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In the 2000s and early 2010s, less of your life was lived on a cell phone or smartphone.

For kids now, it’s 100% of their lives. Post-COVID, the majority of social interaction between peers is through a social media app.

That means that close to 100% of kids are on their phones during the school day. If you aren’t, you run the risk of social isolation and FOMO.

Administrators can’t send a kid to detention for using their phone because ALL kids would be in detention every day.

Here’s one article that examines the problem

Archived version

https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPOHf20slZg

There are a ton of style guides beyond APA. In addition to APA, I’ve used MLA, Chicago and Turabian through my academic career (BA, MS, MBA).

The likelihood of using any style guide outside of academia is low. However, in some non-academic research situations, you might use a style guide. Think about research done at a tech company where you need to document your work and distribute it for review, dissemination or presentation. Or maybe a policy institute or think tank who want to effect change at a state or federal level.

That said, teaching high school students about APA or MLA is more about helping them understand how research happens and is documented. You need to understand how to A) read what other people think about a topic and B) share your thoughts in a way that builds upon the extant literature.

This process of learning research methods also teaches you to be a critical thinker. Did the Author of Study A say something that you don’t agree with? Can you find Study B that refutes that point, or does the entire community agree with it?

Apply that concept to something like the news. You might hear a Fact like 5,000 immigrants cross the southern border every day. Is that a lot? Is that good or bad?

Now you can go read some analysis.

• A conservative author might say that all immigration is bad because they deprive jobs from citizens. We need to block all border crossings.
• A progressive author might say that immigrants create jobs or provide a net benefit to the economy. We need to permit more legal immigration.

Which opinion is correct? How would you gather more information to understand the situation? How would you build upon those two ideas to form your own opinion?