High School Should Not Enforce The National Shut Down Your Screen Week

Imagine having to turn off all electronics and not being able to use it for a week. Technologies, such as the Internet, have provoked questions about the effects it has to students overtime. Although Internet users have become dependent to the internet, schools should not participate in national “Shut Down Your Screen Week” because the Internet is an exceptional source of information, the Internet is used for instant communication, and Internet users have shown increased signs of social interactions.

If students are forced to turn off their phones for one week, then the teachers and administrators should be forced to turn off their touchscreen laptops, and their Smart Boards, and all electronics too. I do not believe that my school should participate in the national “Shut Down Your Screen Week”.

Did you know “according to Diana zelikman there are 271 million mobile subscribers within the United States alone and the numbers are quickly growing?” Shut down your screen week is when the school doesn’t use technology and student doesn’t use technology at home. We should not shut down screen week because it will affect teachers planning, it will also affect student learning, and in case of an emergency the school wouldn’t be able to contact a family member.

Social networking and the amazing things capable on the internet are changing children of the 21st century. “A New Face for Schools” by Laura Lefkowitz is a great source for information on how social networking can help improve students academically. The article highlights how a “purposeful community” could help students learn how to act as a well informed group. The article goes on to say that schools should not fight social networking, but instead support it (“How ‘purposeful communities’ work”). Social networking could be used to help students in more ways than previously thought.

Educators are using social media as professional communities of practice, as learning communities and as a platform to share interesting stories about topics that are being studied in class by students. These prospects make social media exciting for higher education as it provides for more interaction with features such as posting of images, videos or a text response in a conversation and where anyone in the social network can engage with the content, (Johnson, Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2014).

“Shut Down Your Screen Week” is a national movement where teens across the United States take a break from technology for a week. Although many students and teachers would not like the idea of participating in this movement because technology can help users to be more efficient and connected, Grove should participate because gadgets cause distraction and focus issues, take up too much of students’ time, and cause students to be less empathetic.

Many students agree that social networking is an essential tool in education today. Feedback has become a vital tool amongst students and teachers in networking whether it’s Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter (Carey, n.d.). In a recent study, it stated that 59% of students who belong to “social networking sites” admitted that when there on the Internet they explore topics to communicate about such as college preparation and occupations. Another study shows that 50% of students use social networking to improve on their studies and teachers have found that this has helped students become more successful in their reading and writing vocabulary (“Social,”

Social media has become a huge part of our lives and the younger generation is becoming more involved with this new technology. However, the use of social media has been a great debate in classroom settings. School districts have been conflicted with the two options: to teach along and incorporate social media into the classroom or to restrict the use of social media during school hours.

Society has overlooked the many other options to solve this growing problem. Having students become educated to perform tasks without calculators, cell phones, or the Internet, raise the price of the most popular, yet least useful electronics, or have schools limit a student’s use of electronics or enforce better rules pertaining to electronics and social media could all be successful solutions but are not acceptable in this busy society. Because of this, abolishing electronics and social media would be the best and only solution to create a thriving

Nowadays, it is evident that social media plays a vital role in influencing our view of the the events happening in the world. The things, places, languages even people and food we didn’t know existed can be viewed through social media. As Jacob Amedie of Santa Clara University stated in his study titled Pop Culture Intersections: The Impact of Social Media on Society, social media has removed communication barriers and created decentralized communication channel and open the door for all to have a voice and participate in a democratic fashion including people in repressive countries. It enables students to do significantly better in school, primarily through utilizing connecting with each other on school assignments and collaborative group projects outside of class.

There is no doubt that weak ties promote diversities, nevertheless, weak ties are not tight enough to motivate students to get involved in the college community. Nathan states that “Part of that diversity ideal is the hope that all student will develop friends and have important conversations with those of backgrounds and ethnicities different from their own”(324). Social media, like Facebook and twitter, provides a platform where students are able to express their opinions freely and share their daily life with friends, with classmates whom they have little or no acquaintance with, and even with people with different backgrounds and cultures. As a result, students make friends with those from different ethnic groups. They are able to share

Recently the school board has been debating on whether they want to start “Shut Down Your Screen Week”, a campaign dedicated to getting students to not use any form of electronic media for an entire week. Though this campaign is only being aimed towards students, the loss of modern technology and media if directed towards parents and teachers would make their jobs much more difficult is not impossible. With that said, “Shut Down Your Screen Week” should not be implemented due to technology’s growing importance in education and society.

Jon Russell once said, “Social Media presents a huge opportunity for schools, universities and other educational organizations to reach out and connect with students and prospective students”. With no doubt, social media has influenced the way students are educated today. For those of you who do not know the exact definition of social media, the social media means ways of sharing information, opinions, images, videos using the Internet, especially social networking sites. Because of the Internet, people started finding ways to socialize through social websites and exchange information. Popular social network on the Internet such as YouTube became a sensation for me ever since I became a student in college. Today social media can be used for educational purposes. The ways social media is changing education has affected how the students express themselves, behave, and interact with each other.

Technology these days seems to take over everything. It’s used in homes, offices, schools, and in everyday life. People born now will be surrounded by technology for the rest of their lives. That's why Screen-Free Week is the best choice. A.I.Root Middle School should participate in screen free week.

Students around America all use the new technology that the government has funded them. The government is putting more and more technology into schools hoping that it will help the students learn more. In fact, the new technology is not helping, but making things worse for the younger adolescence. It is destroying the minds of students, in which, teachers/parents do not realize. Computers and IPads are being use every day throughout the school system to “teach” children. “We live in a high-tech world-with high-tech classrooms,” states Pamela Deloatch. All schools embrace the ability to have electronics during class, but in the end, it can be astonishing how effective they can be. With online classes, it can be hard to get away from technology, so children can try to open a textbook—instead of looking up their answers. Although technology has become an important part in the school system, it will continue to destroy the minds of younger adolescence, and there are many reasons for this.