La multimodalità a scuola tra FoMO e Phubbing

Andrea SPANO

2024-01-01

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Abstract

In recent years, an almost inseparable link has been created between multimodality and multimedia within educational and teaching practices. The technological progress and the digitalization plans of the schools produced an overlap of the constructs of multimodality and multimedia in the discursive syntheses inherent to pedagogical practice, because of the continuous combinations between traditional and digital methods. However, the social transformations of the digital age, including the problems that the spread of smartphones and tablets has brought about, requires us to separate both the two concepts and their practical manifestations. This is necessary if we want to promote a kind of education that comprehends critically, in the complexity of educational needs, how dysfunctional digital behaviours can affect personal development processes. Therefore, this article proposes a theoretical reflection around the need to rethink all the teaching strategies that imply the digital devices usage, considering the effects produced by the phenomena of FoMO and Phubbing. In accordance with the awareness obtained from research in the psychological field, it is reasonable to think that excessive exposure to multimedia can produce a sort of illiteracy about the multiple forms of communication that constitute what we call multimodality. All this creates a new challenge for teachers.