Pittsburgh school leaders tell parents healthy screen use includes saying ‘No’
'We need to work collaboratively and collectively as a community in order to address the larger issues that our children are facing or will face'
Local educators silenced their phones and raised alarms while calling attention to healthy screen use. The Dec. 8 conversation, convened by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Rabbi Hindy Finman, welcomed school leaders and parents from across the East End for a 90-minute chat at the Squirrel Hill-based community center.
Before delving into the issue, Finman asked participants to power down their devices and said the impetus for Sunday’s talk grew from an earlier presentation.
During the summer, Finman, the JCC’s newly hired senior director of Jewish Life, attended a conference at Brandeis University where participants repeatedly discussed best practices for preventing children from experiencing hate speech. Several guests of the summer conference proposed eliminating access to devices, Finman recalled.
“That’s not really realistic. There’s screens everywhere,” she said. “The better approach is leaning on those “who are constantly thinking about how to use screens in a healthy manner.”
Finman did so by speaking with local school leaders and discovering their takes on the issue. She talked to Community Day School’s Casey Weiss, Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh’s Rabbi Sam Weinberg, Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh’s Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, Pittsburgh CAPA’s James Clawson, Pittsburgh Colfax’s Tamara Sanders-Woods and St. Edmund Academy’s Chad Barnett.
On Sunday, Finman asked the group to share their thoughts while remaining open to ideas championed inside neighboring buildings.
The educators complied and humbly admitted that they too are seeking answers to the challenging question of how children, and adults, should navigate technology.
“This is the topic, and I will say definitively that what we are doing at our school, I don’t think is working,” Weiss said.
“Unfortunately, I think one of the biggest mistakes that we made with PPS was putting these devices into kids’ hands without that type of structure around what they would be seeing and what they are exposed to,” Sanders-Woods said.
“As an educator, we were taught to view technology with suspicion,” Clawson said. Instead, schools and educators “started supplying” students with a constant stream of devices, and “we’re now the pushers.”
During the 2022-23 school year, 94% of public schools reported providing digital devices, such as laptops or tablets, to students who need them, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
With access to so many devices, students are spending numerous hours each day staring at screens.
In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between July 2021 and Dec. 2023 about 50% of teens ages 12–17 spent four hours or more on screens each day. Location matters, as teens living in metropolitan areas were more likely to spend four hours or more on screens each day than teens living in nonmetropolitan areas.
Both the CDC and other researchers noted that increased screen usage has been linked to poor health outcomes, including fatigue and symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Education spurs homework
On Sunday, several school leaders spoke about the need to separate screens from bedrooms.
The reality is that there’s a certain foolishness in asking students to avoid constantly scanning their devices when parents are unable to perform a similar task, educators said.
“I’m constantly pulling out my phone, checking my texts,” Rosenblum told attendees before humorously recalling how he purchased a smart watch in order to detach himself from his phone, but only discovered the watch was a vehicle for incessantly monitoring calls and messages.
Even if parties agree that devices are impeding sleep and causing harm, there remains a belief that phones are necessary tools for safety, school leaders said.
For many parents, giving children phones affords a sense of comfort, but the question becomes, “At what cost,” Barnett said.
What is so urgent that must be communicated during class that couldn’t wait until class is over, he continued. “When my parents needed to get in touch with me at school, which I think was maybe never in the course of my education — but if they ever did — they would call the office, and then the office would send a message, and then things would happen and that seemed to work out just fine.”
Several school leaders said parents have told them that children must have phones in the event of an emergency.
“Sometimes it’s okay to tell parents that they’re wrong,” Weinberg said. “The instances of kids getting kidnapped on the way to school in Squirrel Hill — correct me if I’m wrong — are not very high. The instances of kids having negative relationships on social media are much worse.”
A lot of it comes down to “trust” between parents and schools, Sanders-Woods said.
If a crisis is occurring and the principal is communicating with the superintendent, city police and other agencies, but parents start panicking and flooding the school’s phone lines, “it takes us away from what we should be doing to keep the staff and students safe,” she said.
National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm, cited the situation as one reason for discouraging student cell phone use in school.
If an emergency transpires, not only can student use of cell phones prevent public safety personnel from arriving on site — because parents and community members are clogging the space — but the use of cell phones during an emergency can distract students from properly paying attention, taking shelter or following emergency responses, according to the organization.
Part of education is understanding that, “If, God forbid, something is urgent, we will communicate,” Weinberg said. It’s also about realizing an emergency doesn’t include “you finding out if your child wants a turkey sandwich for dinner.”
Pittsburgh unplugged
None of the school leaders advocated for total elimination of technology. Instead, the group called for moderation and healthy practices.
“As Jews, we’re really lucky because we’re supposed to unplug every single week. And it sounds so archaic, but it is the most freeing, amazing, special thing,” Weiss said. “I’m going to be honest. I’m not fully shomer Shabbos, but on all the Shabbats that I lean in, that I go to Shaare Torah, that I go to a lunch — whether I just go to Shaare Torah and then go for a walk with my family or go play at Blue Slide — being unplugged is truly a gift.”
Weiss encouraged colleagues and listeners, regardless of faith, to find their own unplugged time: “I say this not as an educator, but as a mom and as a wife. I just think for our families to be together, to be doing things actively together, laughing together, away from the screens, is so powerful.”
Squirrel Hill resident Chaim Strassman praised the event and said the speakers imparted valuable lessons about developing proper relationships with devices.
“In the same way that we expect our children as students to responsibly use technology for school, we need to also model it in the home,” he said.
Karen Batterton, a Baltimore resident who attended the talk while visiting family in Pittsburgh, said the program encouraged her to consider her own relationship with technology.
“Even though I’m not around a lot of children, I really need to try to figure out in my own head how the good parts of technology can still be a positive, while we’re also trying to teach about the bad,” she said.
School leaders serve different demographics in the city, but everyone is dealing with “the same thing,” Amira McLemore Wolfson, a Squirrel Hill resident and CEO of the Pace School, said. “We don’t have a single answer, and we need to work collaboratively and collectively as a community in order to address the larger issues that our children are facing or will face.”
Recognizing a mutual responsibility does not negate the need of individuals to do their part, she continued. “Sometimes being a parent means saying, ‘No,’ or ‘Not right now,’ and being okay with that too.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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