Phone Addiction Self Study Worksheet

(TESOL Materials--Classroom Management, Learner Autonomy)

Google: docs, pub

[Notes: Phone use in the classroom continues to be a problem, but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to deal with it.  

As I posted on this blog last year, for a while I tried to pre-empt the problem by doing a lesson on cell-phone addiction at the beginning of the term (Worksheet on Cell Phone Addiction and What Happens To Your Brain When You Mindlessly Scroll?: Listening Worksheet for Youtube Video).  However, I've stopped doing this for several reasons:

1) It ate up too much class time, and put me behind in terms of the curriculum I had to cover.

2) Because I did it right at the beginning of the term, it was still unclear at that point how severe the problems with phone addiction would be with the particular class, and thus unclear how much intervention they would need.  Some classes actually managed themselves fairly well, in which case the intervention at the beginning of class was unnecessary

3) On the other hand, students who actually needed the intervention were often resistant to it.  And in many cases, it was unclear how much the phone addiction was controlling them, and how much they were just consciously choosing not to participate in the class.

So, I've now opted for a new strategy.  I've taken all the resources that I have on Cell-phone addiction (taken from these previous blog posts: here, here, here and here) and put all the links onto one Google Document.  I then share this Google Document only with students who are using their phones a lot in class and have also failed the mid-course test.  (Under my new system, students who pass all their assessments receive no intervention.)

Addendum: I have some mixed feelings about this document, as it contains many different videos.  As a co-worker of mine once said, "If you give them 5 videos to watch, they won't watch any of them. If you give them one video to watch, they might do it."  So it may be better to just share these videos one at a time.  Despite this hesitation, for the moment I'm sharing them all at once because I believe they are all useful videos.  But I may be making a mistake.  I don't know.]

Phone Addiction Self Study

You are receiving this worksheet because your phone addiction is making it difficult to succeed in your English class.  Here are some resources that you can use to help you become more aware of your addiction

Watch these videos for more information on your problem:

• It’s not you. Phones are designed to be addicting.

• This exactly what's wrong with this generation

• Dopamine Fasting 2.0 - Overcome Addiction & Restore Motivation

Complete these worksheets on phone addiction, and then check your answers:

• Cell phone Addiction

• What Happens To Your Brain When You Mindlessly Scroll? and worksheet

Watch these videos for ideas about what actions you can take:

Social Media

We suggest logging out of social media applications during class.  Here is a video with more information: https://youtu.be/j3Thqrcw_Ag?si=uvcEccjWQFj2jMSP

Watching Videos:

Avoid watching videos in class.  Here is a video on Tiktok addiction that will give you more information on why this behavior is not good: https://youtu.be/JcB2RsHJZhw?si=jY49BHm7gqoh-5Nd

Playing Video Games:
Playing video games in class is not beneficial.  Here is a good video to watch on how to deal with video game addiction: https://youtu.be/8PYhEWK2wVA?si=9Itu8yf9h9N2m6H5

General:

It’s important to pay attention in class.  Here is a video that explains why paying attention in class is so important: https://youtu.be/6vTsyJZbkug?si=SYbPEvikPwLHTqFT