Judo da Phone

Kids and their phones. Sit with that phrase for a minute. Take in what it calls to mind. Maybe even add another word grenade: screen time!

Chances are, it is not positive. Texting with friends at all hours! That sort of thing.

Maybe you are even thinking of the recent story of the teen who walked over the edge of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim while texting, plunging to the bottom, while, according to digital forensics, still texting the entire way down. 

We have all experienced it. We know the horror stories. The negatives of these things is firmly established.

For the record, I made up the Grand Canyon kid, but there are even worse issues, including exposure to horrific pornography and increasingly damning research on the effect of social media on developmental psychology.

Setting aside the more grave topics for a future post, it is worth pointing out that the negativity associated with phones can jam our parental radar and obscure the potential for these phones to play an epically positive role in the education and development of our kids.

Let’s go back to playing smartphone word association. What are some of the amazing things people say about our phones?

Take computing power. Your kid happens to be in the privileged position of carrying a supercomputer with him or her that has more than 100,000 times the computing power of the guidance system responsible for first landing humans on the moon. 

Or access to knowledge. All recorded human history. All available books. Everything that one might want to learn. We can debate some specifics about what is and is not available online, what access is required, but call it most of everything one would want to know can be accessed.

I’m talking about your kid or kids. His or her phone. Or phones. Right now. We are not hypothesizing about what they could possibly learn and retain—we’re talking about what is already with them. Everything. 

In earlier eras, a somewhat similar point could have been made about the power of a library card, which is still a damn powerful piece of plastic.

Abraham Lincoln instead educated himself by immersing himself in books at the library (having had only one year’s worth of formal classes between the ages of 6 and 15). Not bad. And I know what you’re thinking: imagine what that little Lincoln, just showing the wispy beginnings of his trademark jawline beard, could have done with the new iPhone 14!

Which, believe it or not, is the point of this blog. For parents looking who are looking for every opportunity to juice our children’s education and development, we owe it ourselves and our kids not to overlook the force for good learning that these admittedly fraught tools can be.

As luck would have it, I have some recommendations to share for how to set our kids’ phones up in a way that brings to the fore the potential for awesomeness. (As to the nightmarish elements, we’ll have to save that for another day.)

It starts with dedicating prime real estate to the learning resources. The good stuff, the parent approved stuff—should all go on that home screen, front and center, and not in some out of sight, out of mind subfolder.

And a quick tip for handling any complaints or blow back about this incursion into prime phone screen real estae. The best response is to patiently ask your child for their phone and then patiently smashing into thousands of pieces, after which you silently walk off for some me time.

Assuming it doesn’t come to this teachable moment, what then to add to this screen?

Basically, anything and everything with the power to be a great source of learning and knowledge. It is staggering what is available. My guess is that you will start to feel your pulse racing as you begin curating a single screen’s worth of epic knowledge access.

How about we start with Libby, the library app for borrowing ebooks and audiobooks. With this step alone, we have already set the minimum bar for our kids at Lincoln’s greatness.

Other obvious options include the Wikipedia app, which I didn’t previously realize existed, to provide instant access to the world’s most comprehensive and ever-expanding encyclopedia (and consider adding a recurring donation of support to Wikipedia after downloading).

A next logical addition would be the Khan Academy app, which is sort of Wikipedia’s educational soul mate, given Sal Kahn’s mission to creating a free world class education for anyone anywhere. (And once more, wouldn’t hurt to set up another small recurring gift.)

Another obvious addition would be Duolingo, the world’s most downloaded educational app to facilitate language learning. Duolingo, like the the previous two, is driven by an underlying mission to change lives by making knowledge and education freely available to the planet (though in this case it is a for-profit).

The list goes on. The Google Earth app, because there’s something about the godlike ability to zoom in on any place on the planet. A good word-of-the-day language learning app is another great staple, supporting vocab development. And then for the precocious out there, why not add EdX in case one of your offspring gets the urge to take Harvard’s Intro to Computer Science (CS50) or some other freely available college course?

Other go-to options include the holy trinity of quality content—Audible, Kindle, and a podcasting app. With each of these, you will want to take advantage of the options provided to create playlists or whatever other option is available to select the content that has your stamp of parental approval.

The list goes on and on. Try the fantastic Seek app for identifying nearly any plant you cross paths with, which pairs well with Night Sky or another app for identifying all that appears in the heavens as the sun goes down.

A few of the slightly more enriching games are also a good addition, which could include apps for chess, sudoko, backgammon, and Words with Friends.

There are also many other apps for taking classes and learning skills, including Outschool, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, etc., etc.

Lastly, it is worth considering apps like YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, and the like—with the understanding that when the kids are accessing via this home base for knowledge and learning, they are accessing accounts or personas that you set up exclusively for learning, to ensure your child is accessing something enriching, like the mind-blowing documentary Fantastic Fungi, rather than corrupting their minds with the new season of Bridgerton that we adults are watching.

I could go on, and may in future posts. It really is staggering what we have access to via these omnipresent devices, and it is almost impossible not to take for granted all of their potential for good.

Corralling some of the best together in the ways described and, ideally, spending time with your kids exploring the resources, will absolutely help increase the likelihood that the phone takes on a more positive role in their educational journey. No guarantees they will take it to the level young Lincoln would have.

Then again, they might, with a little nudging.