The 5 C's: guidelines for youth exposure to media

What you need to know about media and children's health

Young people spend more time using media -- TV, movies, music, computers, cell phones, and video games -- than engaging in any other single activity except sleep!

The media that children use and create play a key role in the development of their growing sense of themselves, of their world, and how they will learn to interact with their world. For any given child the way media shapes their sense of self and the world depends on the content of the media they take in/integrate, as well as the child's age, the amount of media, and whether the use is active and critical.

Five C's for families: Guidelines for  shaping media's influence on your child or teen:

Control time: No more that 1 to 2 hours per day (max).
Content matters: All media are educational. Some teach accurate, healthful lessons, while others teach distorted and harmful lessons.
Context is important: Where, when, how, and why and WITH WHOM young poeple use media strongly influences whether the media enrich or harm children.
Critical thinking: Teaching children active, critical media use is essential for healthy development.
Create and model media mastery: What we feed children's minds is as important as what we feed their bodies. Teach children a healthy media diet and continually engage in a discussion about media rather than passively consuming media.

Teen Sex Addiction: When Should a Parent be Concerned?

The following material is from the Oxbow Academy website. Oxbow is a residential treatment program in Utah that specializes in sexually compulsive behavior (including sex offender behaviors). I have personally seen this program in action and I STRONGLY encourage parents who suspect a residential program may be necessary to make the call to Oxbow. You will be in the best of hands.

What are considered “normal” teen behavior in regards to sex?

• Sexually explicit conversations with peers
• Obscenities and jokes within cultural norm
• Sexual innuendo, flirting and courtship
• Interest in erotica
• Solitary masturbation
• Hugging, kissing, holding hands
• Foreplay, (petting, making out, fondling) and mutual masturbation **
• Stable or Serial Monogamist intercourse: Stable monogamy is defined as a single sexual partner throughout adolescence. Serial monogamy indicates long-term (several months or years) involvement with a single partner which ends and is then followed by another. **

• Is my teen's behavior risky?

  Risk level is determined by the specific efforts the young man makes to avoid any structure or deterrent put in place by parents or authorities to stop the behavior. For example, a young man may be looking at pornography on the family computer. Having caught their teen parents put a block on the computer. The young man “hacks” through the block to continue access. That is considered risk.
  Some teens are embarrassed when caught. They value their relationship with their parents and stop the behavior. If the young man continues behavior, his parents may take away the internet service. Some adolescents will go as far as being caught in a friend’s home accessing porn on their computer. Being in a friend’s home has increased the level of risk the teen is willing to take.
  The bottom line is that the young man is willing to take a higher risk to continue his behaviors – even after it has caused family and/or social consequences.
  

  YELLOW FLAGS

  Although some of these yellow flag or cautionary behaviors are not necessarily outside the range of normal behavior exhibited in teen peer groups, there should be a serious assessment made in order to rule out any red flag, and/or illegal behaviors. This is especially true when the behaviors are in the context of more than one issue that is listed below:
  
  • Sexual preoccupation/anxiety (interfering in daily functioning)
  • Pornographic interest (The type of pornography is a major factor here.
  • Bestiality, child pornography, or violent pornography are examples of serious behavioral warnings.)
  • Sexual intercourse/promiscuity (indiscriminate sexual contact with more than one partner during the same period of time.)
  • Sexually aggressive themes/obscenities
  • Sexual graffiti (especially chronic and impacting individuals)
  • Embarrassment of others with sexual themes
  • Violation of others’ body space
  • Pulling skirts up/pants down
  • Single occurrence of peeping, exposing with known peers
  • Mooning and obscene gestures
  • Masturbation to underwear (very common)

  RED FLAGS

  Red flag behaviors need further specialized evaluation. It would be extremely rare to have a student involved in a single red flag behavior. Usually there will be additional yellow or red flag behaviors. Often, if more questions are asked, a pattern starts to appear. Red flag behaviors include:
  
  • Compulsive masturbation (especially chronic or public)
  • Degradation/humiliation of self or others with sexual themes
  • Attempting to expose others’ genitals
  • Chronic preoccupation with sexually aggressive pornography
  • Sexually explicit conversation with significantly younger children
  • Obscene phone calls, voyeurism, frottage, exhibitionism, sexual harassment
  • Touching genitals without permission (i.e. grabbing, goosing)
  • Sexually explicit threats (verbal or written)
  • Sexual contact with a significantly younger person. (Sibling, neighbor, relative)
  • Coerced sexual contact
  • Coerced penetration
  • Sexual contact with animals (bestiality)
  • Sexting (The use of cell phone or other electronic devise to send pictures of oneself or others.)

