SMART TECHNOLOGY, OUTSMARTED

Lesson time is possibly now the only waking moments when children are more than a metre from their phones or computers. With end of year exams for all students as well as GCSEs and A levels this is a difficult time for parents, trying to balance wanting them to do their best and maintaining family sanity. Tears, tantrums and insomnia, despair and feelings of uselessness – and that’s just the teachers – test all families. A little revision is never enough but does help. I have a little advice for parents on this.

Before I do: kids used to watch trivial TV all night before phones; I watched Crossroads for years. Before proper TV we used to do all sorts to avoid studying. I mainly annoyed neighbours, playing out. I was asked to leave Cubs because I had trouble, aged 10 with the pledge of allegiance to an English queen. Bill and I carried on doing Bob-A-Job long after we left. I even used to play football on Protestant Church land – thus risking eternal hell fire, or so Father Bryant told us, just before he had to explain some naked behaviour on a Lourdes pilgrimage.

Phones and computer games are addictive. Many boys play games every day from the time they get home to the time they try to get to sleep. Pulling away can be hard but like most addictions it can be controlled.

Many revisers put the ever-pinging phone in a drawer when studying - maybe for half an hour at a time.

One boy negotiated and agreed that parents take his games console to work so he is free to study. One girl is weaning herself off her phone because social media is ruling her life. Decisive kids, the pair of them.

Children are exposed to drugs and sex earlier than ever before and our task as parents and teachers is not to hide them away from such issues, because we really can’t cotton-wool them that much, but to teach them the skills to be able to make their own decisions. And, contrary to established hysteria computer games are good for you: manual dexterity , problem-solving, competitiveness and creativity are all enhanced. And, it keeps them quiet and off the streets.

Now, onto my butchering of the inimitable Diane Carey’s more scientific approach to computer addiction.

We have an exam regime which requires young people to interpret, reason, analyse and apply a whole load of new knowledge to a wide range of unfamiliar contexts. Curiosity, adaptability and a willingness to learn new things are key skills for our rapidly evolving workplace. We have to prepare our students for this. We must foster in them a desire to think creatively, to be challenged and to keep going as they struggle to work out their own solutions to old and new problems.

The future will be a very different place, particularly in employment. And we are facing a potentially sinister, far-reaching threat to our young peoples’ capacity to learn.

Business exists to sell its products and what the phone and computer companies want is our Attention: It’s worth a whole load of money and there is a limited supply of it to go around so companies are turning to increasingly persuasive techniques to keep us glued to their product.

Companies employ experts who know how to programme smart technology to influence the evolutionary instincts of the human mind. You might think that this is bit extreme bit it’s not called ‘race to brain stem’ for nothing. You can even take a course in it.

These people know how to get us hooked. Every time we open up Facebook, You Tube, Instagram, we activate a super computer, pointed straight at our brains, trying to work out its next move to keep us plugged in.

They are creating our social reality. It’s personalised news feeds, video feeds, photo feeds and adverts – all perfectly curated to our specific interests, based upon our click history.

Social media stimulates biochemical responses. You think about checking your phone. Has anyone responded to your Instragram post, your last WhatsApp message? This generates cortisol, which makes you feel anxious. You need to get rid of that anxiety so you check your phone. What you see then messes even more with your brain. A couple of people, whose opinion you really value, like your post. Those little pings of social affirmation stimulate the brain’s reward system to produce dopamine. It feels good. You want that again. Or maybe no one has responded, or even worse, made a negative comment; this releases more cortisol so you have to keep checking to relieve the anxiety, And so it goes on.

Dopamine is the brain’s way of rewarding us for a job well done, a problem solved. From an evolutionary perspective, dopamine rewarded us for solving a problem or making a decision most likely to sustain life. Once rewarded for solving a problem we were driven to seek out the next challenge. Hence the progress of humanity from the plains of Africa to where we are now. Computer game architects replicate this process in the virtual world, but at a much more rapid rate, dishing out strategically timed rewards, leading to continual surges of dopamine.

Cocaine works by increasing levels of dopamine in the brain. That’s why it is addictive.

There are increasing numbers of commercial companies developing, using and selling the technology of addiction.

Evolutionary physiological adaptations, essential for the journey from dependent child to independent adult, make adolescents particularly vulnerable to these effects. Firstly, adolescence brings a peak in the brain’s sensitivity to dopamine, a hypersensitivity to feedback and rewards. In addition, the high level of brain plasticity at this age means that the adolescent brain is particularly susceptible to external influences as it continually remodels itself in response to the world around it.

