WEEK 1 – Youth, media and technology
Screen time in children and adolescents; is there any evidence to guide parents and
policy?
Ashton, J. J., & Beattie, R. M. (2019). Screen time in children and adolescents: is there evidence to guide parents and policy?. The Lancet
Child & Adolescent Health, 3(5), 292-294
The rise of the digital environment is unquestionable. Children and young people (CYP) in
developed countries now grow up with computers, tablets and phones intertwined with their
normal development and there is no doubt that significantly more time is spent ‘online’
compared to previous generations.
There is significant interest in the impact of screen time, social media and digital
entertainment on a wide variety of contemporary CYP issues, including child development,
obesity and mental health.
The general perception of screen time is negative with frequent media reports of the
adverse impacts on sleep, diet, social interaction and family life. However the evidence
underlying this is limited and often clouded by confounding factors including socioeconomic
grouping and negative associated behaviours.
The strongest evidence for an association (not causation!) with screen time is with:
A. Adiposity
B. Depressive symptoms
C. Unhealthy dietary
D. Snacking behaviour
E. Physical inactivity
The term ‘screen time’ is misleading and covers multiple technologies. Television is not new
but the way CYP digest and receive content has changed.
Can screen time be good?
The positive effects of being ‘technology literate’ from a young age are often not included as
outcome measures in research on screen time.
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, Plugged In – Chapter 1: Youth and Media
Valkenburg, P. M., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2017). Plugged in: How media attract and affect youth. Yale University Press.
In the 1990s, children and teens spent on average four hours a day with media; these
estimates have now skyrocketed to an average of six (for children) and nine hours a day (for
teens).1 As a matter of fact, today’s children and teens spend more time with media than they
do at school. And indeed, some of us are less concerned about what youth are learning in
school than about what they are picking up from their many hours with all those screens.
In 2015, virtually all teens had Facebook accounts, yet even a juggernaut like Facebook has
to continually do its best to stay ahead of the competition and not lose its users to newer,
more attractive interfaces such as Snapchat, TikTok, and so forth. Indeed, the truth of the
epigraph from Through the Looking-Glass is compelling: in the new media landscape, we
must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place.
The commercial environment surrounding youth is experiencing major changes, too.
Traditional TV advertising has lost its dominant position. The discrete thirty-second
commercial is no longer the best way to reach young people. Instead, advertisers are being
forced to create and implement other, often more covert forms of advertising, such as
product placement and advergames.
Today’s James Bond will gladly order a Heineken, and Mad Men’s Don Draper a
Canadian Club whiskey, which, according to its makers, has boosted the sales of
whiskey among teens
Then there is the world of games. In the 1990s, gaming was considered the domain of teenage
boys, but it has increasingly become mainstream for young and old, male and female.
Academic interest in youth and media
Within psychiatry and pediatric medicine, there are countless studies of the effects of media
use on aggressive behavior, attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obesity.
Neuroscientists are researching whether media use causes changes in brain areas responsible
for aggressive behavior, spatial awareness, and motor skills. Sociology is studying the
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, dynamics of youth cultures and teenage behavior in online social networks. Two major
interdisciplinary fields have been studying youth and media since the 1960s:
A. Cultural studies
* This field is concerned with the meaning of popular culture in daily life
* It primarily uses theories and methods from the fields of literature, history,
sociology, and anthropology
* Empirical methodology is typically qualitative and inductive in nature (for
example, in-depth interviews or focus groups)
* Cultural studies researchers focus on questions that fit within the critical
tradition for example, whether children and teens have the same access as
adults to media and technology, or how particular minority groups, such as
homosexuals or ethnic groups, are portrayed in popular culture aimed at youth.
B. Media psychology
* Research in this field gained momentum in the 1960s with Albert Bandura’s
famous studies on the effects of television violence
* Media psychology concerns itself with the use, power of attraction, and effects
of media on the individual
* It typically relies on quantitative, deductive research methods e.g.,
experiments, surveys, and longitudinal research
* Media psychologists, like researchers in cultural studies, make use of theories
from different disciplines They work mainly in communication studies, but
also in psychology and education.
Although many social trends have contributed to the dramatic growth of this academic
interest in youth, three trends have played particularly impressive roles.
1. The commercialization of the media environment around youth
* In the United States, where television has been commercial since its inception,
research on children and commercialism began in the 1970s
* By contrast, in the Netherlands there was no commercial television, and hence
no research on its effects, until 1989, when the first commercial station was
launched
* Children’s channels then sprouted like mushrooms, and before long no fewer
than 113 commercials were aired during a popular Saturday-morning
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