Deepthi Sharma testifies on contradictions in screen time policy and uncurated access

Good afternoon, almost good evening now.

Chairman Dinowitz and Krishnan, thank you for hosting this and members of the committees on education and oversight.

My name is Deepthi Sharma.

I'm a Queens native, daughter of immigrants, mother of two sons, raising them in New York City public schools in third and fifth grade.

I'm also a serial entrepreneur of two tech companies, a board member at Brooklyn Tech, my alma mater, and I teach entrepreneurship at Barnard College.

But today I'm here as a parent.

I don't think we've been asking the right question about screening time in our schools.

We spent a lot of energy on access and who has it.

And I know we've been harping on what happened in 2020.

Right now, my sons can turn on YouTube and end up anywhere.

I think we've been hearing it all afternoon.

It's not curated, it's not tracked, and no one is accountable for what it leads to.

I've heard all the things that my kids have been watching, and it's extremely disheartening and inappropriate.

It's not just at home.

In their after-school programs, kids are handed devices and left on them with no real structure around what they're watching or why.

What frustrates me the most is the contradiction, the same system that tells parents to get their kids reading.

More is, you know, the one that is putting them on and in front of screens for them to complete homework, to do remote assignments, to fill instructional time.

Their assessments and testing is also all done primarily on screens.

And earlier this year, when my son was supposed to be taking his test, they were all delayed and canceled because of the technology they were supposed to be using.

But real learning doesn't really happen by staring at a screen alone.

I think we all know that.

It happens when kids are talking to each other, opening an actual book, going to the library, researching something because they're curious about it.

We're quietly replacing that kind of learning with passive screen time and it's

you know, being called instruction.

So my ask to this committee is to simply just stop treating screen time as a policy, but as a question, you know, of like, what is it actually doing to our kids and start treating it as a question of use.

That means really- Thank you for your testimony.

Time has expired.

Content kids can actually watch on school issued and school facilitated devices and not just open access to YouTube and all the games that exist.

My kids actually have a running document with their friends where they share.

Got about five seconds left.

And it means protecting them from screen.

So thank you for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to testify.

Thanks so much, Deepthi.

Next, we have Kayla Spence.

You may begin.