By Rosemary Smith
Managing Director – Getting Better Foundation
Impact Producer – “Trust Me” Documentary
For the last few decades, parents like me and you, students, and educators have struggled identifying why rates of anxiety, depression, polarization, and threats to democracy were rising while statistics demonstrated that this should be the absolute best time to be alive.
Evidence from esteemed psychologists now demonstrates how a lack of media literacy is leading to these crises. Longitudinal studies show how media literacy education – beginning as young as K-5 grades – helps foster resilience, trust, confidence, relationships, and collaboration on the bigger problems our world – and our kids’ world – is facing.
Unfortunately, our kids have the most to lose by not being offered media literacy in school or high school graduation requirements. This is like sending them out into this new world we created without a map for navigating it. They’ve been termed “iGen” or “GenZ” – those growing up with devices since birth. They don’t know a world before the internet or being connected 100% of the time. “Like reading, writing, and arithmetic, students should learn media literacy as a 21st-century skill.” – Jad Melki, Professor of Media at Lebanese-American University (LAU).
As demonstrated by the below chart from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the older we were when first exposed to smart devices, the less our mental health has been afflicted with anxiety. I witnessed this with my own, now adult children, until a brave psychologist enlightened us with the fact that smartphone overuse is like any other substance abuse. Excessive stimulation from devices triggers ongoing dopamine and serotonin releases – just like drugs, alcohol, gambling, smoking… or any other addictive behaviors. As our brains continue to receive hits from these chemicals (from scrolling, pinging, to relief of boredom or loneliness), it becomes harder and harder to remain in balance, so we seek higher doses and frequencies.
Now, I’m not a psychologist, but thanks to my experience as a parent and a smart doctor sharing his expertise, I’m able to recount what I’ve learned with you. Plenty of other experts also currently recognize the overwhelming data which reflects the trend of mental health issues because of an increase in media consumption since the internet. Not to mention increases in our mistrust of government, media outlets and polarization affecting our world.
Fortunately, we humans are smart. We figured out a long time ago how to deal with new media – first the printing press, then radio, television and video games. We also figured out how to identify, treat and beat addiction: abstinence and moderation in both cases, right? In more severe cases – rehab and medication. Most all therapy or mental well-being practices include a form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Meditation, visualization, yoga, exercise, getting out into nature… that’s all CBT. What we do daily to keep us healthy influences how we respond to the things that crop up during our day. If we slept in a warm bed, had a nutritious meal, and someone who cares for us… those things help us wake up a one or two on the mental health scale. Note – there’s no zero on that scale! Importantly, nobody is a zero on the scale. As life takes its chips at us – little problems or annoying people or events – our mental health declines – we may escalate to a three or four by the end of the day. Get a little fresh air and exercise, sleep in that warm bed… wake up a one or two again. Have you ever been told to “sleep on it”? There’s a reason going for a walk or giving our brains a rest triggers solutions to our problems!
Conversely, if we – or an adolescent whose brain is still forming – wakes up without a guardian who cares about them, without a safe space to sleep or healthy food or habits, they may start their day already a five or six on the scale. Life’s poking and plucking can increase our anxiety upward to 7, 8, or 9. So, when a final straw drops, we are set into crisis mode… AKA “fight or flight”. Our fight or flight mechanism is ingrained, natural, and serves as a survival mechanism. However, any of us in survival mode may be prompted to do something we normally wouldn’t do or respond in a manner we’ll regret later. This served us well when Sabre toothed tigers roamed around. Sabre toothed tiger type threats still exist. They are around every corner of the internet. Yes, the internet and smart devices are amazing, valuable tools that help us conduct our lives more efficiently and expediently. It’s not logical to do away with this incredible technology. What is logical is learning how to navigate it – like we learn the rules of the road while learning to drive a car.
At the Getting Better Foundation, we think of media literacy as CBT or the rules of the road. Media literacy helps us learn how to safely use smart devices for good. It is not political or divisive. Media literacy is more than learning to identify “fake news”, misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, or whatever terms we identify as online manipulation. Media and Information Literacy (MIL) teaches us how to communicate and how to use communication skills to identify important information to help us make our life decisions. It teaches us to critically consume and discern necessary media, toss unreliable data, and to create and share trustworthy information, thereby protecting our credibility as solutions-based journalists ourselves. We are all journalists since the advent of social media and smart devices. To communicate responsibly, trustworthily, and credibly, we need to use the same standards professional journalists use. That is media and information literacy. With it, we can confidently search for and apply to college or a job. MIL empowers us to act response-ably online. With MIL, we can foster civil discourse and bridging conversations that lead to positive change.
MIL is a scaffolding to build resilience, a foundation fostering dialog leading to collaboration. MIL empowers kids with the tools to make important life decisions… like who to hang around with, what kind of person they want to be, which educational or occupational route they might like to pursue, and how to conduct themselves with civility, a little care and concern for those on the other end of their conversations.
Tons of MIL organizations and resources are now available and provide solutions. The trick is sorting through all the noise. That’s why we’ve dedicated our life’s work to sharing vetted, trustworthy, non-biased resources to help bridge conversations between parents, educators, and students with the experts and resources they need, as found on our Getting Better Foundation’s website.
As parents, the best way to empower our children with MIL is to lead by example. Putting down our phones ourselves demonstrates our interest and desire to be included in our kids’ lives. Sharing nature, exercise, meals, and other interests helps us gain trust, encourage dialogue, and foster self-esteem. Setting guidelines for moderate access to smart devices and assigning our youth with tasks that expand their thinking and horizons gives them the courage to take calculated risk while still under our supervision. You don’t have to take my word for it… check out www.anxiousgeneration.com/ to hear from NYU Social Psychologist and author of “Anxious Generation”, Jonathan Haight. The best sources are sometimes from the mouths of GenZ themselves, like poet Kori Janes who virally posted reading her original poem “Our Parents Were Right – It’s the Damn Phones!” Ask a school counselor, family doctor, or psychologist for advice. To coin a phrase from Poynter’s Aaron Sharockman in “Trust Me” – “We created the problem, but we’ve also created the solutions… they’re just living right there alongside one another… on the internet.” Trust Me.