Teacher shares chilling classroom description revealing why they are exhausted all the time

While almost everybody is aware of the side effects of exposing children to the Internet and social media, only a few take steps to keep them away from it. Despite awareness, parents tend to introduce fancy gadgets to their kids, hoping they will acquire knowledge. However, in reality, it does more harm than good. In fact, research by Ying Dai and Na Ouyang found that 4 hours or more of screen time is associated with higher risks of anxiety, depression, and higher ADHD symptoms in kids or adolescents. Ema, a teacher who had been teaching for a while, realized a dark truth about the kids of today's generation who are literally addicted to their phones. Jonathan Haidt (@jonathanhaidt), a social psychologist, shared her video on Instagram where several users related to the struggle.

Ema said that the kids now have no room for getting bored, as they are constantly on their phones. "They are just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes open in the morning until they go to sleep at night," she explained. Now, when they are at school, they are obviously asked not to use phones during lessons, leaving them in a state of dopamine withdrawal. That explains why the kids behave like addicts, who are obviously hard to handle. They not only turn emotional, and almost every little thing upsets them, but they also lose concentration. Emma said kids tend to lose interest in lessons if they aren't packaged into small clips, like their social media posts, or lack flashy elements to hold their attention. "They are looking at me, but they are not there," she added. Moving on, Ema explained that punishments no longer work because kids don't care about them. In fact, they are also least bothered by their grades. The children tend to make social media their real life and refuse to get out of it. While people often blame teachers for not being able to hold their students' attention or adapt to technologies, Ema disagreed with it. Instead, she said that the fault might lie with the parents or the capitalistic society.

Australia seems to be the one to acknowledge the growing concern. Well, the Australian govt. has decided to ban social media for kids under the age of 16 from December 10. As of now, the government has named ten platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, but they will expand the ban to online gaming soon, according to the BBC. Moreover, the Australian govt. said the decision aims at reducing the "risks" that children are exposed to on social media by watching content that might harm their well-being.

Ema's video went viral, sparking a debate on kids using social media and its adverse effects on them. For instance, @katee_lee_ commented, "The way she described these students as addicts that are having withdrawals from screens and that dopamine is spot on! It is THE BEST way I have ever heard someone explain it out loud, and EVERY single person needs to hear it." Similarly, @bhim0003 wrote, "I have been teaching for 18 years. It’s like talking to zombies. You can tell which kids had anti-tech parents and which kids didn’t. I wish we could run over all our school issues with Chromebooks and a truck, too."

@doug_.thompson shared, "My students cannot even watch a movie; they all have TikTok brain; everything has to be formulated in 15-second intervals. I had a student ask me last week, 'Can you just tell me what to type into ChatGPT?'"

You can follow Jonathan Haidt (@jonathanhaidt) on Instagram for psychology-related content.

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