By Kristie Kellahan
Moderation is the key when it comes to chocolate and social media, according to educator Jocelyn Brewer.
Brewer, a school counsellor and registered psychologist working at Chester Hill High School and Birrong Public School, is finding ways to help students understand the consequences of their online choices.
Click of time: Jocelyn Brewer is helping students understand the consequences of their online choices.
Five years ago, with help from the Department of Education's retraining program, she transitioned from her role as a geography and drama teacher to become a school counsellor. She went on to complete further studies in psychology and wrote a thesis on the research she had done on internet use by a group of year 10 boys for leisure and learning, and how gaming and other aspects of the internet might be addictive. "It was the first research of its kind in NSW," Brewer says.
"Since I completed my thesis and retraining, I've seen an increase not only in the use of technology and the ubiquity of the Internet in every facet of daily life, but also the problems created by lack of information on how technology is impacting our learning, society and behaviour."
From a personal point of view, Brewer says she became very aware of how much she engaged with and then relied on social media. "While I love my online world, my apps and my devices, I started to notice how my real-life interactions and the way I was thinking had changed," she says. "Applying this then to a new generation that was growing up with this technology wiring their brains made me fascinated with what the impacts would be." Brewer came up with the concept of Digital Nutrition – she says it grew out of the Digital Detox craze – as a framework to understand the ways in which what we consume online can impact our well-being.
"It's not about cyber-safety or about delivering mental health solutions online, but more about teaching ways to have 'healthy' online habits and making the most of the best aspects of internet and screen technology," Brewer says. "What we know about fad diets and detoxes is that they generally don't create lasting change and similarly with Digital Nutrition it's about teaching the best practices to start and stay healthy rather than ever needing to go on a crash diet." With help from a grant from the Premier's Teacher's Health Fund Health Education Scholarship, Brewer will be further developing the Digital Nutrition program.
"So much of our lives are now lived in, and through, technology," she says. "Students are expected to use technology for learning but the lines between learning activities and leisure activities are now very blurred. Providing kids with ways to understand the impacts of their online choices, just like we do with food, is a useful way to help amplify the best aspects of technology.
"There are incredible benefits to the use of technology and Digital Nutrition is about finding the 'superfoods' of technology use and avoiding too much of the 'candy' and junk foods."