limit their access to and their use of mobile and digital media.

Participants had many motivations for breaking the rules—motivations which are significant because they make visible students’ broader expectations about school, technology, and formal education. By examining students’ motivations for breaking the rules about media, we can see how students expect to be able to stay in contact with peers (and family members), expect to have access to content they deem valuable, and expect that school will be boring. All three motivations for negotiating in-school media use—sociality, access, and alleviating boredom—provide insight into students’ values and expectations of school and learning.

Alleviating Boredom

A frequent response to why participants used media at school was that they were bored. As many students explained, it was a way to “kill time” in class. When asked if they used social media during class, the frequent answer was “Only if I’m bored.” “When I’m bored,” Gabriela said. “I try my hardest to get on Twitter from school.” When asked if she used social media at school or while doing homework, Amina quickly said “No” but then continued as follows: “Well, yeah, when I’m in school and I’m bored.” This was a common theme: social and mobile media were ways to alleviate boredom at school. Perhaps not surprisingly, “boring” was a word many participants used frequently to describe school. When Antonio was asked if school was interesting, he responded “For the most part no.” This was disappointingly a common response from many participants regardless of academic achievement and aspirations (i.e., this answer was consistent between high-achieving and low-achieving students).

Regardless of our opinions about media use at school, we should be concerned that students “compare school to a prison,” as Sergio said. (See the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter.) Comparing school to prison alludes to the control and boredom that students associate with—or rather expect—from school. It is also indicative of the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that “refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems” (Locating the School-to-Prison Pipeline, p. 1). The prison comparison can also be interpreted within a larger framework that criminalizes the practices of the young. There has been an increase in the policing of school hallways and harsh disciplinary policies that criminalize students instead of practicing the use of restorative justice (González 2012). “It has been consistently documented that punitive school discipline policies not only deprive students of educational opportunities, but fail to make schools safer places … and [increase] the likelihood of future disciplinary problems, and ultimately increasing contact with the juvenile justice system” (ibid., pp. 282–283). Understanding the school-to-prison pipeline adds to a more troubling interpretation of Sergio’s comparison of school to prison. Punitive tactics and restrictive practices lead to student disengagement and can have the unfortunate effect of increasing dropout rates, or even incarceration rates.

Boredom is a symptom of disengagement, and nearly all of the students in the current study used digital media to cope with boredom. “Young people’s use of the mobile phone in school,” O’Brien explains (2009, p. 34), “is indicative of the way in which they subvert the explicit order of the classroom and redirect their attention away from the specific content of the topic in progress.” Trivial as it may at first seem, the rhetoric of boredom actually highlights larger discourses and expectations about technology and learning that merit further exploration. On the surface, boredom may seem inconsequential—just as students have always been distracted in class, students have always found aspects of school boring (Azzam 2007; Nett, Goetz, and Daniels 2010; Prensky 2008; Yazzie-Mintz 2007). Being bored is something young people must learn to cope with, both in school and out of school. Just about any parent can recall the irritation of hearing a son or a daughter whine about being bored. Parents strive to teach their children that boredom is to be expected and that life isn’t always fun. As an inevitable aspect of life, young people must learn to cope with boredom. Parenting magazines and blogs offer a lot of advice about how to address young people’s boredom, and an entire genre of Pinterest boards is dedicated to the topic.¹⁰ It might seem easy to write off complaints of boredom as juvenile or to dismiss them under the assumption that boredom is just part of life. But boredom plays a significant role in students’ lives at school, and that should be taken into consideration. Boredom is the number one reason students give for dropping out of high school (Azzam 2007; Vogel-Walcutt et al. 2012). There are other factors that may actually play more significant roles, such as financial constraints, instability at home, pregnancy, or delinquency, but when the perception is that boredom is to blame we ought to take a closer look at its relationship to expectations about school and learning.

