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Each day, the average Canadian student spends approximately seven hours and 45 minutes in front of some sort of screen, such as a smartphone, tablet, television or computer. Digital technologies have become inextricably entwined in many of our lives and are now no -ticeably shaping our students'iden-tities, habits of mind and physical exposure to the world around them.
In fact, according to a 2015 research study by Microsoft, our attention span has been reduced to that of a goldfish, less than eight seconds, by the clickable hyperlinks and constant demands of our digitally drenched mobile lives. Eight seconds is approximately the amount of time it took you to read up to this point, so thank you for staying with me this far. Less than a decade ago we had a 12-second attention span; as our screens colonize our lives, so our attention span diminishes.
To better understand the scope of physical, mental and social consequences of digital technologies in areas such as exercise, homework, identity formation, distraction, cognition, learning, technology compulsions, nutrition and sleep habits, researchers from the Alberta Teachers'Association, the University of Alberta, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have been working on...