Teen Internet Addiction: The Disinhibition Effect

We are all equals: cyberspace and the minimization of authority

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This is the final blog on the topic of cyberspace and disinhibited teen behavior. When teens are online a person's status in the face-to-face world may not be known or it may not have as much impact as it does in three-dimensional reality. If the teen cannot see a person or the surroundings of a person, they may not know if that person's title carries authority or if they are an ordinary person lounging around at home in front of the computer. Even if teens do know something about a person's off-line status and power, that elevated position may have little impact on their online presence and influence. Teens tend to view everyone on the internet as an equals, as having a mutual and shared opportunity to give voice to their ideas and opinions. According to a typical teen, everyone, regardless of status, wealth, race, and gender starts off on a level playing field in cyberspace.

Teens are reluctant to say what they think when they stand before an authority figure. A fear of disapproval and punishment from "on high" dampens the spirit when in close proximity to power figure. But online, in what feels like a peer relationship, teens experience authority as minimized and thus they are much more willing to  speak out or misbehave. Teens see everyone as equal in cyberspace. Teens point to the fact that the Internet itself is engineered with no centralized authority or control. Teens see themselves as having endless potential for creating new environments and as result see themselves as independent minded explorers. This atmosphere contributes to a limited sense of authority and to increased disinhibited behavior.

The key issue with respect to teens and disinhibited behavior in cyberspace is to facilitate a dialogue about choices. The fact that cyberspace can contribute to disinhibited behavior does not mean parents or authority figures should clamp down on cyber expression. Rather, the better strategy is to point out how the unique and novel dynamics of cyberspace contribute to choices that the teen may live to regret. As has been noted in prior blogs, the best way to address online behavior is to empower teens with education and appropriate choices.

Teen internet addiction: the disinhibition effect

As is described in the previous blog John Suler discusses the disinhibition effect of teen behavior in cyberspace. The previous blog discussed how anonymity and invisibility contribute to disinhibited behavior.

This blog will focus on what is referred to as "asynchronicity" and "dissociative imagination."

See you later: asynchronicity


Whether in an e-mail or on a message board, communication in cyberspace can be asynchronous -- which simply means communication in cyberspace does not have occur in real time. When using cyber communication, teens can decide whether they want to respond in minutes, hours, days, or even months. Due to the fact teens can use cyber communication without having to react to a conversation partner's immediate reaction, disinhibition is increased. In real time we are confronted with having to deal with real feedback, problems, controversy, and disconnections. However, when in cyberspace, there are delays, which can contribute to making comments or giving feedback that is confrontational, rude, overly personal, or dramatic. We can all freeze time in cyberspace which contributes to communicating and then running for cover. In cyberspace we do not have to focus on or address the immediate consequences of our choices if we choose not to: we can hit the pause button and disappear.

It's just a game: dissociative imagination


Due to the fact teens can create what ever identity they want in cyberspace, that they are free to create a make-believe dimension (a dream world), separate and apart from the demands and responsibilities of the real world, their cyber behavior is more likely to be disinhibited. Teens in cyberspace split or disassociate online fiction from off-line fact. Teens are particularly vulnerable to viewing their online life as a kind of game with rules and norms that do not apply to everyday life. Once a teen has turned off the computer and returned to daily life, they often believe they can leave the cyber game and their cyber identity behind. The teen reflects: "why should I be held responsible for what happens in a make-believe world that has nothing to do with my reality?" As a result of being able to split off or disassociate online behavior from off-line reality, teenagers may become dangerously disinhibited or reckless.

Teen Internet Addiction: The Disinhibition Effect

John Suler has written about a phenomenon he calls the "disinhibition effect" of cyberspace. Suler states internet users say and do things in cyberspace that ordinarily they would not say or do in face-to-face encounters. This is particularly true of teens, who feel they can utilize the internet to disclose their deepest fears, desires, and opinions. Teens often reveal secret emotions and wishes and offer and receive open and direct feedback in a manner that they would typically avoid in school or community settings. There is something about cyberspace that removes internal inhibition or barriers and can lead to the open, honest and creative expression of ideas and feelings as well as the disclosure of highly personal and sensitive information that should remain in the private sphere.