Let’s consider some more research about the relationship between boredom and academic achievement. When asked to choose three words to describe their typical feelings about school, more than half of American teenagers chose “bored,” according to a Gallup poll; more than 40 percent also chose “tired” (Lyons 2004). These words may not be surprising, but they should be concerning—school may not always be exciting, but there is no reason why learning should be boring. In a survey of more than 81,000 students in 110 high schools in the United States, Ethan Yazzie-Mintz (2007, p. 5) found that nearly 75 percent of students characterized school as boring because “material wasn’t interesting.” Another 39 percent explained they were bored in class because “material wasn’t relevant to me,” and 32 percent reported that they were bored because “work wasn’t challenging enough” (ibid.). Research indicates that boredom, attitudes about learning, and school performance go hand in hand. The journalist Amanda Ripley spent time at high schools investigating and examining the day-to-day lives of American teens. What immediately struck her when she went back into a high school for the first time as an adult was the high degree of boredom. “It’s important, I think, to remember this boredom. Otherwise, adults can build fictional schools in their heads, places where time behaves normally, where one can go to the bathroom without asking permission. Then they can obsess over things that matter only in these make-believe schools, not in real students’ real lives. … Boredom, it turns out, is toxic. It is related to depression, poor grades, substance abuse, hopelessness, and loneliness” (Ripley 2013).

Ripley found that students turned to social media as a way to cope with boredom. She found it particularly revealing that students took “selfies” in which they strove to express boredom through expressions and posture. She was also impressed by the creativity that some students employed to make their tweets, vines, and Instagram posts about boredom anything but boring. Like the students Ripley observed, some of the students discussed in the present book turned to social media to alleviate boredom, sometimes scrolling through other people’s posts, sometimes messaging friends, and sometimes talking about boredom. As an example from the current study, Gabriela used Twitter as an outlet for emotions and thoughts in the moment. Scrolling through her Twitter feed turned up her weekly updates about feeling “bored enough to die” at school.

Burkus (2014), Gasper and Middlewood (2007), and Mann and Cadman (2014) have argued that boredom can foster creativity. However, their research describes specific contexts (mostly experimental settings) and often describes tedious tasks (e.g., stacking cups or reading a phone book) that fail to mirror the highly regimented and controlled spaces of high school. Boredom isn’t merely the absence of stimulation; it is an unpleasant state that prompts a person to want to escape and disengage. It is often cited as “a motivational barrier” that can be “a detriment to academic learning” (Pekrun et al. 2002, cited in Vogel-Walcutt et al. 2012). Different individuals assess boredom differently, but it is often induced by tasks that are perceived of as pointless and repetitive and tasks over which people have little control (Vogel-Walcutt et al. 2012). When considering research that suggests boredom can be a positive motivation, we must also consider how individuals respond to boredom. In a German study of 976 teenagers, Nett, Goetz, and Daniels (2010) found that students who evaded boredom—that is, who distracted themselves to alleviate boredom—did worse in school and experienced more boredom than students who reappraised the situation, coped with boredom by trying to find the value in what they were doing, and attempted to talk themselves out of boredom. The findings of Nett et al. suggested that reappraising was a more productive coping strategy than evasion. However, at school many students reach for technology or other distractions as a way to evade boredom, rather than search for more productive or creative ways to cope.

On the other end of the boredom spectrum, educational environments that deliberately construct engaging conditions that alleviate boredom have “the potential to be of considerable value to educators and may ultimately improve student performance (Belton and Priyadharshini 2007, cited in Vogel-Walcutt 2012). Engagement (i.e., the lack of boredom) is best achieved in challenging and motivating environments that facilitate autonomy (Belton and Priyadharshini 2007). Unfortunately, many participants in our study described school in ways that were antithetical to engagement and learning. Participants often felt that they had little control over their physical environment or their academic pursuits (i.e., that they lacked autonomy). Others expressed frustration that school hindered opportunities for them to pursue their own creative interests. Far too often students reported that they did not understand the larger purpose of what they were learning and that they considered the methods of teaching boring or outdated. For example, some expressed frustration that they could not choose what literature to read, or that they were not allowed to listen to music to help them concentrate when working on assignments by themselves in class. Other students complained that teachers relied too heavily on boring PowerPoint presentations and wished that more teachers would incorporate media and interactivity into the classrooms. When asked what would make school more engaging, Antonio replied:

Maybe if they had better lessons, because most teachers, they do the old stuff. They stand in front of a board, they’ll say it many times. People won’t get it. Maybe if they had a video to go with that, it would be better, because I know I learn better if I see a video or something. In my astronomy class, my teacher shows us a lot of videos, and I actually learn like that—projects that let you be creative and do stuff. Or where you move around, because if you’re standing still in one class for a long time, you get bored of that and you stop learning. Moving around gets blood flowing to your head and everywhere … and the brain starts working more, so I think moving around would be good.

