Joseph Senda on screen addiction and power imbalance with DOE

Sure.

Hey.

No pressure.

Joseph Senda.

I'm a parent at PS 184 in

Manhattan, not too far from here in the District 1, I think.

Our school has a committee that we've formed that is led by one of the moms who's a psychiatrist herself, and she's coming at this from...

What is this doing to kids'brains?

It's very, like, focused on the youngest grades.

That's where our concern is.

I think you're doing another hearing that's going to be more about screen time in September, so it might come back.

But for now, yeah, I wanted to testify to what I'm seeing in my son.

A lot of...

Like, looking forward, you know, he's like looking forward to a particular class, and I say, what's going to happen in that class?

And he's like, I'm going to be playing a game.

You know, it's dressed up as education, but it's...

It's really a game, and whether it's supposedly learning about English or learning about math, at the end of the day,

I think it's like implanting an addictive type of attachment to technology.

I did listen to everything earlier, and I really, you know, we were wondering whether we should advocate at the district level, the city council level, the state or the federal level.

I really appreciate everything I heard from you guys today.

I think there's a power imbalance between the DOE and the council.

It feels like you guys are almost like foiling, like as if you're an outside entity.

So we really appreciate your support, and we'd love to know what we can do.

You know, if it's as a parent association, individual parents, should I be contacting my council member?

Whatever it is, we want to support you.

Thank you.

We do have one more on Zoom.