In This Together – How to Thrive Online

There’s no denying that we are all tethered to technology for significant amounts of time each day. Likely more than ever at the moment! While technology is a vital part of the lives of children and adults, our consistently increasing usage is having a lasting impact on our physical and mental health.

Last week, we “virtually welcomed” Dr Kristy Goodwin, tech expert, researcher, author and parent to speak with the girls in Years 4 to 6, to give them strategies of how to “thrive online”. While the sessions were designed for Primary School girls, the information and science-backed strategies shared are relevant for people of all ages. Particularly in these times as we endeavour to find the right balance between using our devices to learn, work and connect and time doing other important things off screen. Therefore, I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of Dr Kristy Goodwin’s gems with you in hopes of them being of some help for your family or maybe even yourself to learn how to thrive online!

For the majority of adults in the SCEGGS community, we grew up at a time where if we wanted to contact a friend after school, we had to ask permission to use the landline and hope that the cord would stretch far enough so we’d feel some sort of privacy tucked away in the corner of whatever room of the house we were bound to. To find out a new fact or conduct research for an assignment, we needed to refer to books, a favourite of mine being the prestigious looking Encyclopedia Britannica sets that for some odd reason always looked too good to open! We would not have imagined that in time to come, we could use one device to telephone, text, email, listen to music, pay for things, track our physical activity, tell us directions and more! However, this is the world that your daughters were born into. They are digital natives and their technology usage will likely continue to increase as they get older and further advancements are made.

In my experience I have regularly seen experts use scare tactics when educating young people about device usage and time online, but Dr Goodwin takes a different approach. She openly shares her love for technology, describing just how fabulous it is and what it allows us to do. And she’s right! I’m sure many adults today would seriously struggle to go back to the time when we couldn’t control a large part of our day to day lives from the device held in our hand. Taking this positive approach with young people certainly wins them over and encourages them to listen up and discover how they can use technology to its advantage rather than become a slave to it.

In order to learn how to engage with technology effectively, it’s important to understand how the misuse or overuse of technology can negatively impact our physical and mental health and how to minimise this impact. An effective way of communicating this with young people is to teach them about what is going on inside our brain when we use technology. One way to do this is to use your hand to make a model of the brain. This model can help to explain what happens when the limbic system fires up from seeing or receiving something online that has shocked, angered or excited the user (see image below left).
When this happens, the part of the brain that controls rational decision making and thinking, the pre-frontal cortex, can’t do its job properly, therefore the emotional part of the brain (limbic system) responds. Sometimes referred to as “flipping our lid”, this reaction in the brain can result in poor decision making and lead to users sharing a photo, sending a message or replying to a friend in a way that they wouldn’t normally do. These impulsive, emotional decisions often lead to regret and have a lasting impact on the mental health and relationships of young people. This is why it is so important that your daughters are taught the importance of stopping and thinking before acting or reacting online.

When exploring the negative impacts of technology usage on physical health, we need to keep in mind the seven basic needs for humans to live healthily: relationships, language, sleep, play, movement, nutrition and executive functioning (Goodwin, K., 2021). It may come as no surprise that the needs most severely impacted by the misuse of technology are sleep, movement and relationships. Whilst we can connect with other people through digital devices, we all know that the connection online does not fulfill the human spirit in the same way physical, face-to-face connection does. Something we’re all feeling at the moment!

Here are some ways, shared by Dr Goodwin, of how your family can work to minimise the negative impact of technology usage on physical and mental health:

Reflect on what it is you are doing when online. For example, are you having quality conversations connecting with friends and loved ones or rather, responding to a series of meaningless messages?
Remember the 7 basic needs to live healthily and think about how to fit all of these into a 24-hour day. If 8-10 hours are taken for sleep and 1 hour taken for physical activity, that leaves only around half of the time to fit in the other 5 needs. If screen time takes up a large chunk of this time, what basic needs are thrown out in its place?
Think about what you are missing out on during the time spent online. Is it really worth it?
Plan smart yet effective movement breaks into your day. Perhaps this involves 5 minutes of stair runs or have a skipping rope nearby to use when possible.
Ensure your family is getting enough natural sunlight each day. For children this is at least 90 minutes per day so encourage your daughter to get outside during break times. This helps with eye health as well as sleep patterns.
Practice the “20-20-20 rule”. For every 20 minutes spent on a device, take a 20 second break by looking at something 20 ft in front of you and blink 20 times. This will help maintain good eye health.
Begin and end your day in a tech free way. It’s particularly important to allow 60 minutes of screen free time before bed to prepare the body for sleep.
Use blue light blocking glasses to minimise the negative effects of screen time on eye health.
Have a “landing station” for phones and/or devices in your home where they go to charge each night. Remember, phones are not the only alarm clock, old fashioned ones are still for sale and do the trick!

With at least 1 in 5 Australian young people reporting being socially excluded, threatened or abused online (eSafety Commissioner, 2017) it is also important to discuss what your daughter would do if they were to receive any unkind, unwanted or inappropriate material online. They should learn how to be an upstander rather than a bystander, what this involves and to follow this sequence of steps:

Stop: resist the urge to respond. Screen shot evidence
Support: speak to a trusted adult
Report: send evidence to the application used or to the eSafety Commissioner
Block the user from contacting you again

For more information on these steps visit the eSafety Commissioner website.

Getting the support of a trusted adult is one of the most important things for your daughter to do when faced with challenges online. She may not be developmentally ready to handle these by herself even though she may think she is! So if you say that you’ll take away her phone or device if she gets caught up in unwanted communication online she may not come to you if she’s in trouble. But rather, you could listen without judgement, offer support to successfully gather evidence, report and block the user. Please also contact the school for any further guidance or support.

It is critical that we work together to embed strategies into our daily family routines so we can embrace technology with all its might while ensuring we remain in control, and not allow the technology to control us!

Sarah Johnstone
Deputy Head of Primary (Student Wellbeing)