Zone’in Workshops

Parents, educators and health policy makers everywhere are struggling to manage balancing children’s technology use with health and academics. “How much technology should kids use?”, “what degree of sex or violence should kids watch?”, and “should students be able to surf the net and text message in school” are just a few of the many questions faced by parents, teachers and health professionals. At eight hours per day combined technology use, elementary aged children are just not getting enough of what they need to grow and succeed. Most recently media has reported worrisome “applications” of technology, such as cyberbullying and sextexting, activities that are setting the scene for a clash between law, health, and education sectors as children and adolescents are arrested for “crimes of technology” that society couldn’t even anticipate. Cyberbullying is where one child “bullies” another child using chat lines, and sextexting is where pornographic photos are “texted” using cell phones. Media reports that students involved in these activities have been arrested for prostitution, child pornography, and distribution of pornography.

The past decade has borne witness to an explosion of technology, causing profound changes foundations for homes, schools and work. While designed largely to entertain and improve efficiency, these new technologies have proven quite detrimental to the younger members of society, children. 15% of young children now have developmental delays and 14% have mental health disorders. Managing challenging child behaviors both at school and in homes has become a significant problem, causing a rising incidence in child diagnosis and use of psychotropic (mind altering) medication. New technologies have hit society so hard and so fast, that the health and education systems are just beginning to detect the enormity of this rapidly growing problem.

While both cyberbullying and sextexting activities may initiate in home or community environments, schools are often the place where the end result is played out, as this is where children come together in groups. Many schools are now creating policies regarding student use of specific technologies (cell phones, iPods, internet), but what can the education sector do to prevent and intervene when it comes to cyberbullying and sextexting? It is likely that down the road technology use will require health and education government regulation and age restriction, as it is apparent that many children and adolescents do not have the maturity necessary to fully understand the ramifications of their actions. While this government regulation and restricted use of technology would curtail many legal dilemmas regarding whether sextexting by minors is a punishable offense, schools are still left trying to decide what they can do now.

Zone’in Programs Inc. offers schools and home the new Live’in Resource Guide which promotes balanced technology management initiatives. Live’in suggests one hour per day, one day per week and one week per year to be “technology free”, where children perform a variety of activities designed to enhance child health and academic performance through learning how to balance technology use with what they need to grow and succeed.