What causes cyberspace disinhibition? What is it about cyberspace that loosens psychological barriers that typically block the release of inner feelings and needs? Suler states several factors are at play. For some individuals one or two factors produce most of the disinhibition effect. However, in most cases, multiple factors interact with each other, supplement each other, resulting in a more complicated and amplified effect.

This blog will be divided into three parts in order to give careful consideration to each of the factors that lead to disinhibition.

Part one: 

Dissociative anonymity
As teenagers and adults travel through cyberspace they have the option of concealing their identity and thereby remain fully anonymous. Travelers through cyberspace can have no name--  or at least not a real name. They can disclose their age or choose not to conceal their age. The traveler can report intimate details and preferences, likes, and dislike -- or they can choose not to disclose anything of substance. The bottom line is anonymity works to escalate the disinhibition effect. When people have the opportunity to separate their behavior online from their real-world identity off-line, they feel less vulnerable about being disinhibited. Whatever they say or do in cyberspace cannot be directly linked to their lives off-line. For teenagers this means that they do not have to take responsibility for their behavior by acknowledging their identity. When acting out hostile feelings, for example, teens can bully, intimidate, and behave in provocative ways with full and complete immunity due to anonymity.

Invisibility
The disinhibition effect is escalated further by the choice to remain invisible in cyberspace. Through e-mail,  message boards, chat rooms, and blogs a person's identity in terms of their name, age, and even geographical location may be clear. However, whether using e-mail or chatting or blogging a person can choose to remain physically invisible. The opportunity to be invisible amplifies the disinhition effect because it eliminates the need to focus on how a person looks and sounds when they communicate. If we do not have to consider how our conversation partner's physical and auditory presentation when they communicate the nature of communication is fundamentally changed.

Being able to see a person frown, shake their head, look confused, bored, or upset influences how we communicate. As 70 % of communication is broadcast across non-verbal channels, the fact that internet communication can eliminate non-verbal communication allows a speaker to take risks and stretch boundaries in a way he/she would not if in a face to face encounter. By taking in broadband communication --   facial expressions, tone of voice, changes in emotional states -- our intention to communicate is constantly evolving as we modify our intentions based on the flow of information. In summary, if we are invisible and our conversation partners are invisible, communication tends to lack consideration of the consequences of our communicative intentions. By not being able to see and hear an individual, the door to disinhibited behavior swings wide open.

In the next blog we  will cover how asynchronicity and dissociative imagination  contribute to disinhibition in cyber space.

Update:Youth and Media Lab At The Berkman Center

Youth and Media Lab

Expanding its work on young people and digital technologies, the Berkman Center is launching a youth-driven R&D lab for media literacy and digital empowerment – the Youth and Media Lab. more > Here is an announcement from the Berkman Center at Harvard:  "Expanding its work on young people and digital technologies, the Berkman Center is launching a youth-driven R&D lab for media literacy and digital empowerment – the Youth and Media Lab - supported by a grant from the McCormick Foundation."  "The Lab will bring together a small, diverse, and highly motivated group of talented young people with leading researchers and developers from the Berkman Center and with mentors from the Center’s broader network. The Lab will engage in innovative and creative ways with the core challenges and opportunities that youth encounter online, including issues such as online safety, privacy, credibility/information quality, civic participation, and entrepreneurship."
  "The Lab’s activities will focus on exploratory research, curriculum building, tool development and testing, and peer teaching and learning. Goals include increasing youth participation, promoting innovation, and fostering entrepreneurship."
  "The Lab will be based in Cambridge, but the Berkman Center’s Youth and Media team is eager to develop a global network of labs and partners, involving young people from distinct settings and backgrounds with one another and with a larger global community."

Understanding Teen Internet Addiction: digital natives versus digital immigrants

Parents now see their children spend multiple hours every day on computers, cell/smart phones, and gaming systems and are understandably concerned. Parents often tell their children the computer is a waste of time, Facebook isn't a meaningful way to communicate, texting reduces their ability to communicate, and their reliance on technology decreases their capacity to attend to such crucial tasks as reading books and writing papers.

