Each day, the average Canadian student aged 8 to 18 years spends approximately seven hours and 45 minutes in front of some sort of screen, such as a smartphone, tablet, television or computer. Researchers from the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Harvard Medical School, University of Alberta, and Boston Children’s Hospital are engaged in a comprehensive and long-term analysis of the impact of digital technologies on Alberta children and youth’s health, development and learning. The primary goal of this provincial research, entitled Growing Up Digital (GUD) Alberta, is to study the scope of physical, mental and social consequences of digital technologies in areas such as exercise, homework, identity formation, distraction, cognition, learning, nutrition and sleep quality/quantity. In this session, Dr. McRae will explore the findings from the first year of this study, and share the themes emerging from the thousands of questions posed by Alberta teachers and school leaders about how technologies are actively (re)shaping our society and learning ecosystems.