Abstinence alone will not cure an addiction. That space needs to be replaced with meaningful activities that stimulate, enrich and fulfil.

Let's have a look at what makes a great computer game.

A good game uses achievable, incremental challenge, based upon current ability. Gamers know what they are trying to achieve. Feedback and rewards are frequent, but not so prolific as to render them meaningless. Opportunities to join forces online to overcome challenges satisfy the adolescent drive to collaborate with and impress peers. Upgrades and add-ons are provided for those who are starting to get bored.

Isn’t this what great teaching is?

We have access to all of these strategies.

Through great teaching we can activate the challenge, reward, dopamine response.

The best lessons use the incremental stepping up of challenge to maintain pace, some differentiation to make sure that everybody is involved, strategic use of rewards and the opportunity to collaborate where appropriate.

And when students are learning, the same will most likely be true for us: Our goals are clear, the challenge is high, our skills match the challenge; we’re getting immediate feedback from kids and adjusting so that we can meet their needs and accomplish the goal. And when it happens, it is synergistic and rather marvellous.

So yet another area where the ever decreasing numbers of teachers can become the saviours of the human race, replacing obsessive computer games with powerful, inspiring learning opportunities.

And the added bonus is that everyone involved gets a nice big hit of dopamine.

Dennis O'Sullivan

CLASS A PARENTING (Parenting & Childhood in Crisis Part Two)

I met a parent shopping with her 13 year old daughter. Her 11 year old boy was at home, safely left alone with some snacks and advice not to open the front door. She cheerfully announced that he was on his computer 10 hours a day playing Fortnite. She thought I was mad when I expressed schoolteacherly concern andsuggested limiting this.

“7 out of 10 children said they had missed out on sleep because of their online habits and 60% said they had neglected school work as a result.” (National Online Safety 2018)

The chemical reaction in an adolescent’s brain from addictive computer games – and our kids are addicted – is the same as that produced by cocaine.

Kids brains and bodies are developing all the time Fortnite, and others, Game producers consult psychologists about how best they can make their games addictive. The games promote the release of dopamine which is how cocaine works. Youngsters are particulary susceptible to its effects, deliberately designed to satisfy teenagers’ craving for instant gratification as they have not yet developed the capacity to resist this. (For much more on the science look up video-game-drug-addiction at Psychology Today)

As parents, are we worried about this?

Fortnite is much cheaper than cocaine, ecstasy, MDMA, spice, speed…
This is a blog about Fortnite and you know I’m going to suggest that our boys’ obsession with this game is bad for their physical and mental health, family life, schoolwork and, even, their future romance prospects.

And it’s a great game and kids should play it. Just not so much.

In my various surveys of hundreds of kids, over 90% of boys aged 11-15 admitted to loving the game. Less than 40% of girls were plugged in every possible day but most say they are shackled to their phones and social media. Although this blog is specifically about FORTNITE the benefits and dangers of children being always connected apply to all.

Do you know if your kids have online access when they’re meant to be sleeping?

NSPCC and NCA (National Crime Agency) warn that one in four children have been contacted by strangers by voice and or text when playing Fortnite. It’s a social game and offers new opportunities to paedophiles. Google the NCA warning and read national newspaper stories about the 12 year old offered £50 to perform a sex act online. This sort of danger is widespread.

Fortnite is free but kids can buy 100 tiers of weapons outfits and gear that can be purchased on line. Parents have discovered, their credit card is associated with the site and receive big bills. Kids on the Spanish beaches were wearing Fortnite hats and T shirts. My niece’s primary school has banned Fortnite dances.

Accounts have been hacked and money stolen. (Telegtaph April 5 2018) A friend of mine rewards his 14 year old son with money to buy Fortnite gear if he reads for half an hour each evening. They even sit and read together, which lets boys understand it is OK to read as dad does it.

How about, removing phones and tablets from the room when they are reading (with or without you,) from the place and time when they are eating (with or without you,) and when they are doing schoolwork. Put yours away, too, and perhaps talk to each other.

Oh goodness, take them out without phones.

Launched in 2017, Fortnite had 125 million players by June 2018.

