Digital Media and Your Brain

How does digital media try to hook you, and what can you do about it?

Sometimes when you're using media, it's hard to stop. Lots of people even say they feel "addicted" to their phones or the apps and games they use. But is digital media actually designed to get you hooked? Have students think about the ways different digital media does -- and does not -- help us find healthy media balance.

This is one of four lessons in our digital well-being collection for middle school. If time permits, we recommend teaching all four lessons, in the suggested order, to maximize impact.

Objectives:

• Explore ways that different digital media are, and aren't, designed to help them make good media choices.
• Reflect on how digital media is designed to either help or hinder the addition of meaning and value to their lives.
• Think about how to develop good, healthy habits when using digital media.

Vocabulary 

• addictive design 
• feedback loop 
• habit 
• humane design

Select the Green Resource Library button to access the lesson