The Roundup - Edition 106

A message from 
Rich Jones, Head.

Phew, it has been a hot one this week, and it looks set to continue.

I know our decision to postpone Sports Day was met with equal parts relief and disappointment. My own children certainly made it very clear that, in their view, closing the whole school would have been a much better idea. Sadly, for them, that wasn't on the agenda.

As ever, we've adapted. Lessons have looked a little different, water bottles have become essential equipment and everyone has pulled together with good humour.

My favourite moment of the week came in the Junior School.

I happened to be outside just as Chrissy's class emerged for their fifteen minutes running through a sprinkler system that the staff had set up. It was one of those wonderfully simple moments that reminds you how little it sometimes takes to create joy. There were squeals, laughter, little yelps of cold shock and children dashing back for “just one more go”, all carefully supervised, of course.

One moment made me smile. One boy simply walked up to the sprinkler, glasses still on, placed his face directly into the water and stayed there while everyone around him dissolved into laughter before joining in themselves.

It was such a small thing, but it was also strangely beautiful.

Watching them, I found myself wondering where that uncomplicated sense of delight slowly disappears to as we get older. When do we stop finding so much happiness in something so wonderfully ordinary?

That question stayed with me because, only an hour earlier, I'd been talking to the Senior School about something that perhaps asks a similar question. Not about sprinklers, but about childhood, growing up and whether the technology we carry with us every day is quietly changing the way we experience it.

For those who weren't there, here's Monday's Morning Talk:

“I want to start by talking about something that many of you may have seen in the news recently.

The Government is considering restrictions on social media for under-16s. Whether that eventually becomes a ban, an age limit or something else remains to be seen, but it has certainly sparked a huge debate.

Now, I suspect that if I asked the adults in this room what they thought, many would be broadly supportive. If I asked the students, particularly those who would be affected, I suspect I might get a rather different answer.

That's okay. I'm not standing here this morning to tell you what to think.

In fact, if you leave this hall agreeing with everything I've said, I've probably failed. I'd much rather you leave thinking about it.

I'm not really interested in whether social media is good or bad. I think that is too simplistic. Most things in life are not entirely good or entirely bad. Social media allows people to stay connected, to learn things, to find communities and to express themselves. There are undoubtedly positives.

What interests me more is a different question.

Why have so many parents, teachers, psychologists and governments suddenly become worried about something that has become such a normal part of everyday life?

The psychologist Jonathan Haidt has spent years studying this question. His argument is not really about phones or apps. His argument is about childhood. He asks us to think about what childhood looked like before smartphones became a constant presence in our lives.

If you had grown up thirty years ago, after school you would probably have disappeared for a few hours. You would have met friends, played football, ridden bikes, walked around town, argued with people face-to-face, got bored, made up games and generally spent time figuring out how to be a human being in the company of other human beings.

Much of that happened without adults watching. Much of it happened without cameras. And much of it happened without anyone pressing a “like” button.

Haidt argues that over the last fifteen years something significant has changed. Young people spend less time physically together than previous generations, but at the same time they are connected to one another almost constantly through screens.

In some ways, we are more connected than ever before. And yet many studies suggest that young people are also reporting higher levels of anxiety, loneliness, sleep problems and stress than previous generations.

Now, it is important to say that correlation is not causation. Life is complicated. There is rarely one simple explanation for anything. But it does raise an interesting question.

If social media is making life better, why do so many young people report feeling worse?

One of Haidt's suggestions is that social media doesn't simply add something to our lives. It also replaces things.Every hour spent scrolling is an hour not spent doing something else.

• An hour not spent playing sport.
• Learning an instrument.
• Talking to a friend face-to-face.
• Reading a book.
• Walking the dog.
• Building something.
• Making something.
• Or simply being bored.

And being bored, strangely enough, is often where creativity begins.

Another challenge is that social media creates a world of constant comparison.

For most of human history, if you had an awkward moment, made a mistake or had a bad day, a handful of people might know about it. Today hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people can see a version of your life, and you can see a version of theirs. The pressure that creates is something no previous generation has really had to navigate.

There is another thing that I find quite interesting. Some of the strongest concerns about social media don't come from teachers, schools or politicians. They come from some of the people who helped build the technology itself.

Over the years, a surprising number of technology leaders have placed strict limits on their own children's use of smartphones, social media and algorithm-driven content. Now, that doesn't prove that social media is bad. But it does make me pause. The people closest to these technologies often seem to be the most careful about how much of them their children experience.

If the people who design these systems, invest in them and make billions from them are cautious about exposing their own children to them, then perhaps there is something worth paying attention to.

Perhaps the question is not whether social media is good or bad. Perhaps the question is why so many people who understand it best seem determined to put boundaries around it.

I'm not really interested in telling you what to think about a possible ban.

What interests me is whether we are asking the right questions.

Technology is a wonderful thing when it serves us. The challenge comes when we start serving it.

So rather than leaving you with answers, I want to leave you with a few questions.

If social media disappeared tomorrow, what would you genuinely miss?

1. What would you secretly be relieved to lose?
2. When you look back on being fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years old, what memories do you hope you will have?
3. Will they mostly be things that happened on a screen? Or things that happened in the real world, with real people, in real places?”

Watching Chrissy’s class, I wonder whether childhood is meant to be filled with more moments like that. Moments that aren't performed for an audience, aren't measured in likes and don't disappear after twenty-four hours. Moments that belong only to the people who were there. Perhaps that's what we should be trying hardest to protect.