In saying this, Antonio echoed many other participants who were frustrated that school did not allow them to be more active or to incorporate their interests into assignments. In a different interview, Antonio expressed irritation that his English teacher would not let him write a book report in the form of a script. “She says she wants me to write. But a script is writing! And it’s what I like, it’s more creative, you know?” Antonio’s interests in screenwriting exemplified an opportunity to connect his personal interest with formal education, but in this particular instance his teacher would not allow him to do a more creative writing project instead of a more traditional book report. As will be discussed in the concluding section of this chapter, students consistently described projects as their favorite mode of learning because projects allowed them to bring in their own interests, express creativity, and often allowed them to incorporate media into the projects.

Antonio felt passionate enough about the technology rules at school that he chose those rules as the topic for a required paper in his English class. In that paper he raised many of the points that I have addressed in this chapter. He explained his viewpoint in the following interview:

Antonio:

One of my teachers, every time you walk into the class, she’ll tell you to get your headphones out, put your cell phones up, put everything and all your electronics up, and it gets really annoying because she says it every day. After a while it’s just, like, “Why? People are going to have them and have them out. What’s the point of enforcing this?” I think electronics can help a lot—that’s why I wrote the thesis paper on it.

You wrote a thesis paper?

Antonio:

Yes. On personal electronic devices in school.

Do you mind telling me about it?

Antonio:

I basically just searched up online why do they ban electronics in school? I mean—most schools have all these resources—electronic, they buy laptops, they buy computers, but they stop it at cell phones and iPods. But why if they’re free and they already come with the student—they don’t have to pay for anything. … They’re just being weirdos and not letting us use them because they think it’s going to distract us. And I know it distracts some people, but for me, I can actually get my work done and not get distracted and then just plug in my iPod after I’m done. Or if the class is loud and you’re trying to concentrate on something, why not put your headphones in? I know for me, it makes it way easier if I have headphones in and I’m trying to read a book and the class is loud—it’s just easier.

What do you think is easier?

Antonio:

It helps me drown out—for me, the music is helping me concentrate and—I put this in my thesis paper—there is proven fact that music helps you study and learn, so if it helps you study and learn, why not have it in schools? It just bugs me that they’re not allowing it. We’re in a new age—it’s the 21st century. People are buying technology every single day no matter what the price is—they’re very useful. You can write notes on them or keep an agenda—that’s basically what I wrote in my thesis paper.

You are writing an argument in favor of more technology in school?

Antonio:

Yes. In favor.

Antonio’s comments highlight a larger problem with the school environment: it’s distracting. Many participants complained about the lack of discipline in class, for example, that students talked too much during class and made it hard to concentrate. As Antonio put it, “If the class is loud and you’re trying to concentrate on something, why not put in your headphones.” Far from being a technology problem, this reveals a larger concern about lack of control in classrooms. For students such as Antonio, music was not a distraction; it was a way to cope with an already disruptive environment—a way to bolster his ability to be productive, not detract from it.

Media technology has the potential to make the classroom a more engaging and interactive space that can enhance learning. Yet instead of finding ways to bring interactivity and media into the classroom, the majority of teachers banned it. Without opportunities to use media in responsible ways that enhanced learning, students relied on media as a way to alleviate boredom. Creating barriers that prevented students from incorporating their personal interests into the curriculum is another way in which formal learning environments are at odds with the ways young people expect to learn. Rather than harnessing the educational potential of mobile media or validating the educational ways teens were already using mobile media, banning mobile media sent the message that mobile media were essentially risky and therefore dismissible in the formal learning environment. In fact, however, research has demonstrated that mobile media can enhance learning, particularly for disengaged teens (Ison, Hayes, Robinson, and Jamieson 2004). “Modern mobile phones,” Brian Ferry contends (2009, p. 47), “can be used to help learners access web-based content, remix it, share it, collaborate with others, and create media-rich deliverables for the classroom teacher as well as a global audience.” How the students mentioned in this book view media—as entertainment, as a distraction, as a tool for socializing, as a way to learn autonomously, and as a resource—differs greatly from how many teachers and adults view media—as merely a distraction and a threat to learning.

