I agree that “partial attention is the norm” given the global smartphone culture. Unfortunately, research on children and television that predated the Internet didn’t deter the ubiquitous nature of social media and its negative consequences.
Research that was done in the 80s should have shown us what a Pandora’s box children’s access to smartphones / social media/ uncensored content would open. A 1988 article in The Journal of Special Education (Sprafkin J., Gadow, K.D. & Kant, G. “Teaching emotionally disturbed children to discriminate reality from fantasy on television”) demonstrated that emotionally disturbed children not only watch more television than other children, but they are more likely to want to imitate their favorite TV characters and typically believe what they view on TV is real. This research also claims emotionally disturbed children are highly reactive to aggressive content on TV. There was a curriculum tested (television viewing skills - TVS) which was intended to demystify TV via providing children with an understanding of how programs are produced, what’s real vs. pretend, what special effects are, and why there are commercials. The researchers found the curriculum worked to a certain degree for all areas except commercials.
What was most interesting, is that neither group of children in the study was able to understand that commercials are merely persuasive messages.
Here we are today with a continuous stream of all types of messaging to children as well as adults who are on “partial attention” mode…Yes, we need to teach students how to use technology to their benefit instead of the other way around!