Engaging Children to be Readers — Digital Media Literacy — Part 10

“The most important thing about communication is hearing what isn’t said.” — Peter Drucker

This series has focused on the many aspects of engaging children to be readers. One important aspect of that is digital media. Education in the 21st Century must include teaching responsible digital media engagement. So what does that mean or look like? According to Dr. Ernest Morrell, research from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatricians, “talk about the negative health outcomes that are associated with overexposure and uncritical consumption of mainstream media. Some of those include sleep problems, depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Both of these organizations have asked adults, mostly teachers and parents, to step up and have critical conversations with children and teens about how they consume and produce media everything from reading, film, video games, mobile applications, to responsible citizenship and social media participation and cyberbullying.”

I was not aware of all the ways digital media can negatively impact a person's health as noted above. It is important for students to develop 21st Century media related skills. Students need to learn how to read the media as this can impact employability but also children need to develop a healthy social identity. If anyone has a social media presence they know first hand the impact it can have on how you feel about yourself. For a child, this relates to how they see themselves. They question and ask themselves: am I valuable, smart, beautiful, influential, powerful? Do I measure up to my friends? The social pressure is huge. When I was growing up when we went home there was relief from all the social pressure. However, now in the 21st Century, the social pressure enters our homes through the media. We are exposed 24 hours a day. It is difficult to unplug and get relief from the constant bombardment. We also know that social media has been a place where cyberbullying happens.

As I was reading Dr. Ernest Morrell’s article I was struck with the realization that I wish I had been taught about interacting with digital media productively and effectively. Before I started my career in elementary education, I work for a very successful advertising agency in Minneapolis. I worked as a broadcast traffic manager. I was responsible for working with the creative team, the account managers and media people as well as others to traffic radio and TV ads through the creative process and made sure the commercials arrived at the stations on time for broadcast. It was a fun job and I observed how a lot of commercials were created. Even with that exposure to media, after reading this article I realize I am not always as discerning as I should be.

Dr. Morrell suggests, that students should ask a set of questions to learn to evaluate what they are seeing or hearing. They need to question what values are being promoted? What does it mean to have power? What does it mean to be on the outside? They also need to consider how consumers are targeted as an audience and what they are being compelled to think or believe. The messages we are being bombarded with over and over throughout the day we have to determine if we believe the message and if we’re going to buy into it. One of Dr. Morrell’s examples really hit home for me. He discussed Seventeen, magazine and the two subtle messages it sends teen girls about being pretty and sexy. He said those two words appear on almost every Seventeen cover. These words are used to influence and shape the beliefs and attitudes of young girls at a critical time in their development. He goes on to suggest that magazines such as this do nothing to promote being smart, courageous, or standing up for what you believe in. This is a real problem when it affects the identify formation of young girls. I know from experience the beliefs we form about ourselves at this young age, we often carry with us throughout our life. It is very difficult to alter this belief system. Believe me I have tried!

As parents and educators, we need to consider how much time our children or students are engaged with media. This is one of the reasons as an educator I am not in favor of having students read and do a lot of work on ipads or chromebooks. I believe they are engaging in media platforms outside of school and need to be exposed to other ways of learning during school hours. Dr. Morrell states young people are “reading the media on average seven or eight hours a day which is upwards of 50 hours a week ro 2,500 hours a year. We definitely need to think about how to help young people consume media more powerfully and more thoughtfully.” Those numbers are staggering and alarming to me. Once again the message you will always hear from me is balance! We need to find a healthy balance in digital media consumption as well as teaching children to be discerning in what they see.

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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

― Frederick Douglass

The joy is in the journey!

Blessings and Peace,

Mary