Use this activity as an in-road to deeper conversations about digital life.
Editor's Note: Dr. Emily Weinstein is executive director of the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education and a principal investigator at Project Zero. She co-wrote the popular book Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (and Adults Are Missing), and she shares insights about tech parenting on Instagram @TechWithoutStress.
Getting students to talk about TikTok or YouTube isn't hard. But asking them to honestly reflect on their online lives and how their digital habits may—or may not—align with their values and well-being? That's another story.
Some of the best conversations about digital well-being start not with a focus on the technology but a focus on the teen. Instead of "Why are you always on TikTok?" or "You need to limit your screen time!," we can open with questions like "What do you value? What's important to you? How do you want to live in this world filled with tech?"
Values are principles or personal rules that are important to us, and they're informed by our experiences, identities, cultures, and beliefs. Authenticity, justice, connection, kindness, health, and spirituality are examples of values. Reflecting on their values can transform how young people think about their digital habits. Instead of just approaching digital habits with the single goal of reducing "screen time," we can reflect and focus on values-aligned habits when using tech.
Based on this insight, Common Sense and the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education teamed up to create our My Values + Tech Lesson. It starts with a "values sort" that we co-created with teens. We love doing this analog-style, and you can print out cards here to facilitate it. Or check out the web-based Values App to facilitate values sorting without supply prep. In the exercise, each person reflects on the values that are most important to them right now, choosing three for this category, and then sorting others as "important to me right now" and "less important to me right now."
Let's say a student chooses the values of presence, connection, and justice as their top three. This anchors them in their own priorities and a positive aspect of their identity. Doing a values sort taps into a way of thinking about ourselves that we don't always have space for in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. After sorting, a pair share allows students to explore questions like: What was it like for you to sort your values? What did you notice as you were choosing your top three? Which values are you already well practiced at living? Which ones are you working on right now?
Next, students step back and think about a range of values—including their top values, but also the others—and how tech might impact them. Which values are harder to live because of today's technologies? And which values does tech support or make easier to live? Discussing these insights as a group can be really fruitful.
Dot voting is the next step, using stickers or two colors: It provides a consistent spark for new, productive, interesting conversations about digital well-being. Green dots signal a value that's supported by tech. Red dots signal that participants view the value as made harder by tech. Which values have mostly or only green dots? Only red dots? Students can stand back and share observations and reflections.
You can ask your students: What do you make of our class patterns? What might they suggest about how we use tech vs. how we should use it? What might the patterns suggest about the design of tech?
Thinking about values is a pivot from typical conversations about tech. It's valuable (ha!) in and of itself because we know that reflecting on values supports self-understanding and affirmation of values. Values reflection is also a generative lead-in to conversations about tech habits. It prompts us to think about changes to our own tech habits that could allow us to be more values-aligned. Reflecting on the importance of presence might mean that we're more likely to put phones out of reach when we're with our close friends. Seeing the positives for connection can remind us to pick up the phone to call our grandma or Snapchat our cousins. And thinking about the positives and puzzles that social media raises related to justice might help us make informed choices about what, when, and how we post about social issues.
Ideally, by the end of the My Values + Tech activity, kids are thinking about tech use in a fresh, nuanced way. It gives them a chance to consider how they want to live their lives and be their best selves with media and tech in the mix. This personal approach can be a powerful inroad to deeper, ongoing discussions in which you can invite each other to reflect and remember your own ideal values alignment.
To learn more about the Center for Digital Thriving visit the website at: https://digitalthriving.gse.harvard.edu/connect/
