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screen time resources

Children ought to be protected from digital online marketing, stalking, health issues, and addiction. Adults have trouble enough avoiding addiction to time online, but schools are mandating use of technology and cutting teachers in favor of online classes.

A list of ​outside resources are provided below. These may not be in total agreement with Last Tree Laws, and we cannot verify or guarantee information or websites for outside resources. 

Sign testimony for screen time limits

digital addiction & Tech Use in Schools

Massachusetts-Specific News:
  • Governor Bakers Swears in New Commission on Digital Innovation and Lifelong Learning [To increase online learning for youth & adults]
  • Commission on Digital Innovation and Lifelong Learning (Sworn in 4/23/2018--commission includes entrepreneurs & online providers)
  • Paul Sagan, Chair of Education Board, is managing director of a venture fund invested in EdTech and director of 2 tech companies (Note, Sagan resigned May 2019)
  • James Peyser, Secretary of Education, was formerly managing director of EdTech venture fund, NewSchools, whose donors at $5 million include the Walton Family Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg DAF, & Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. FYI, often successful ventures are purchased by the "Big Boys" like Microsoft or Facebook.
Testing:
  • Note: MCAS testing is online.
  • Cassellius puts moratorium on district’s standardized tests: Some tests are optional, end-of-year assessments dropped [Bay State Banner]
Screen Time Laws:
  • UK Restricts Social Media For Under 18—Report
Cell Phone & Tablet Bans:
  • China bans cell phones & tablets (Shandong Province)
  • France bans Students from Bringing Smart Phones and Tablets to School
Cell Phone Bans:
  • California HS Largest to Ban Cell Phones
  • Mobile phones to be banned in state primary and secondary schools (state-wide ban in Victoria, Australia)
  • Albemarle County [VA] Students No Longer Allowed to Bring Phones to Middle School
  • Screenagers Movie Suggestions for Cell Phone Bans
  • Montreal School Cell Phone All-Day Ban
Organizational Appeals: 
  • Massachusetts Teachers Association Concerned over '[De]Personalized Learning' by EdTech and Baker's MAPLE Initiative
  • Screen Time Network Asks APA to Prohibit Psychological Techniques to Hook Kids Online
  • Apple should address youth phone addiction, two large investors say (incl. California State Teacher's Retirement Association)
Helpful Advice:
  • Outsmarting the Smart Screens: A Parent’s Guide to the Tools that are Here to Help
  • ​Have You Spoiled Your Child Today? Meet: S.P.O.I.L., a Screen-Free Research-Based System for Prioritizing Child’s Play​
  • Time Well Spent Suggested by Tristan Harris to Combat Addictive Tech (Or use a wired rotary phone)
  • Privacy ToolKit
  • Timekpr Revived: Limiting screen time on open source software (another article here)
​​Marketing of EdTech:
  • 21st Century Profiteering?
List of Concerning Facts:
  • Impact of Technology on Child Development, Behavior, and Academic Performance (by Cris Rowan)
  • Spanish version of Impact of Technology on Child Development, Behavior, and Academic Performance
Graphics
  • Screen Time for Kids (Mom Loves Best)
  • "Devices: Are We Addicted?" by Common Sense Media--please note that CSM receives significant funding from technology-related groups
  • Plugged-In Parents (Common Sense Media)
  • Evolution of Media Use by Children 0-8 (Common Sense Media)
  • Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences (Common Sense Media)
  • Media Use by Teens & Tweens (Common Sense Media)
  • Kids Prefer Social Media for News (Common Sense Media)
Policy Papers:
  • Safe Schools Policy – Best Practice Standards for Screens and Radiation (excellent - written by Cris Rowan, Dr. Lennart Hardell, Tarmo Koppel, Sveinn Kjartansson & Stella Sæmundsdóttir)
  • U.S. needs a task force to examine risks AR, VR, and 5G pose to kids
Books: 
  • ​Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Adam Alter. (2017) 
  • Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse Is Making Our Kids Dumber. Joe Clement and Matt Miles. (2017) ​
Federal NonAction:
  • Delays in responding to FERPA complaints lead to NYC children robbed of their privacy
General & Other Articles:
  • Curated List of Relevant Articles
  • Ten Reasons why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children Under 12
  • The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids is not what we Expected (Poor raised by screens)
  • Media Education and the Convention on the Rights of the Child
  • Lack of Impulse Control & Brain Changes Increase Youth Risk of Addiction
  • Less Tech, More Life (free to print)
Emotional & Physical Health Articles:
  • Too much screen time damages the brain
  • Classrooms in Crisis: Verbal, physical, sometimes violent outbursts plaguing Oregon classrooms [Note cause is unknown, but social ills have always existed, whereas digital devices are new]
  • Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness
  • 55% Increase in kids' mental health crises from 2012 to 2016 in ER
  • Reduced screen time for young highly recommended for well-being (Research article)
  • How Too Much Screen Time Affects Kids' Bodies And Brains
  • Screen time is making kids moody, crazy, and lazy
  • Our obsession with phones could be changing the shape of our eyes
  • Why screen time for babies, children and adolescents needs to be limited [Australian MDs, researchers, & professors]
  • The Internet is not a Happy Place for Children
  • 10 Physics Reasons Why Screens Are Bad for Humans
Digital Addiction Articles:
  • How the Tech Industry Uses Psychology to Hook Children: Why do kids struggle to look up from devices? The answer is persuasive design.
  • Internet Addiction: Stanford Study
  • Toddler Addiction Requires Therapy
Lack of Control:
  • Kids are getting around Apple's 'Screen Time' restrictions
Virtual Reality Hazards:
  • The Ethics of Virtual Reality Technology: Social Hazards and Public Policy Recommendations (Science & Engineering Ethics, Spiegel 2018)
  • Seizures
Education-focused Articles:
  • Studying students with tech averaged only six minutes of focused study before task switching to tech
  • Reboot Foundation released a report in this month showing a negative connection between a nation’s performance on international assessments and fifteen-year-olds’ self-reported school tech use
  • Screens in Schools: Are "tech-centric" teachers addicted to technology?
  • EdTech Killing Massachusetts Public Schools
  • Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients' (Due to screen time)
  • Infants `Unable to use toy building blocks` due to IPad Addiction
  • Personalized Learning: What's Happening
Poor Quality Education & Commercial Exploitation:
  • Students protest Zuckerberg-backed digital learning program and ask him: ‘What gives you this right?’
Cell Phone Articles:
  • Addictive, obtrusive and anti-social: why are we still allowing mobile phones in schools? 
  • Bell-to-Bell Cell Phone Bans
  • Dialing in on Cell Phone Bans in High School (MA)
  • Seymour High School Reports Positive Results After Cell Phone Ban (CT)
  • To fight cyberbullying, ban cell phones [Also notes a NY school policy "Misuse it, you lose it"]
  • Notre Dame Makes a Bold Move with its Cell Phone Policy. And Its Working.
  • Bait & Switch: A View of the Cell Phone Ban, From the Bronx [Notes unfair (?) financial aspect of confiscated phones and policing intrusion via metal detectors]
  • Cell Phone Bans in Schools, Jobs, Other Countries
  • Smartphones Cause Family Row Every Singe Day, Study Finds
Privacy Articles (More at Privacy & Propaganda Risks):
  • Surveillance Instead of Counseling Students
  • Facing Tomorrow's High-Tech School Surveillance: Installed in the wake of recent high-profile mass shootings, controversial facial recognition systems that scan students’ faces could be the not-too-distant future for schools across America and beyond.
  • Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them [And installs a root kit, which controls everything on your computer]
  • State Student Privacy Laws
Advertising, Propaganda, External Exploitation:
  • Extremists Creep into Online Game
  • Does your childs school have an unsecure Wi-Fi network?
  • Parental monitoring apps: How do they differ from stalkerware?
  • What kids aren’t telling parents about porn on social media [Including Snapchat & Instagram]
  • Manipulative And Distracting Ads Are Ruining Kids Apps, Researchers Say
  • Something is wrong on the internet (discusses how internet platform and algorithms foster & allow exploitation and sick propaganda)
  • Drinking, smoking, and sugar: how unsavory ads wound up on Edmodo (discusses how automation allows these ads on online youth platforms)
Silicon Valley Kids Avoid Screens:
  • A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley: “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones.”
Policing Teachers:
  • Use of cell phones by teachers in classrooms banned in Ganderbal
When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned,
only then will we realize that we cannot eat money.

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Nothing is going to get better.
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 The Lorax
by Dr. Seuss
​

  • Last Tree Laws
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      • Wireless Harms Butterflies
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        • Steps to Halt Wireless Infrastructure
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      • State Wireless News >
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    • Politician Scorecards >
      • Legislation Left Behind
  • Town & City
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    • Tree Letter >
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