Forbes reported that Fortnite brought in $126 million in February, $223 million in March and $296 million in April. The company has so much cash that it's forming a $100 million prize fund for upcoming Fortnite competitions. (July 2018)

Fortnite is a magnificent, rewarding, and exhilarating phenomenon. It is a co-operative survival shooting game that lets players build structures out of materials they scavenge from the game world. Most play the Battle Royale version, which pits 100 players against each other, some of whom are in small teams, to see who is the last man standing.

Players are there to kill others and the violence is presented in a cartoonish way – there’s no blood and gore. (If you want lots of blood try “Call of Duty” a game with an 18 certificate which parents have told me they have bought for their 12 year olds. Around 60% of my 13 year olds had played COD and more than one was off school on a new version launch day.)

The notion of kids “killing” is controversial in itself.

Have you noticed, this summer that there’s no kids on the street, that the various “Spotted In...” Facebook sites are hardly mentioning wayward youth, that the parks are empty? As a headteacher, I’ve not had a single call from the police. If you get the opportunity, read Ray Bradbury’s 1951 short story, “The Pedestrian” where there is no crime in our cities because everyone is at home in front of giant multi-media screens. Walking at night is “not unequal to walking through a graveyard."

I guess it’s good that we know where our kids are.

Ever the English teacher, I asked a class of 20, 13 year old boys to describe their perfect weekend. I didn’t count but most said “Fortnite.” When pressed, because I was an innocent until very recently, they said something like, “Yes, the whole weekend.”

I try not to suggest that I am some sort of superior parent or human being. I can remember the joy when my four year old daughter first got up on a Sunday morning and put the video on without me waking. In terms of computer addiction, let me tell you about Crystal Crazy. 102 levels of anti-missile protection and weapons that ended up taking up about three hours a night, every night. It was the time when games came on discs and my eyes dripped gore, my sleep featured crashing spacecraft. I took a photo, on a real camera, when I completed Level 102. Fatima came from Paris to visit and I left her alone whilst fulfilling my game addiction. I have not seen her since. Knowing from my tobacco addiction that throwing the disc in the bin would only mean I went through the rubbish to retrieve it next day, I eventually smashed the disc. I was 40 years old.

An 18 year old Economics student at my school, two weeks and six lessons short of his final, perhaps career-forming, A Level exam, announced that he had been up until 5 a.m and achieved a 23 person “single kill,” which is apparently very good. The game keeps you trying to get better and players can see their score improving.

I have put on “prep” every term-time evening for GCSE boys who were going home with good intentions but plugged straight in to Fortnite and did no homework. Younger boys come into school with scraps of paper hastily scrawled moments before the lesson.

This is now me trying perhaps too hard: Boys’ opportunities to have girlfriends/boyfriends are obviously diminished. As a father of girls I have would have welcomed Fortnite because ordering them not go out with boys until aged 35, and then with me as chaperone, did not work. We have a new school year starting with our boys going cold turkey and some of them not coping. As boys spend more time alone in their bedrooms, less time studying, do less well academically, the girls may turn away from romantic liaisons, relationships, marriage, futures…

There’s no doubt that young women are now doing better than men and are getting more of the top jobs. Only the fact that old men are still in power and can discriminate against women is holding them back .

Of course, it’s not the end for all boys.

However, I have 32, 15 year old boys entering their final GCSE year whose end of year reports clearly show that their all-consuming interest is Fortnite. I am now going to ask parents to leave us their 15 year olds until 5pm.

Back to the mental health concern:

A nine-year-old girl is in rehab after becoming so addicted to a video game she wet herself to avoid moving and hit her father when he tried to stop her playing. (BBC New Voice 17th June 2018)

The World Health Organisation has classified playing video games on the internet as an official mental health disorder. This means one can get treatment on the NHS.

'Gaming disorder' is defined as 'a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.' (WHO 2018)

Some views to leave you with:

I was talking with a really pleased mother who told me,“I’ve got my 10 year old son back. He was getting obsessed and tetchy, playing Fortnite all the time. It was hard for a week or so but I stuck to my guns and he now plays for two hours every other night…”

Did I mention the anger problems kids have when “losing” at computer games?

A Deputy headteacher gave me this, about his sporty 13 year old, “I came home to find that he’s got angry at losing at Fortnite and threw the controller through the TV screen.”

Another teacher takes the console to work every day and is in endless rows with his addicted 14 year old.

If as parents we can’t negotiate harm reduction with our kids over a computer game, how are we going to cope when they come across ‘drugs’ and other challenges?

What price a bit of peace and quiet?

Dennis O'Sullivan