Hello friend.
I hope you had a wonderful Easter holiday and are enjoying the glorious sunshine!
In this newsletter, I’ll explain how social media and AI are negatively impacting your students' brain development and how you can better support them.
But if you understand these changes, you can spot hidden patterns behind behaviour problems, emotional struggles, and learning difficulties.
Friend, you’ll also have better strategies for reaching students where they are instead of wishing for a classroom that no longer exists.
Like your favourite computer game, you’ll unlock calmer classrooms, deeper learning, and stronger student relationships.
Most of the ‘talking heads’ on the telly tell you kids just need “more discipline” or “better parents.”
But they are wrong.
Today’s children are not simply “misbehaving” — they are growing up with rewired brains shaped by social media and AI, and the old teaching methods won’t be enough unless we change too.
What I’ll cover today is:
- Why attention spans are shrinking,
- How AI and social media reward loops are built to keep us distracted
- Why our youngsters seem even more dysregulated than ever
Let's dive in.
#1 Social media Gives Our Students ‘Goldfish’ Memories
When you have your phone near you, do you:
• Find it hard to concentrate on completing one thing?
• Find it difficult to 'get into the zone' on your tasks?
• Find yourself diving between emails, texts, social media and 100 other apps?
Yep. I see you. You’re not alone. And it’s even worse for our young people.
Generation Z and Alpha students are bombarded by rapid-fire information across platforms.
Researchers found that heavy digital media use in teens correlates with increased ADHD symptoms and reduced sustained attention1.
Our young people’s brains are becoming wired for constant novelty instead of deep focus, which is critical for learning and problem-solving.
Without support, our youngsters can barely stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time and constantly drift off-task.
This lack of focus leads to ‘goldfish brain’—students struggle to retain what they learn and disengage from deep learning.
You can counteract these effects by:
- Breaking lessons into short, varied segments
- Use 10–20 minute silent “focus time” for deep work.
- End "focus time" with “brain breaks” which are lighter activities to help students recharge and let you check in.
Learning is like running a marathon. Using these measures helps your students rebuild their ‘learning stamina’ and stay engaged in your classrooms.
#2 Social Media Makes Your Students Slaves to “Likes, Comments and Subscribes.”
Your students’ online lives matter as much as their real ones—they carefully craft digital personas to win their mates' approval and attention.
The social media platforms say snappy slogans like "we give you the power of community in the palm of your hand" and we lap it.
But lurking underneath this shiny idea is something darker...
Social media “likes,” AI-curated feeds, and instant notifications encourage dopamine release, reinforcing dependence on immediate rewards.
Receiving a “like” activates the brain’s reward circuits, similar to eating or winning money. Over time, this weakens intrinsic motivation—the deep drive to persist without external praise2.
This makes your students constantly seek outside approval even for the simplest things. Combine this with good ol’ fashioned peer-pressure, our young may do extreme acts just to get props on ‘The Gram.’
Educators, to challenge this, we have to make sure that our feedback emphasises values like:
• Effort
• Reflection
• Overcoming adversity
Social media is designed to make us feel inadequate and like we constantly miss out on the 'best of life.'
But like many great philosophers, religious leaders and thinkers over thousands of years have told us, true fulfilment is always inside-out, not the other way around. Their self-worth should never be determined by an algorithm.
Teaching these values helps young people build resilience and handle life’s challenges without folding up like a garden chair at the end of the summer barbecue.
#3 Social Media Makes Them Want to ‘Beast Out’ More Than Ever.
On any social media platform, what subjects are always trending?
• International conflict
• Lewd material
• Violent crime
You know, all the nice stuff you want to chat with your Mum after Sunday lunch...
They call it ‘doomscrolling’ for a reason.
Social media and AI algorithms often prioritise emotionally charged content, heightening anxiety, fear, and social comparison.
A large meta-analysis found strong links between heavy social media use and increased depression and anxiety among young people.
Emotional overload decreases our students’ ability to self-soothe and scrambles higher executive functions like reasoning and memory3.
The result?
Because our students are so ‘wired’, even the most minor disagreements can make them kick off in your classroom worse than Arsenal vs Tottenham at Highbury.
In my 6 years of consulting, it’s this problem that teachers complain about the most.
I know I bang on about this, but this is why trauma-informed practice is so key.
When teachers can:
• conduct emotional check-ins,
• teach coping skills, and
• create safe spaces where students can be vulnerable,
Students learn to process their feelings, self-soothe and recover faster — creating a safer, calmer learning environment for all.
Look, some kids have really been traumatised by life, and they want to ‘watch the world burn.’
Although we want to help them, as educators, it’s not within our scope to fix all their problems.
But let me assure you, they are a small minority.
The majority of our young people are growing up in an ever more dangerous, disruptive and uncertain world than most of us ever have to face. Plus, they use technologies that are designed to be as addictive as Class A drugs in their pockets.
We need to cut ‘em some slack.
But we can help them.
By adapting your teaching to these challenges, you're not only helping them pass their exams but giving them an emotional template that will help them navigate and thrive in their future.
How cool is that?
TLDR: -
• Attention spans are shrinking: design short, active lessons with “brain breaks.”
• Students crave external validation: build intrinsic motivation through feedback.
• Emotional regulation is fragile: teach emotional literacy openly.
But if you want a deeper look into this topic, I wrote all about it in my second book, “The Action Hero Teacher 2: Teachers of the Lost Class.”
In there, I discuss how COVID-19 was the birth of the Information Age and how this event changed teaching forever.
Sounds a little scary. But don't worry - I’m not gonna leave you hangin’.
Of course, I provide you with my best tips, tricks and strategies to help you teach and engage your 21st-century students in style.
Have a gander when you are ready.
That’s all for today.
The next TOTR newsletter comes out on Thursday 15th May 2025.
See you then.
Karl
REFERENCES
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328371592_Associations_between_screen_time_and_lower_psychological_well-being_among_children_and_adolescents_Evidence_from_a_population-based_study
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616645673
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851#d1e151
