When was the last time you paid attention to what you were consuming online?
For Schnelle Acevedo, founder of BAM Digital Literacy, the realization that her and her children’s digital presence can be consuming started in their home.
Acevedo began blogging in 2016 covering lifestyle topics on her blog, Brooklyn Active Mama. After retiring from her full-time job to transition fully into blogging following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she noticed how, like herself, her three children were glued to their digital devices.
"I started to see that my kids were really into their screens," Acevedo said. "There was nothing else to do. We couldn't go out. Everything was shut down."
At the time, her children were 15, 13 and 5. Acevedo started to become more aware of what they were watching. And like many children, when it was time for them to log out of their favorite apps or devices, they became angry.
Acevedo wondered what made them so interested in the digital world. This is where her research on algorithms, content social media and overall digital literacy began.
Now, almost 7 years later, Acevedo's platform teaches parents, schools and students of the importance of digital literacy and how to use platforms the proper way.
She connects with schools teaching grades 3-12 about algorithms and their influence, children's digital footprint even after something is deleted and now, content creation and what it can look like for someone to use their digital landscape intentionally.
Acevedo’s method is never to teach from a place of judgment, she says. Instead, she encourages her students to use the facts to begin to think for themselves to promote conscious decision making.
"I'm never telling them, 'Don't be on the phone. Don't be on the screens,'" Acevedo told BK Reader. "I'm not that type of an instructor."
“I do ask them questions like, "Why do you think the internet is free?’ Or, ‘Why do you think you can't put the phone down,’ so that they can start reflecting and having more awareness for themselves," Acevedo said.
Acevedo meets the people she works with where they are. Many of her students have a wide range of knowledge of online usage, ranging from social media to gaming applications like Roblox, while others are not aware of the complexities of these applications, Acevedo said.
“I have heard from a couple of parents during the family engagement workshops, and they said that they weren't really aware of how much they were using the phones themselves,” Acevedo said.
Many parents started adopt solutions such as putting their phones down with their families at dinner time or during reading time.
Recently, with the recent surge of AI usage, Acevedo has had to add to her programming. While she admits AI and the skills associated with it are in high demand, it can also, “hallucinate,” users with information that may not always be completely factual.
These developments come after the recent announcement from Mayor Zohran Mamdani banning student-facing generative AI tools for students in preschools through eighth grade across New York City, according to Chalkbeat. The approach also limits AI use in high schools and the amount of screen time access for younger students.
BAM exists not to ban screen time in an expanding digital world, but rather to urge users to question the complexities of it.
