Back to search

Smartphone - tool or drug?

2020-3-PL01-KA105-0948792020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: PL|LT · Grant: €28,847.03
ICT - new technologies - digital competencesHealth and wellbeingYouth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Objectives

We are currently living in a time when modern technologies dominated almost every aspect of our everyday lives. The Internet has become the main source of knowledge about the world, social life is flourishing to a large extent in social media and the inseparable attribute of most of us is the "smartphone" without which we can not imagine spending even one day. It would seem that all these changes are positive and their behavior is inevitable. While we fully agree with the second part of this statement, we are not convinced that the first is true. The basis on which the idea of our project was born was that young people today cannot imagine their lives without these technological amenities - they basically are addicted to them. Interestingly, that was not our - staffs' - statement but rather it was voiced by the youth themselves. When during the classes implemented as part of the joint project of Primary School No. 1 in Barczewo and Giedymin Junior High School in Niemenczyn, the discussion once again arose about the continuous use of mobile phones and a fairly sharp exchange of views appeared, one of the girls stated that after giving the phone to the teacher in the morning, by lunchtime she experiences "withdrawal symptoms". Although it was an obvious joke, both sides of the discussion concluded that, as usual, there is a grain of truth in it. This is how the concept of project preparation and implementation was born, which would be an opportunity to take a closer look at youth habits in the field of using mobile phones, and which would allow a wider exchange of views of both groups. So we decided to carry out a kind of "detox". For 8 exchange days we will say goodbye to mobile phones, the Internet or Facebook and try to deal with various tasks in a traditional way. It may be surprising that young people from our organizations enthusiastically picked up this idea and started to prepare the project. The main goal of our project is therefore to increase the awareness with which new technologies are used in everyday life as well as to develop soft skills related to direct interpersonal contacts, which this technology effectively replaces with virtual ones. As part of our activities: - we will carry out an extended SWOT analysis (pros, cons, opportunities and threats) of using smartphones in everyday life, - we will wonder how we - participants - deal with everyday tasks in a new analogue reality for us, - we will conduct an intergenerational dialogue about the role of smartphones in everyday life, including local communities, - we will try to prepare a summary of our conclusions in both practical and artistic form.

Project partners (2)