"Screen Time" in the Age of Covid-19: Reports from the Front Lines (Part One)

Liana Gamber-Thompson: I’ve tried to write this no fewer than ten times. With a three-year-old who has been largely free-ranging since her preschool closed for the year and a six-year-old remote learning his way through first grade, a good chunk of my brain space is generally occupied by trying to get someone back on a Google Meet, cutting crusts off PBJs, and discovering new household surfaces that have been graffitied. The remainder of my attention goes to trying to perform my full-time job to fidelity, which consists of fielding client calls and hosting live webinars for hundreds of viewers from my bedroom, all while trying to appear professional from the shoulders up. Along the way, I catch snippets of my partner, a 9th grade English teacher, translating James Baldwin’s GoTell It on the Mountain into Spanish on the fly and eking out virtual class discussions from our kids’ treehouse, which might be the quietest spot in the vicinity. 

To put it mildly, it’s a lot, and grabbing any significant chunk of time to write is a Sisyphean task. Still, my family and I are among the lucky ones. Henry asked Jessica and me to reflect, not only on our experiences as parents, but also on the impact of COVID-19 on school and learning, especially as it relates to what I think most people recognize as an across-the-board re-orientation toward screen time. Like many parents, we are absolutely fumbling our way through remote learning. But when I really reflect on my personal experiences of trying to keep learning going, I also realize there is a lot I take for granted. With our relative flexibility to work from home, an at-home stash of newer iPads and laptops, access to stable wifi, and enough books in the house to fill twenty Little Free Libraries, our kids will be fine. But the harsh reality is that many families aren’t fine when it comes to both access and a safe and productive space to learn. 

In my days as a media scholar, I focused on young people’s political and performative use of media, often looking to the explosion of mobile access in the late aughts as proof enough of the democratizing effects of technology. The Digital Divide was real, but it was decreasing; and safe in that knowledge, I focused almost solely on the creative output of young people. But working and learning in the COVID-19 world has underscored the essential nature of a reliable internet connection and access to devices, and despite large scale efforts by private telecom companies and state governments to provide hot spots to all students, many gaps remain. Just last week, photos of two Salinas, CA students sitting outside a Taco Bell with their laptops were circulated widely online. They were reportedly using the restaurant’s wifi in order to participate in remote learning, and the inequities exposed by the snapshot received widespread condemnation from educators and tech leaders alike. 

Photo Credit: Luis Alejo/Twitter via CNN

Successful learning outcomes during COVID-19 are about more than putting laptops or hot spots in the hands of students and their parents, though. The issue of access is multidimensional and sometimes surprising. For example, my colleague Tony Wan, Managing Editor at EdSurge, recently reported that a major factor hindering students’ learning is actually their inability to find a quiet place to work (relatable!). Other pain points of remote learning include lack of tech support for students and generally poor communication between schools and parents about learning schedules and plans. 

We’ve certainly been privy to these struggles in our own home. Our first day of distance learning was nothing short of disastrous when we tried to use the school-issued Chromebook to access my first grade son’s Google Meet. In an effort to ensure all students had access to technology, his school, a racially and economically diverse Title 1 school in suburban Los Angeles, issued devices of varying make and quality to all students before the first day of instruction. Unfortunately, while the devices might have been suitable for casual web browsing, they were not equipped to support a video call of 25 students. The result was a lot of angry and frustrated parents and six-year-olds who couldn’t access their class. Because it’s 2020 and adding insult to injury is now the norm, a neighborhood wildfire coincided with the first day of school. Amidst the tech stress of the first day, a fellow mom texted me jokingly supposing the overworked fans of the first grade laptops, which we later learned were 7 years old, were somehow responsible for the fire. 

But in all seriousness, our response to this problem was to provide our son with a newish Mac I had inherited from a former job. The wildfire mom drove straight to Best Buy that day to purchase her daughter a new Chromebook. But what about the parents who can’t afford to buy a new laptop? Or parents whose first language is not English who might be trying to troubleshoot with school IT staff? Or for those who are working on the front lines, unable to spend an hour of their day setting up a district email for their student, which, I kid you not, required parents to input a child’s first name, middle initial, student permanent ID, and lunch number, just to access live instruction. These are the sticky situations parents and educators, who are also working with limited resources, keep finding themselves in, and all these little inconveniences add up to one giant headache. 

Before this introduction devolves into one long diatribe about the personal hellscape that is keeping two kids alive and schooled during a global pandemic, I want to zoom out a bit to make two key points that I hope to expand on in my conversation with Jessica. First, I want to make it clear that the huge headache I describe is 100% a structural failure. My academic training is in Sociology, and if there is one thing it taught me, it’s that we are so often blind to the effects decades or centuries-old institutions and policies have on our everyday lives. In the case of COVID-19, remote learning has further exposed the impact of long term underfunding of schools and the often devastating marriage between property taxes and K-12 funding.

