‘It is in our everyday lives’: Native youth on digital well-being
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Upcoming high school senior Clara Rebhan visits her favorite café in West St. Paul, Amore Coffee, to take a break from screens. She meets with friends in the summer or, during the school year, finds a space to sit and do homework assignments at the café.
“This is definitely a spot that I continue to go to,” she said.
Rebhan is Cheyenne River Lakota and a student at Two Rivers High School in Mendota Heights. She participates in a club dedicated to digital well-being — a club she will lead when the academic year begins in September.
“I've been a part of that club since my freshman year,” she said. Rebhan joined the club to find ways to cut down on her screen time, an issue she noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic when schools transitioned to online learning.
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“There’s a lot of isolation and then a lot of dependence on our screens,” she said. That dependency, Rebhan says, can bring out negative feelings for herself and peers.
A report released in March by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community examines digital well-being in Native youth. A survey gathered information from 242 educators and youth professionals who primarily work with Native youth.
The first-of-its-kind research focused on Native youth was conducted by Minnesota-based nonprofit LiveMore ScreenLess. Respondents reported loneliness and depression as being a primary impact from technology use.
“I do feel, like, kind of icky once I get off. There is a level of regret,” Rebhan said, referring to instances where she is on her phone, continuously checking social media in a state of what she and other young people refer to as “doomscrolling.”
‘How do we balance it’
Not all aspects of technology use are negative, Rebhan says.
“There's time and place for it, and good places to take a break,” she said.
About 90 percent of survey participants said addressing the use of technology and media is more important than other issues facing Native youth today.
Ashley Cornforth is the secretary-treasurer of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community and the co-chair of IndigeFit Kids, a $6 million campaign created to improve the physical, mental and overall health of Native youth.
She acknowledges that while the report found an overwhelming negative impact from technology, she says it can also benefit classrooms and everyday life. One purpose of the survey was to identify ways in which educators, youth professionals and adults can support healthy technology use in youths’ lives.
“We're not trying to have this narrative that it's bad, but we're trying to figure out how do we then balance it,” said Cornforth. “The youth themselves want to know that they're being thought of.”
Findings in the report say technology may be a way for some young people to connect with their peers or to connect with their culture.
Rebhan follows Indigenous creators and influencers on social media, which helps her to feel less isolated at times and more connected to her heritage.
“It's always really helpful to see someone that looks like you or is going through the same stuff you're doing out in the open, like you're not alone in this world,” Rebhan said.
LiveMore ScreenLess and SMSC held a digital well-being workshop in early May. Educators and youth professionals from across the state attended, looking for ways to learn more about the youth perspective on technology.
Delaney Villebrun attended the summit. She is only a few years older than Rebhan but shares similar viewpoints on technology.
“I think that, with being on your phone so much and kind of just living through technology, you do miss out on those connections that you could be having with the people around you,” Villebrun said.
Through the report’s findings, Cornforth encourages adults to connect with their youth or find opportunities to connect in person.
“How can we foster that stuff more as tribal communities?” she said. “How do we build on the positives and then help them go through some of the struggles that do come along with technology?”
‘It is in our everyday lives’
After joining the digital well-being club at school, Clara Rebhan says she is proactive in monitoring her screen time with the use of a screen block, which limits how long she is on her device.
“There is a really good balance of having fun with technology and using it,” she said.
With the help of her parents, she tries to find that balance by pursuing her hobbies, like beading, or attending powwows when she wants to connect with culture.
“You use technology every single day. I use it to communicate with my friends, my parents, emails, whatever it is,” Rebhan said, adding that it can be a helpful tool in some respects. “We can't take it away. It is in our everyday lives for good, and there's no going back on that.”
Through her school club, Rebhan aspires to help her peers see the benefits of spending time away from screens in a time when technology feels more integrated than ever.
Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
