Technology and Adolescent Health

In Schools and Beyond

Megan A. Moreno, Andrea J. Hoopes, Megan A. Moreno, Andrea J. Hoopes

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780128173206
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología del desarrollo

Technology and Adolescent Health: In Schools and Beyond discusses how today's adolescents are digital natives, using technology at home and in school to access information, for entertainment, to socialize and do schoolwork. This book summarizes research on how technology use impacts adolescent mental health, sleep, physical activity and eating habits. In addition, it identifies monitoring and screening technology-based tools for use with adolescents.

• Summarizes the effects of digital technology use on adolescent mental health
• Advises on best practices for adolescent technology use in home and schools
• Identifies digital tools to monitor adolescent health
• Includes effects on sleep, addiction, socialization, eating and exercise habits
• Provides both the positive and negative consequences of technology use

Chapter 1

Adolescent development and schooling in the digital age

Philip Kreniske^a,b

Esther Spindler^b

John Santelli^b
a HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
^b Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Abstract

Adolescence is a time of great physical and cognitive change. During this period of development, adolescents learn to make health and lifestyle choices, maneuvering a number of biological and sociocultural transitions. These lifestyle choices become the habits and routines of adulthood and thus have consequences throughout the life course. Therefore, adolescence is a critical period for addressing health behaviors. Schools have a critical role in facilitating healthy transitions to adulthood. This chapter provides an overview of the biological and psychosocial milestones of adolescent development, situating this developmental process within the context of schools and emerging digital technologies.

Keywords

adolescence

puberty

social and biological determinants

identity

school

risk

affordance

digital technology

Case study: “Spotlight on Adolescent Identity Development, Family Cohesion and Digital Networks”

Miles is 15 years old and has an 18-year-old sister and a 12-year-old brother. The family lives in a three-bedroom house located 20 minutes from the downtown of a northeastern city in the United States. His parents drive together to their full time jobs in a 2005 Silver Camry. The family has an average annual income of $70,000 and support from the extended family. Miles is proud of his cultural and ethnic heritage: his father grew up in the rural South and is the great-grandson of African–American sharecroppers, and his mother is the daughter of a first-generation immigrant family from Cartagena, Colombia. Born deaf to hearing parents, Miles grew up learning American Sign Language (ASL). He does not consider himself to be disabled, despite what others might think about him. At home, his family communicates through a blend of English, Spanish, and ASL.

While Miles’ siblings attend the local public school system, Miles attends the local school for the hearing impaired, with help from a federal government subsidy program. Recently, Miles read an on-line blog that showed how growing up with multiple languages can actually make you smarter as an adult. After that he started bragging to all his friends at school that he is multilingual because he knows ASL, and reads and writes in English and Spanish, which makes him smarter than them. Miles’ parents and siblings have also learned ASL, although they are not as fluent in ASL as they would like to be.

Before he had his own smartphone, Miles created a few social media accounts, but logged in only sporadically when he used the family desktop computer. The family desktop has an old version of Microsoft windows, which frequently crashes. The family computer is located at a small desk in the corner of the living room. However, given the public positioning of the computer Miles was wary of using social media and was careful about what he googled.

Last year when Miles got his first smartphone, he began spending at least two hours a day on social media, including Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. He found it was an easy way to connect to larger deaf network beyo...