Research

Though out most of our days, we see hundreds upon thousands of people on mobile devices and think nothing of it. Have you ever stopped to think about how much technology children use? People tend to focus on how they would have never had a cell phone or computer or any high end technology at such a young age. The truth is most students, no matter how young, do commonly have access to these high tech tools. To put this truth in to perspective I will pull from The Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 2,002 students, 3rd-12th grade, nationwide who completed a 7 day media diary.

"Under 40" Source: http://under40.us/

Statistics from survey:

• Eight-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).   ‘Media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), means they manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into that timeframe.
• 
  Over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in ownership among 8- to 18-year-olds: from 39% to 66% for cell phones, and from 18% to 76% for iPods and other MP3 players.  During this period, cell phones and iPods have become true multi-media devices: in fact, young people now spend more time listening to music, playing games, and watching TV on their cell phones (a total of :49 daily) than they spend talking on them (:33).
• 
  Top online activities include social networking (:22 a day), playing games (:17), and visiting video sites such as YouTube (:15).  Three-quarters (74%) of all 7th-12th graders say they have a profile on a social networking site.

For more information go to: http://kff.org/disparities-policy/press-release/daily-media-use-among-children-and-teens-up-dramatically-from-five-years-ago/

What does this information change for me?

In learning these statistics, I feel quite flustered by the amount our children are being flooded with un-educational technology, with very little to none of it being educational. I feel the deep urgency for the educational world to keep pace with a technology driven world. Just as adults find it hard to avoid technology it is even more of a norm for children, why not make it educational? I had never thought of this concept before seeing these statistics and honestly feel a bit silly in ignoring that trends are trends to all ages. I do believe that all surveys should be taken with the idea that all research is subject to a bias and that this may have been more leaning towards a negative outlook on students. Even with the research having a bias I feel that it helped me to form a belief that technology can help raise engagement in the classroom. The children of this generation will forever live in a mobile technology world and reach there peers mainly through digital communication. I feel that the advances in technology has built a preference to digital communication and offers additional aid that a classroom can not. For example: individualized assessments and instant feedback. I believe that having my eyes opened to this will help me to better myself in this field to help reach more children as well as having a more active classroom using technology.