During my time teaching mathematics at Poinciana High School, the school’s grade improved from a C to an A. With the principal’s approval, I investigated how severe sleep deprivation caused by late-night social media use on electronic devices had become. Rather than write referrals, I wanted to understand why so many students were falling deeply asleep in first period and after lunch.
I built relationships with these students, and they were very transparent. I found that many neurodivergent students (ADHD/ASD) who fell asleep during my classes were only getting three to four hours of sleep—or less. The “or less” group included students who missed first period because they were sleeping in, or who did not come to school at all due to exhaustion. These are good kids who likely would not have had truancy issues 10 years ago. Some neurotypical students faced the same challenges and similar sleep patterns, but without the “or less” group. You simply cannot become or remain engaged while experiencing severe sleep deprivation.
My ADHD psychiatrist is not only a true servant but also a two-time recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s Man of the Year award in pediatric psychiatry for his research on children with ADHD and/or ASD from low-income backgrounds. My sessions with him covered more than just my own ADHD and childhood trauma; I also used him as a sounding board while helping my son and the ADHD students I was assigned to assist in pivoting. I kept him informed by sharing my sleep-deprivation findings from previous sessions.
In our September session, he mentioned something that made me realize he had taken my findings seriously and had conducted a deep dive into researching how severe sleep deprivation was among his ADHD and ASD patients. Almost all of his ADHD patients in 8th to 12th grade exhibited severe sleep deprivation, with the same ~3–4 hours of sleep, or less, that I had discovered. I told my psychiatrist, “I know you are a faithful servant, but we need you to go after your third APA Man of the Year award, or we are going to lose an entire generation.” He has rearranged his schedule, eliminating telehealth sessions so he can rigorously conduct his clinical research without worrying that kids might hold back because a parent might be within earshot.
Another social media–related impediment to learning is the indiscriminate way in which electronic device–based social media and games can steal huge swaths of time, disrupting natural, organic brain development—from early spatial development through play—and helping explain why today’s neurotypical students show executive function deficits comparable to those of tradional high school students with ADHD.
If a child has been chronically “baby sat” by electroninc devices as early as 5 to 6 years old, this loss of play explains why kids spatial development deficits include the inabiltiy to use formulas on a formula sheet backkwards. For example if kid climbs a tree he/she has to work the problem and retrace their steps to come back down to earth. The defict of learning how to retrace one’s steps forced me to have classwork with color coded examples and formula sheets with the formulas in both directions.
Hypothesis
It has been known since around 2017 that social media and gaming companies have deliberately designed their online products to be addictive. On the other side of COVID-19, many educators expressed hope that the pendulum would eventually swing back and that a traditional classroom could become effective again. It is not swinging back. My hypothesis is that during lockdown and the hybrid school year, social media companies used analytics from the majority of kids being online 10–16 hours a day to refine algorithms that would keep students engaged at those levels of usage.
Good Luck!
Jose