Children respond to their parents concerns and complaints with a simple rejoinder: "You are tech phobic. You have no idea what you are talking about. You are living in the past!" Certainly, both parents and children have a valid perspective and differences in their perspectives can best be attributed to growing up in vastly different technological generations. The term "digital native" and "digital immigrant" was coined by Mark Prensky to describe this new divide between parents and today's children/teens. These terms designate people born in the digital era (generation X) and people born before the digital era (baby boomers). Certainly not all digital immigrants are the same. Some digital immigrants are enthusiastic about new technology, while others are committed to avoiding new technology. Technological "avoiders" prefer a lifestyle free of or with minimal engagement with new technology. They tend to have a landlines and may refuse to use cell phones or e-mail.

The differences between the digital native generation and the digital immigrant generation can be divided as follows.

Digital immigrants:

Prefer to talk on the phone or in person, text sparingly, prefer synchronistic communication, are accustomed to and like to read manuals with clear steps, assume they will work their way up the ladder in the workplace (in a linear fashion, in one career), enjoy face-to-face contact with their friends, value the use of proper english, use the internet to gather information, think young people are wasting their lives via online research (wikipedia generation) and communication, believe the internet is not "real life, " and have safety concerns such as kidnapping, assault, and robbery.

Digital natives:

Prefer to communicate via online chat, Facebook, videogame platforms and texting (more than 47% of teens can text with their eyes closed), prefer asynchronistic communication, do not utilize manuals (but prefer to problems solve intuitively), are interested in trying many careers, want balance between family, friends, activities, and work, prefer flexible hours, want opportunities to work remotely, socialize online in chat rooms, social networking sites, and gaming platforms, utilize texting and instant messaging shorthand rather than proper english, communicate about personal experiences by posting messages and posting photographs online, view the internet as real and often more pleasurable than off-line life, engage in multiple tasks or recreation activities at a time, and have safety concerns such as identity theft, privacy invasions, and cyber stalking.

Some families manage to successfully negotiate reasonable and equitable settlements with respect to the use of the internet, texting, gaming, and other forms of electronic communication and entertainment. These families tend to have parents who are open to new technology and may even be using technology in ways similar to their digital native offspring. These families also tend to see the use of current mode of technology as inevitable and therefore do not see the point in attempting to remove or inhibit the use of new technology.

Other families are concerned and highly anxious about how much time their children spend on the internet or gaming. They tend to communicate this anxiety and fear to their children, which falls on deaf ears. These parents tend to try to control their children's use of technology through setting parental controls, through the use of software, or by setting specific time limits. In response to these limitations children/teens work around the technological limits by lying, manipulating, and finding other ways continue to be online and play online games. In response to this defiance parents become increasingly frustrated, which eventually results in a locked power struggle. At this point, parents either resort to more extreme measures such as taking the computer away or they give up altogether. The child parent relationship escalates to alienation, disconnection, volatility, and even violence in certain cases.

The overwhelming consensus of current research on parental reactions to child/teen internet, smart phone, and gaming use is that working in a collaborative manner results in much more effective limit setting than does attempting to control or eliminate the use of current technologies. Current research also clearly reveals that many of the concerns that digital immigrants have of the lifestyles of digital natives are unfounded, particularly in the area of cyber stalkers, privacy and reputation.

The key to bridging the gap between digital immigrants and digital natives lies with the digital immigrants. Digital immigrants need to become more aware of the benefits of new media and technological platforms. With this said, many digital natives do not seem to have a reasonable or realistic sense of how much time they spend online, in chat rooms, texting, and gaming. As a typical child/teen is spending more than seven hours per day engaged with some form of technology, it is certainly a reasonable concern of digital immigrants that there are better ways to spend time: reading a book, writing a letter, hiking, swimming, going to the movies, eating out, traveling, and talking face-to-face.

Digital immigrants and digital natives have a great deal to offer one another, to teach one another, and to share with one another. If parents can be open to understanding the ways in which their children/teens think about technology and how technology is integrated into their lives, they will certainly have a better opportunity to offer opinions and provide guidance and influence. Likewise, digital natives need to learn to consider that their digital immigrant parents have a perspective on technology that could advance the quality of their lives.

More on the subject of digital immigrants and digital natives to come in additional blogs.