8th Grade Community Project: Technology’s Impacts on the COVID-19 Crisis

8th Grade Community Project: Technologys Impacts on the COVID-19 Crisis

For our 8th grade community project we wanted to accurately document how technology affected us during COVID-19. After numerous hours of research, the consensus opinion we found was that all this extra technology usage is not good for you. To see how this particularly affected Pelham Middle School, we sent out a survey and found that students grades 6-8 average over 6 hours of screen time per day, and that 25% of students felt their mental health was negatively impacted. To follow this survey up, we sent out personalized screen time strategy emails out, depending on how much time you spent on screens. These emails contained different ways to help your brain cope with this excess screen time, such as employing the 20-20-20 rule. This means for every 20 minutes of screen time look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Combining this strategy with others is a proven method to help your brain stay strong. 

Tech during the COVID-19 crisis also impacted the world on a larger scale. It caused a small business crash, led to a social media boom and caused many people to become out of shape. With the world beginning to reopen, Pelham Middle School students, staff and everybody in the world can begin to get back to normal and reverse these negative technological effects. We are certainly excited to see everything open and function and are so happy to finally return to in-person school. But, before that happens, let’s still do what we can to keep our minds and bodies strong in the pandemic.