In America especially, our tendency is to personalize structural inadequacies into individual, moral failures, and I see that playing out in the series of difficult decisions being made by parents and educators during COVID-19. Families and school districts with access and resources might be experiencing daily chaos, but they again come out on top as they develop creative solutions to ensure their students succeed (I hesitate to bring up the exhausted topic of “pandemic pods,” but they are a good example of how those with generational wealth and white privilege continue to use the system for their advantage). 

Secondly, if there was ever a time when grace was called for, it’s now. Part of the storyline of parents leveraging their privilege to help their own kids come out on top is the normalization of micromanaging teachers’ instructional choices. We’re in the third week of school, and already I’ve been on the receiving end of concerns from fellow parents that our kids’ teachers aren’t employing differentiation, “flipped classroom” strategies, or inventive multimedia nearly enough. While some teachers are taking to virtual teaching with ease, learning multiple new platforms while trying to meet the needs of diverse learners is a real challenge. As parents, we need to be sensitive to the epic task in front of teachers right now. Not only are they being forced to reimagine teaching as they know it, but being married to a teacher has shown me how they are simultaneously facing myriad behind-the-scenes pressures around testing and assessment, attendance, mandated synchronous instruction, and so forth. We cannot place our 2019 expectations on 2020 learning. 

When it comes to using media for learning, politics, and expression, I’ve always been an optimist. In almost everything I’ve ever written or published, I look to the creative and liberatory uses of media, and I still do. Strangely, in my life as a parent, I’ve taken a much more cautionary approach to screen time, limiting it only to weekends in pre-quarantine times. Now, of course, those limitations have gone out the window, and I’ve been trying to reflect more on why I was so hesitant to allow screen time in the first place. Part of that re-assessment has been seeing firsthand that effective classroom instruction can take place with the wide range of tools at our fingertips, even if figuring it out is messy. Because of it, my geeky school-age learner is largely thriving. My greatest hope, though, is that as many learners as possible have those same experiences and opportunities, even if the path to equity is a tumultuous one; if anything, I hope this situation proves that something beautiful can still grow from rocky, rocky soil. 

Jessica Early: 

I have been quarantining with my husband, 11-year-old daughter, 9-year-old twin boys, and our two guinea pigs since March 6th. We live in Arizona, where the Covid numbers were late to expand, but by mid June had exploded, to land us with the horrid distinction of a world hotspot. As a family, we have taken a cautious and privileged approach to this time. My husband is a self-employed, professional artist and I am a professor at Arizona State University, but have been granted accommodation to work from home to help care for my kids. We remain at home almost exclusively, except for a once-a-week grocery run and frequent bike rides. 

In between dish washing and meal making, I spent the summer in my role as director of English Education and the Central Arizona Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project, working to support teachers in an unprecedented and traumatic time and to prepare myself and others to transition to teaching writing and reading in virtual or hybrid teaching spaces. Needless to say, with three kids, two full-time jobs, record breaking summer heat in the desert (52 days over 110 degrees so far - and no rain), and a global pandemic, we have a lot on our plate. Like working parents everywhere, my husband and I have spent our days trying to support the well-being of our kids and ourselves while also trying to get our work done and maintain a 24/7 occupied household.

When I was invited to contribute to Henry’s blog to reflect with Liana on our experiences as parents during Covid-19 and on school and learning and how it relates to screen time, the one thing that came to mind was my eleven year old daughter. Nothing has informed my teaching, thinking, learning, and parenting more than Lucca, and her nonstop video gaming throughout our quarantine. I first have to confess that a huge part of me feels uncomfortable and vulnerable admitting that my daughter has been glued to her iPad all summer. Even though I have spent the last 20 years researching and teaching literacy practices in school, after school, and community settings and know video gaming as valuable, productive, and rich literacy space, I was certain that Lucca’s intense devotion to gaming represented some failure on my part as a parent. Regardless of my insecurity around screen time and parenting, this pandemic summer has afforded me the chance to step back, notice, and learn first-hand from my daughter’s literacy endeavors. I have seen how her screen has become a space to form a supportive and valuable peer community, to learn and practice sophisticated and transferable literacy skills, to make sense of broader social issues like the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, and to process uncertainty and fear.

When the pandemic hit here in March and schools in Arizona went online, Lucca went from being an outgoing 5th grade soccer player, “A” student, and avid reader to  completely shutting down in almost every way. She struggled with anxiety, couldn’t sleep alone, rarely talked, and seemed generally depressed. She put on her headphones, turned on her iPad, and started playing a Roblox game called Princess High. This game, from what I can tell, is about the creation of Avatar identities through themed fashion outfits and trading and earning diamonds to purchase fancier and more desirable attire, including magical halos and wands and oversized digital stuffed animals. I found the game choice surprising because Lucca had never been interested in fashion or looks in her daily life. My husband and I worried about her screen time and withdrawal from our family, but we also knew that anything normal was upended and we weren’t sure what to do. So, we observed closely, checked in often, and let her be.