Conclusion: What Can We Gain If We Lose Control?

In his statement comparing school to prison, Sergio invokes a discourse of rights with relation to technology. Right or wrong, students feel entitled to media and technology at school. Despite the rules, they expect the right to be autonomous learners (at least in some contexts) and they expect access to the social aspects mobile technology facilitates—aspects that can bolster learning. Teachers, on the other hand, largely expect media to be a distraction, to be a risk, and to disrupt the learning environment. And they aren’t wrong; it can be all of those things. Where then is the middle ground? Are students using their phones in disruptive and distracting ways simply because those are the only means of use they are afforded? If they were expected to use media responsibly—if they were entrusted with the privilege of media, rather than having it punitively banned—would their expectations and practices change? How would a policy of “acceptable use,” rather than “unacceptable use,” shift students’ and teachers’ frustrations, expectations, and trust? I do not deny that there are potentially harmful psychological, social, and physical risks associated with misuse of mobile media. But policies making the use of such media unacceptable—policies that reflect harm-driven expectations—fail to take into account what is lost when we ban media at school: opportunities to develop literacies, as well as more equitable opportunities and access for disadvantaged students.

There are nominal benefits to controlling mobile media at school, and certainly rules help minimize some risks. Yet I worry about students’ ability to navigate risks if schools and teachers do not play an active and intentional role in shaping mobile media norms, boundaries, and practices. Risk is inevitable, yet we must help young people manage risk. Aiming to eradicate risk but doing it ineffectively leaves students navigating precarious terrains of the mediated world without guidance or adult advocates. Instead of myopically focusing on potential harms, we should expand our focus to balance the beneficial opportunities that accompany risk.

To bring this chapter into conversation with chapter 3, my final point is that formal education has a unique opportunity to help students identify, assess, and negotiate risks via the intentional development of digital literacies. But also, and of the utmost importance, media and mobile technologies provide a unique opportunity to bridge students’ interests and modes of learning with formal learning in ways that can counter boredom, fatigue, and risky behaviors. Schools and technology can function in complimentary spaces that work together to create more equitable opportunities for marginalized and disadvantaged learners. This can only come about when schools abandon a discourse and practice of authoritarian control and punitive reactions, and instead invoke expectations of trust.

I think we should interrogate and update the same question that Schramm, Lyle, and Parker posed more than fifty years ago about television, but in today’s world the question becomes “Are schools doing everything possible to connect mobile media to the intellectual growth of students?” This question will be addressed in part II the book. The goal of part I has been to analyze how harm-driven expectations of risk affect policies at the national and state levels, and how and to what effect those policies are implemented at Freeway High. I have established that historical fears produce discourses of risk that lead to policies of panic. These restrictive policies inequitably and unproductively regulate students’ autonomy, ingenuity, and access. The policies are well-intentioned and may minimize some harm, but they also exacerbate other overlooked risks and are rarely balanced with opportunity-driven expectations. My aim is to more closely consider how expectations affect student experiences at school and online. In the following chapters I aim to answer the question “What are the implications of risk discourses in the everyday lives of teens at school and online?” I answer this by connecting and focusing on different aspects of teens’ lives, including the influence and intersection of peers, school, and home life. The analysis builds upon the connected learning model that will be more fully explained and explored later in the book.

4 Negotiating Control: Distractions, Stress, and Boredom

Adults’ Expectations: A Discourse of Control

Controlling Mobile Media

Controlling Distractions

Controlling Stress

Setting Healthy Boundaries

Students’ Expectations: Discourses of Trust and Negotiation

Negotiating Sociality

Coping with Restrictions

Alleviating Boredom

Conclusion: What Can We Gain If We Lose Control?

Notes