Children's Critical Thinking Instead of Technology Skills

A generation of children, which views the world through the screen, has been growing up in front of our eyes. They spend most of their waking hours in front of it, not entirely of their own free will. Almost half of the students interviewed in our poll last year stated that they spent more time on social networking than they would have really liked. Not only is the persuasive design to blame fine-tuned to fool our basic instincts into an ever longer online presence, but also the fact that the young generation is losing contact with their own exploits and emotions. They also find it difficult to discern when to get offline.

According to our survey, 48% of children choose social networks and online gaming as their primary escape mechanism when dealing with sadness or other unpleasant emotions. They thereby enter into a vicious circle (see Jean Twenge, San Diego State University) – to escape their negative emotions, they enter an online world where their problems deepen and they feel alone handling them.

As the time spent online grows, so deepens the global mental health crisis of adolescents, namely depression, anxiety, loneliness and problems with concentration. Thanks to our work in hundreds of schools in all regions of Czechia, we have come to the conclusion that our education system is not able to extend a helping hand where it is really needed.

It is not enough to teach children how to master technology – we have to help them learn how to handle the online world mentally as well.

The current education system teaches children technological ins and outs, including security risks, yet does not offer guidance on how to lead full and meaningful lives in an era that is being defined by virtual reality. So it happens that we meet with students who can code applications and understand they should not add dubious users among their online friends, yet they report feeling lonely, desolate, inferior and without online ads would not even know what to want in life.

What does this mean? The mental health crisis tied with the online space will not be solved by technological know-how. The way to limit the negative impact of the online world on children’s psyche needs to be found away from the virtual environment – in children themselves. The main focus should be on mindset, social skills and self reflection.

If we are to ponder a systemic digital education system that is sustainable into the future and teaches children how to live in a virtual environment fully, consciously and confidently, we should not be asking: How do I use the Internet and how long should I be online, but: Why did I go online, how do I feel after two hours spent there when I finally go offline, what have I gained or lost, and what value does this content have for me?

Self reflection and work with emotions are the essence of modern digital education.

Again and again in our field work, we have ascertained that if we want our future generation to really master the online world(s), they, above all, need to understand themselves. Unfortunately, what we see in our current data is the exact opposite. Children are losing contact with their own emotions, experiences, even opinions. They are so overwhelmed with content – photos, videos, posts  – that they do not even possess the mental capacity to process their own lives, or online encounters, according to 40% from our survey.

In order to help them, we have decided, together with our team of psychologists, to step outside of the usual discourse and develop innovative methodologies which are still only at the theoretical stage abroad (see David Buckingham, University of London).

Within the framework of our program Digital Education in Schools, we go deeper than just showing the dangers of the online world. We lead students towards self reflection on their online experiences. We teach them to ask themselves questions that remain valid even in a constantly evolving digital environment, so they are equipped to think critically about the online world and their own selves.

We continuously evaluate the impact of our program. Our output data show that going deeper into challenging topics concerning emotions and learning, in order to realize how the digital environment forms opinions, behavior and relationships, pays off in long term improvement in the majority of participants.

We have succeeded in teaching our students how to recognize the manipulative design of online platforms, how to build healthy digital habits and how to reflect on their own emotions, experiences and values in the online world. We have succeeded in making children aware of how the online world is forming them, how to not be only passive content consumers and how to be able to set their own boundaries.

Our nonprofit Replug Me then attempts to go beyond the purely technical paradigm of digital education and include a psychological perspective, work with self reflection, emotions, and thus improve the mental health and well-being of a whole generation of children. The support of donors and experts and growing demand for Digital Education from schools serves as a springboard for our methodology to soon become an integral part of the formal education system.