The nation’s teachers believe that the texting, video games, TV watching and social networking kids do outside of school is hurting their performance in the classroom, a new survey reveals.
The Common Sense Media report, “Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View from the Classroom,” is based on an online national survey of 685 public and private school teachers, from kindergarten through grade 12. Among the findings about students’ entertainment media use:
• 71 percent of teachers believe it hurts students’ attention spans “somewhat” or “a lot”;
• 59 percent believe it hurts kids’ abilities to communicate face to face;
• 58 percent say it negatively affects students’ writing skills; and
• 48 percent believe it hurts the quality of homework.
What types of media have hurt students’ academic skills the most? More than two-thirds of the teachers surveyed named video games (68 percent) and texting (66 percent).
Interestingly, 63 percent say entertainment media has improved students’ ability to find information, and 34 percent believe it helps students’ ability to multi-task.
As for social relationships, 67 percent believe entertainment media has a “very” or “somewhat” negative impact on students’ sexuality, while 61 percent believe the same is true regarding boy-girl relationships. However, several surveyed teachers noted that their students are more exposed to the world and to diverse viewpoints because of new media.
Common Sense Media is a national organization helping families to better understand media and advocating for better media-related policies. Find more details on the survey at www.commonsense.org/research.
