1. Healthy Screen Habits

   I found these tips to be really helpful in trying to set some goals of my own. In particular, asking myself why am I actually looking at my phone right now? Is it something that I need to do? Also a big one, is putting my phone to bed and not taking it to my bedroom. The latter, is especially hard for me, given it is my alarm, but I am going to try at least putting it on my desk, so it is not directly by my bed.

2. Digital Citizenship Lessons

   I have had to teach some lessons to students on digital citizenship and they have been a mixed bag. Some students immediately put up blockers, insisting that there is not issue whatsoever and discussions can be challenging. Still these lessons offer good insights in how to address these problems with students.

3. Doom the Gloom - Lego

   I am personally really into Legos, so I was really interested in this. I love how this can be relatable for kids and also informative. It also allows student to play games in order to learn this information about how tech can be harmful and what they can do to avoid some of these harms. I think playing a game might make some students more receptive to hearing this information.

1. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat tell us that the quantity of our communication (posts, # of likes, etc) or our networks (followers) matter more than the quality of our relationships and networks. Hearing this was really striking to me in the first TedTalk. Especially, when contrasted to what traditional forms of communication and learning like letters and books tells us about the importance of quality vs quantity.

2. We as people are the products for social media companies. These companies do not have our interests in mind and we all need to take stock of how we can have a healthy relationship with these websites.

3. Internet/social media/entertainment companies are in a race to the bottom for out attention. They are doing all that they can to keep our attention because that helps them be profitable. We can see this fight for attention in things like snap streaks and companies promoting "outrage" on your feed to keep your attention.. These companies are constantly developing strategies to keep us addicted and we need to find times to give ourself space from technology.

4. Gaming is also changing from the experience that I grew up with, especially as it comes to in game purchases and their rapid growth. This trend is also especially worrying due to the similarity between "loot boxes" and gambling. Again here is another example of technology, which is inherently addicting, though perhaps even more frightening is the very real financial cost that is associated. Addiction to Instagram or Facebook might cost you an enormous amount of time, but addiction to a game might cost you an enormous amount of time and your own money on purchases in that game. This is not to say that video games are terrible, but remain another piece of technology to monitor to ensure that a healthy balance exists.

5. There is a lot that we can do as educators to address the challenges that have been described in the resources. Yes, there is a lot of frightening information out there and companies certainly need to clean up their act, but we as educators can make a difference in the lives of students by educating them about technology abuse and how to set healthy boundaries with tech. Part of this can start with modeling how to create boundaries of our own and explaining to our students why we do this.

1. Not go on my phone after 10:00 PM and putting my phone to bed on my desk, so that is not next to my bed.

• I have trouble with this a lot. I always charge my phone next to my bed and this can be a real temptation for me. It is really easy to pick it up and to scroll through Instagram or Reddit while trying to doze off.

2. Set time limits on my social media and actually stop using them once I've hit those limits.

• My screen time is a lot higher than I am proud of and I usually when I do set time limits on my phone, I usually just ignore them and enter in the password. This time I aim to earnestly respect the limits, so as to reduce to overall amount of time that I spend on my phone.

5 days later...

And here's how it went...

1. This one was a bit of a challenge. I was able to keep my phone charged at my desk for each of the nights, but I still went on my phone after 10 PM on some of the nights. This is in part because I had my phone with my in my living room after these hours, so I suppose it was better than using it in my room. I also woke up most mornings and took the phone back to my bed to scroll. After reading some of the other challenges, I think it would be a good goal to try to break this habbit.

2. I was pretty successful on this one with the apps that I set limits on. I was mindful of the limits and I actually did not hit any of them because of it, which resulted in a significant reduction on those social media apps in particular. That being said, my usage on other apps did increase a bit. Overall my usage was down, which was my primary goal, but I need to also consider if I should add limits to those other apps, which became alternatives.