Notes from the Social Media Awareness & Digital Citizenship Advisory Committee Meeting

“We’re all in this together.”

On October 22, 2024, we held our inaugural meeting of the Social Media Awareness and Digital Citizenship Advisory Committee at Barrington High School. This committee—comprised of around 40 students, parents, staff, and community members—was formed as part of the Health & Well-Being initiative within our Framework 220 plan and aims to foster a safe and healthy digital environment for our students and staff.

Meeting Summary 

• Team-Building Inclusion Activity and Working Agreements 
• Engaged participants in an interactive activity to foster connections and set a collaborative tone. 
• Diverse Group Representation 
• Formed participant groups that included staff, students, parents, and community members, ensuring a wide range of perspectives. 
• Research Review 
• Reviewed recent, relevant research on technology use by adolescents, encompassing data from across the United States and specifically from Barrington 220. 
• Developed a foundational understanding of the experiences of middle and high school students with access to technology. 
• Design Thinking Process
• Empathy 
• Conducted activities focused on building empathy for students through the use of an Empathy Map. 
• Define 
• Identified and named various issues related to technology use as part of the first diamond of the design thinking framework. 
• Engaged in a voting process to prioritize issues needing attention. 
• Ideate 
• Transitioned to the second diamond by brainstorming potential solutions to the identified issues. 
• Utilized an Eisenhower Matrix to evaluate solutions based on their impact and the effort required for implementation. 
• Preparation for Next Meeting 
• Outlined book studies for two significant texts: 
• Growing Up in Public by Devorah Heitner
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Next Steps

Our next steps will include collaborating with author, speaker, and researcher Devorah Heitner as a consultant to deepen our understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by social media in the lives of our students. We will conduct separate focus group interviews with students, staff, parents, and community members to gather diverse insights and perspectives on the experiences and expertise related to social media use. This approach stems from feedback received during our initial meeting, emphasizing the importance of directly engaging especially with our students. The findings from these focus groups will be compiled and reported to inform our next steps.