As a society, we often give information to others hoping to elicit some fear with the goal of getting a desired behavior. Think for example of schools teaching kids about cyberbullying and sexting and having police officers deliver the message so it is clear that they should be scared, really scared of consequences.
Unfortunately, scare tactics for long term behavior change have proven to not be very effective. Let me give one example. Massive public health campaigns designed to combat smoking that showed images of damaged lungs and testimonials from people who were diagnosed with lung cancer from smoking were meant to scare us into not smoking.
It turns out that those campaigns had surprisingly little impact on behavior decisions. What eventually turned the tide for cutting smoking rates were two main tactics: Substantially raising the cost of cigarettes and placing strong limits on the places where people could smoke. Of course, continuing to educate about the ill effects of tobacco is important but if we had just focused on using scare tactics we would not have made the major progress we see today.
Scare tactics can work better for short term behavior change—but the main point for today is to examine a better tactic than scare tactics which I call “Share Tactics.”
But first, let's explore some science about why scare tactics are not very effective when it comes to youth and screen time. The part of the brain that responds to fear is the amygdala. This is where warnings that something scary is about to take place resides. Do you remember when you first watched a scary movie with creepy music as the camera takes you down an eerie hotel hallway? Even when you don’t, the amygdala does. That’s why you may get creeped out in empty hallways later in life.
This is crucial. Learning from fearful stimuli helps us avoid and escape danger. But what happens when your amygdala is shooting fear straight to your nerves and nothing bad happens? You stop responding. This is exactly what is happening with our kids when we keep saying to them, “too much YouTube is bad for your brain” or “playing violent video games will make you violent.”
If we constantly yell “DANGER DANGER” and the warning is not in sync with your child’s experience, they will then drown out our words.
I get that it is very hard to have restraint when things seem scary since we feel like it is our job to always protect our youth. We worry about the risk of video games, social media, binge-watching, social cruelty, anxiety, grades … the list goes on and on. So what do we do?
A Share Tactic is all about sharing stories, science, and our experiences to help youth develop their own compass about the best ways to use tech in their lives. Sharing the science of sleep, sharing stories of how youth have good experiences on social media, but also some of the hard ones like sharing the facts about laws on sexting, etc.
People, especially tweens and teens, are not big fans of being told what to do and think. Instead of talking at them in a doom and gloom way, include them in the conversation. Listen to their experiences and opinions about the dangers social media, video games, and too much YouTube can have. Calm conversations about statistics, real-life stories and how they relate to us are what gets people, including tweens and teens, thinking and acting preventatively.
And of course, these share tactics help us to work together to define and follow rules to have sacred, screen-free times in our lives.
Here are some questions to get you started:
We would love for you to share this TTT any way that works for you, whether that’s on social media or via a newsletter. If you want to send it out in your newsletter we just ask that you credit us and link to our website, and let us know at lisa@screenagersmovie.com.
HOST A SCREENING to help spark change.
FIND EVENT LISTINGS
Do you organize professional development in schools? We now have a 6-hour, 3-part training module. Request more information here Professional Development.
Stay in touch with the Screenagers community on Facebook, Twitter and leave comments below.
May 13, 2019
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
As a society, we often give information to others hoping to elicit some fear with the goal of getting a desired behavior. Think for example of schools teaching kids about cyberbullying and sexting and having police officers deliver the message so it is clear that they should be scared, really scared of consequences.
Unfortunately, scare tactics for long term behavior change have proven to not be very effective. Let me give one example. Massive public health campaigns designed to combat smoking that showed images of damaged lungs and testimonials from people who were diagnosed with lung cancer from smoking were meant to scare us into not smoking.
It turns out that those campaigns had surprisingly little impact on behavior decisions. What eventually turned the tide for cutting smoking rates were two main tactics: Substantially raising the cost of cigarettes and placing strong limits on the places where people could smoke. Of course, continuing to educate about the ill effects of tobacco is important but if we had just focused on using scare tactics we would not have made the major progress we see today.
Scare tactics can work better for short term behavior change—but the main point for today is to examine a better tactic than scare tactics which I call “Share Tactics.”
But first, let's explore some science about why scare tactics are not very effective when it comes to youth and screen time. The part of the brain that responds to fear is the amygdala. This is where warnings that something scary is about to take place resides. Do you remember when you first watched a scary movie with creepy music as the camera takes you down an eerie hotel hallway? Even when you don’t, the amygdala does. That’s why you may get creeped out in empty hallways later in life.
This is crucial. Learning from fearful stimuli helps us avoid and escape danger. But what happens when your amygdala is shooting fear straight to your nerves and nothing bad happens? You stop responding. This is exactly what is happening with our kids when we keep saying to them, “too much YouTube is bad for your brain” or “playing violent video games will make you violent.”
If we constantly yell “DANGER DANGER” and the warning is not in sync with your child’s experience, they will then drown out our words.
I get that it is very hard to have restraint when things seem scary since we feel like it is our job to always protect our youth. We worry about the risk of video games, social media, binge-watching, social cruelty, anxiety, grades … the list goes on and on. So what do we do?
A Share Tactic is all about sharing stories, science, and our experiences to help youth develop their own compass about the best ways to use tech in their lives. Sharing the science of sleep, sharing stories of how youth have good experiences on social media, but also some of the hard ones like sharing the facts about laws on sexting, etc.
People, especially tweens and teens, are not big fans of being told what to do and think. Instead of talking at them in a doom and gloom way, include them in the conversation. Listen to their experiences and opinions about the dangers social media, video games, and too much YouTube can have. Calm conversations about statistics, real-life stories and how they relate to us are what gets people, including tweens and teens, thinking and acting preventatively.
And of course, these share tactics help us to work together to define and follow rules to have sacred, screen-free times in our lives.
Here are some questions to get you started:
We would love for you to share this TTT any way that works for you, whether that’s on social media or via a newsletter. If you want to send it out in your newsletter we just ask that you credit us and link to our website, and let us know at lisa@screenagersmovie.com.
HOST A SCREENING to help spark change.
FIND EVENT LISTINGS
Do you organize professional development in schools? We now have a 6-hour, 3-part training module. Request more information here Professional Development.
Stay in touch with the Screenagers community on Facebook, Twitter and leave comments below.
May 13, 2019
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
The Pew Research Center recently released findings from a study conducted in the Fall of 2023, which has important stats that can help inform our parenting and spark essential conversations with our youth. I’ve structured today’s blog to state the findings first and then write about the solutions later.
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I have one goal with this week’s blog: Inspire you to make one and only one New Year’s Resolution about screen time rules. Maybe that has to do with your own behavior with screen time, maybe with your kids, family, or even work. And I’ll share with you my one-screen time rule for 2024.
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A few weeks ago I wrote a blog and encouraged people to share with youth in their lives whatever small change they made and to share with me as well so that I could share with you! And that is what I am doing today. I received some great responses. Here are a few examples people shared with me:
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
