I was sent an article by one of my co-workers, and it was about Technology restrictions helping kids not be as grouchy.
When I read this article, I had to roll my eyes at it. I’ve seen plenty a parent accuse technology as being the issue for teenagers irritable behavior, when they’re ignoring that the problem isn’t that the child is on the computer at night, it’s that they’re up at night period. They would have the same grouchiness if they were reading, messing with a rubix cube, doing crossword puzzles or just sitting there. Technology has nothing to do with it, lack of sleep does. It's common sense to get off the computer before 10pm if it’s a school day, the parents just need to enforce that and the children need to recognise that.
What you can really blame for irritability related to lack of sleep is the school system. Seriously, would it be so hard to make high school run from 10am-4pm so the students, as in growing teenagers who need rest, could sleep? It’s a pretty simple and easy change.
I guess I’m a bit fed up with technology being blamed for this sort of thing. Yes, addiction to media is a problem but it’s not the cause of every problem related to students' behavior. The boy in the article didn’t get better because he dropped technology; he got better because he limited it to daytime and got some sleep.
I also feel the need to note that parents shutting down their kid’s technology access all willy-nilly can have some pretty bad consequences. Did you ever consider how many kids, myself included, use technology as a way to relieve stress? Video Games, googling random things, and casual Skype chat are all ways that I wind down after school, and my parents and I are responsible enough to know to shut all of it down around 9:30pm so I can get some sleep at 10pm. It’s pretty easy to fix sleep problems, just turn the tech off before going to bed so it doesn’t wake you up in the night.