How to use our phones better – RSE / CSE lesson ideas

I’ve recently written a resource article for BISH about how we can all have a better relationship with our phones (including me). Here are a few ideas for your RSE / CSE lessons on how to use our phones better.

These are interactive, experiential and might generate some really great ideas from the students. Much better than just reading out an article from a website.

Also notice throughout that I refer to our / we. This is to include us, the facilitators and teachers who could also use our phones better at times.

Before we start

If you want some advice about how to do group agreements / vibe checks at the beginning and how to do RSE generally, check out the DO…RSE for Schools resource that Alice Hoyle and I wrote. It’s free. For all of these prompts I would put students in small groups with large pieces of paper and lots of pens. 

Not everyone will have a bad relationship with their phone, and some young people might not have access to one at all. This is why we are talking about how we could make our relationships better (things can always be better, even if they are pretty good). You can make this broader to talk about tech generally. I’ve also tried to make these prompts inclusive of everyone, whether they have a phone or not.

For each group you could give someone the option to be the facilitator, the person who carefully listens to the conversation, fields what the group is saying and writes down their responses. This could be someone who doesn’t have a smartphone. You may need to refer back to the group agreement to make sure that there isn’t bullying around this.

Why do people use phones?

Ask everyone to list all of the different reasons for what people might use their phones for and why they might want to use them. So this covers not just the many things we use phones for, but also the reason why we pick our phones up in the first place. 

Then you could ask the following prompts for discussion (in their small groups or in the large group if you like). 

• Looking at your lists, what strikes you?
• Do you have any ideas about whether any of these things might increase our capacity to think or act or decrease our capacity to think or act. Which of these might make us feel joyful or sad?
• Which of the things on your list can only be achieved from picking your phone up?
• Where else can we get some of these things from?
• ‘Instead of picking our phones up, what else could we do?’ Ask everyone to list as many as they can.

“We demand a lot from our phones and they can do a lot for us. But just as with any relationship, if we ask one thing to do so much for us, then we might find after a while that it gives us less and less back. (Which means we spend more time with it trying to get more and more out of it.)”

Active and passive phone use

We can often feel compelled to pick up our phones, without us even realising. Anyone picked up a phone and then spent ages being on it without really noticing? Perhaps we might have a better relationship with our phones if we are using them more actively? Picking them up intentionally, putting them down when we don’t need them. A start, middle, and end. 

In your groups, can you come up with some examples lately when you had this kind of relationship with your phone? Have you noticed a time when someone else did this? What difference did that make? What were you pleased to notice? See if each of you can come up with one example, even if it sounds really small and daft? If you don’t have a phone it could be any technology you might use generally.

How can we all help?

We’re not just individuals, we are all entangled up in our relationships with each other, our communities and society and culture generally. So they are all involved in us having a better time with our phones too. 

What difference could the following make in us having a better relationship with our phones?

• Society (law, government, media, products, services)
• Communities (schools, workplaces, youth centres, places of worship, organisations)
• People around us (friends, family, peers, loved ones / haters)
• Ourselves, the kinds of things that we could do. 

As you come up with these answers, notice the flows between each one. For example, if social media apps were run in a different way, how might that make it easier for us to change our behaviour? Or if we notice one small improvement we could make, what difference would that make with the people around us, or at school? 

Scales

Have a think about your relationship with your phone (if you don’t have a phone, technology generally). Where are you on a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being the best relationship you could ever have with your phone, and 0 being the opposite. Where are you on that scale now? Then on the count of 3, everyone blurt out your answer at the same time. 1, 2, 3. 

Now I want you to imagine that your relationship with your phone (or technology generally) was just one point higher on that scale. This will kick in as soon as you get home today. As soon as you walk through the door: 

• What will you start to notice that told you that your relationship with your phone was just that tiny bit better. 
• What will other people notice? 
• What difference will that make?
• What will you be pleased to notice?
• What else? 
• What else?

If you don’t have a phone, you could do this for a computer, or a TV, or other device you might use. Or you could imagine that a loved one had a better relationship with their phone, what will you notice about them?

More resources

I hope you found that useful. If you would like a leaflet to download and print, you can buy a summarised version of my article here for £3 from my Patreon. Or you could become a member of the Patreon and get it for free. 

If you would like more of these kinds of lesson ideas, which are participatory, experiential, and more about the how than the what, check out the rest of my RSE resources in my shop here (or at my Patreon shop).