Digital Well-Being: Pause, Notice, Replace

Please refer to our Before You Teach guides for resources to support your practice.

‍Mental Health 101

Safer Language

Classroom Discussion Guide

In this activity, students examine when their screen use feels automatic or unhelpful, then create small, realistic strategies to pause or replace those habits in support of their well-being.

This is the second in a three-part series of activities to help students build healthy digital habits and support their well-being. Be sure to check out the other activities:

Digital Well-Being: Digital Snapshot & Intention Check

Digital Well-Being: Digital Spaces That Lift You Up

Students will...

• learn to interrupt automatic scrolling and begin to make intentional changes.

Handouts

Handout: Pause, Notice, Replace

Additional Materials

• Pen/pencil

• Hook
• Reflection
• Intention Setting
• Wrap Up

Step 1: Quick Setup (1–2 min)

Hook: "Raise your hand if you’ve ever opened your phone for one reason and ended up doing something completely different."

Remind students: “Last time, we reflected on how social media affects us. Today we’ll think about how to notice those automatic scroll moments — and what else we could do instead.”

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Step 2: Identify the Habit (3–5 min)

Ask students to jot down answers to these prompts:

• “When do I usually reach for my phone/device without thinking?” (examples: waiting in line, before bed, when bored, after homework)
• “What usually happens next?” (example: I scroll for 20 minutes, I feel distracted, I forget what I was going to do)

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Step 3: Plan the Pause (3–5 min)

Invite students to complete the table on the handout. (Examples are provided in first three rows.)

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Step 4: Quick Wrap-Up (2–3 min)

Ask students to reflect or share:

• “Which replacement feels easiest to try this week?”
• “How might pausing before scrolling change how I feel?”
  
  

Optional: Have students set a one-week intention, e.g.“This week, I’ll pause before opening my phone after school and decide if that’s really what I need.”

Physical and Health Education Canada

Grade 10

Express healthy digital limits and ways to address misuse or addiction (e.g., social media, use of technology, gaming, online shopping, gambling)

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British Columbia

Career-Life Education

Learning Standards: Curricular Competency

Experience

• Practise effective strategies for healthy school/work/life balance

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Manitoba

Physical Education and Health 20F

Achievement Objectives

Applies healthy stress-management strategies and communication skills for stress reduction in case scenarios.

Designs, implements, evaluates and revises action plans for making personal and group decisions for active, healthy lifestyle practices.

Specific Student Learning Outcomes

K4S2C4a

• Examine the strategies and defence mechanisms that can be healthy or unhealthy ways of managing stress.

K5S2A2

• Demonstrate knowledge of healthy lifestyles practices that contribute to disease/illness prevention, including mental illness/disorders.

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New Brunswick

Personal Wellness 9

Big Idea: Positive Mental Fitness Strategies

Achievement Indicators:

Identify strategies to build own positive mental health.

Big Idea: Helpful and Harmful Choices

Achievement Indicators:

Analyze how food, screen time, and substances may affect an individual’s health (e.g., mental, social, emotional, and physical including brain development)

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Wellness Through Physical Education (110)

General Curriculum Outcome:

1.0 Students demonstrate an understanding of the concept of wellness.

Specific Curriculum Outcome:

1.2 Students evaluate and address personal wellness needs.

1.3 Students analyze how society, media and culture influence wellness

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Ontario

Healthy Active Living Education, Grade 10 (PPL 2O)

Specific Expectations

C1 Understanding Health Concepts

• 1.1 Demonstrate an understanding of factors that enhance mental health and emotional and spiritual well-being
• 1.2 Demonstrate an understanding of the impact of substance use and addictive behaviours on all aspects (e.g., physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, social, economic) of a person’s health and well-being (ON)

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Healthy Active Living Education, Grade 12 (PPL4O)

Specific Expectations

C2 Making Healthy Choices

• 2.3 Describe how coping and interpersonal skills and their knowledge of personal protective and risk factors can be used to develop resilience and enhance their ability to make healthy choices, including the avoidance of substance use and addictive behaviours

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Recreation and Healthy Active Living Leadership (PLF4M)

Specific Expectations

C2 Healthy Active Living Plan

• 2.1 Describe how healthier choices related to physical activity, healthy eating, and other aspects of everyday living (e.g., limiting screen time and increasing participation in a variety of physical activities that provide cardiovascular and muscular endurance, muscular strength, or flexibility benefits; eating balanced meals; choosing nutritious snacks; managing stress; getting enough sleep; making choices with personal safety in mind) contribute to better physical, mental, and social health and greater personal well-being (ON)

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Prince Edward Island

Physical and Health Education 9 (9PHEA)

‍Specific Curriculum Outcomes

Learners are expected to create a personalized mental health plan

‍Achievement Indicators

Develop and implement a personalized mental health plan that incorporates evidence-based strategies, self-awareness, and healthy decision-making skills

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Wellness (PED401A)

Outcomes and Indicators

W1. Evaluate one’s self in each dimension of wellness.

‍l. Examine the relationships among defense mechanisms, feelings, behaviours, and mental health (i.e., ways we protect ourselves from things we do not want to think about or deal with).

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Saskatchewan

Wellness 10

Outcomes and Indicators

W4. l. Examine the relationships among defense mechanisms, feelings, behaviours, and mental health (i.e., ways we protect ourselves from things we do not want to think about or deal with).

W5.g. Examine emotional and behavioural patterns of self and others and determine related impact on optimal wellness.