Negative Impact of Using Technology

 

   

While technology can be a transformational tool for students if used in the classroom correctly, it can also have a negative impact as well.

A study conducted in 2021 by Northwestern College in Iowa has shown that too much exposure to blue light radiation was proven to have adverse health effects on growing children. According to Saunders and Vallance (2017), the amount of screen time that students are subjected to on a daily basis has tripled in the last four years. Their study continues to point out that roughly half of today’s children and youth are exceeding the public health screen time recommendation. Their evidence suggests that this increase in screen time is linked to increased obesity, depression, and anxiety, as well as low aerobic fitness, quality of life, self-esteem, positive social behavior, and academic achievement.

Educators are also experiencing their own challenges and increased stress as they try to learn and prepare technologically lessons, sometimes with little to no training to assist them. Educators now face immense amounts of pressure to provide lesson plans that incorporate technology in a meaningful way and implement multiple new programs daily. Due to this, many teachers, in their efforts to engage students in the new curriculum, are actually hindering their students' learning, as the goal becomes to get students to use the learning tool instead of getting them to learn from it.

Schwarz and Zhu (2015) found that solely incorporating technology in the classroom does not increase student engagement. Teachers must not focus on technology alone, and so, their schools must provide mandatory informational training courses. The continuous lack of education for the educators themselves is making it quite challenging for proper student engagement and understanding to occur when teachers are failing to integrate tech devices and online learning tools into their lessons.

    

Saunders, T. J., & Vallance, J. K. (2017). Screen time and health indicators among children and youth: current evidence, limitations, and future directions. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 15(3), pp 323–331. 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-016-0289-3

Schwarz, C., & Zhu, Z. (2015). The impact of student expectations in using instructional tools on student engagement: A look through the expectation disconfirmation theory lens. Journal of Information Systems Education, 26(1), pp 47-58. 

http://ezproxy.nwciowa.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest- 31 com.ezproxy.nwciowa.edu/scholarly-journals/impact-student-expectations-usinginstructional/docview/1721940970/se-2?accountid=28306