Over the summer months, Lucca played hours and hours of Roblox. Jake and I frequently asked her about the game and she shared the ins and outs of her play. She created her own Avatar, a wide-eyed pink lipped brown haired beauty who constantly changed and traded outfits and wings and halos. As weeks passed, she started playing with a friend of a friend, Penny, from her soccer team and the two became gaming buddies. They Facetime and game simultaneously so they can talk and play together for hours and they have become close friends even living apart and never spending time together in person.

As the weeks passed, Lucca and Penny began gaming with new friends from Sweden and Australia and Canada who they grew to know through shared Avatar conversations. Through their gaming, they discussed their experiences with the pandemic from their different countries and with the Black Lives Matters movement and protests. Many of her gaming friends dressed their Avatars in Black Lives Matter T-shirts. Lucca talked about how in Sweden the Covid cases were growing and her friend was worried and in Canada her other gaming friend was having playdates and life seemed normal. She also learned about new shampoo she wanted to try and how to dye her hair with lemon juice.

Lucca and Penny started a YouTube channel about the game using their Avatars as the hosts. Within weeks, they taught themselves how to make and edit sophisticated videos with voice overs with credits and music. They started collecting followers, including grandparents, parents, and other gamers around the country and the world. Lucca wanted to celebrate when she reached 200 followers. I made brownies and got her hot cheetos. She started asking Jake to help her design digital “merchandise” for Avatars that she could sell for digital coins within the game and a logo to use for her YouTube channel. At one point during the summer, I asked Lucca if I could play the game with her. I spent  an hour beside her trying to figure it out while she rolled with laughter watching me try to navigate this unfamiliar space, which was her expert territory. 

As the summer went on, Lucca started coming out of her shell. She went on bike rides and started baking cookies and swimming. She asked more and more questions about Covid and wanted help understanding the possibility of a vaccine and how science around vaccines works. Many of her questions were sparked by conversations she was having in her game. She also started expressing her fear about transitioning to middle school and how she wished she could go back to 5th grade. 

We spent the last weeks of summer rearranging rooms, building desks, and creating spaces for each of us to work and learn comfortably. My husband ordered each of us wireless headphones and blue light blocking glasses. We picked up each of the kid’s laptops from their schools, I brought my office desk chair from work home, and we ordered pencils and highlighters and glue sticks and Post-It notes. Even with preparation and support, the transition and practice of daily online schooling has been a rocky and tiresome adventure. With glitches in internet connectivity (on our end and the school’s), new learning platforms to navigate, classmates constantly “spam chatting” in the Google Classroom chat spaces, and meeting and working with new teachers and schedules and classmates, the first weeks of school have been unlike any other. 

Lucca is making the transition from elementary to middle school with grace and courage and confidence. She sets her alarm each morning to wake up on time, takes a shower, brushes her hair and logs on to class. She follows her schedule and takes notes and does her work. She comes out of her room to ask for help and food. During lunch she logs on to Roblox and plays or texts Penny to check in about her day or goes for a swim in the pool. She still has meltdowns and longs to play on her soccer team again and have sleepovers with friends, but she’s ok. She’s really ok. 

I don’t want to portray screen time as a cure-all for Covid blues. I know some families who are struggling to care for children suffering from serious mental health challenges at this time and, in no way do I want to communicate that gaming is the route to curing mental health challenges, which  need professional attention and care. There are a lot of ways Lucca received support over the summer from us beyond allowing her to stay glued to her game. She began learning Italian with my husband through a language app. We made her exercise daily. I read to her at night because she didn’t want to read on her own, and we joked around with her and constantly engaged her in conversations about her interests. I recognize the privilege that goes with all of this, with her iPad and internet access and comfort and safety of our home and food to eat and the attention of two parents at home all day every day. However, even with all of that, the world, for Lucca and kids all over this country and globe, has felt scary and out of control during the pandemic. While the world outside was spinning, the online spaces Lucca navigated over the summer were her own. 

In the following conversation with Liana, I wonder about the ways we can think about the value of letting go or, as she writes, “throwing out the window” our preconceived notions of what is ok when it comes to screen time, but still provide the support, gentle oversight, and observation to understand what our kids are doing and gaining or needing in these digital spaces? I also wonder, as a teacher educator and writing scholar, how the various kinds of digital play our kids take part in may be tapped into during formal school literacy learning as a way to draw from and honor their expertise and lived experiences while living in a pandemic?

Jessica Early, Professor of English at Arizona State University, is a scholar of English education and secondary literacy. She is the director of English Education and the Central Arizona Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project, at ASU. She began her career in the field of education as a high school English language arts teacher.  

Liana Gamber-Thompson  is Digital Project and Operations Manager at EdSurge, an award-winning education news organization that reports on the people, ideas and technologies that shape the future of learning. EdSurge is now part of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Previously, Liana was a researcher on youth and politics at USC, Community Manager at Connected Camps, and Program Associate at the National Writing Project. She is co-author of By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology.