Back to school is in full swing here in Southeast Michigan, and teachers are on the front lines of the battle between keeping students’ attention and their increasing frequent companions – smart phones.
The University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education, clocking that growing struggle, decided to take a unique approach to solving it with their digital wellness program.
It paired U-M students with over 50 Ann Arbor middle schoolers with the goal of empowering the kids to choose to put the phones down.
WXYZ “It’s like the smaller the screen, the bigger the problem,” Chris Thomas, the father of Oliver Thomas, a seventh grader at Scarlett Middle School, said.
WXYZ “I was on my phone 24/7. I wouldn’t go to sleep at all. It was still like I need it, I can’t live without it,” Hidaoyah Harper, another seventh grader, added.
“I’ll mostly be texting or I’ll be on YouTube,” Oliver said.
Chris is seeing that phone use bleed into school hours. He said about half of the sixth graders have access to personal devices and by the time they’re in eighth grade, almost all do.