Millions of young people experience high stress, anxiety, and depression. In Screenagers Next Chapter: Addressing Mental Health in the Digital Age, we follow physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston as she discovers solutions for improved adolescent stress, anxiety, and depression in the digital age.
Runtimes: Original Version: 63 Minutes, Classroom Version: 50 Minutes.
Filmmaker and physician Delaney Ruston uses a personal lens and professional eye to help us all flip the script on stress, anxiety, and depression. We follow Delaney as she finds herself at a loss on how to help her own teens as they struggle with their emotional wellbeing. Ruston sets out to understand these challenges in our current screen-filled society, and how we as parents and schools empower teens to overcome mental health challenges and build emotional agility, communication savvy, and stress resilience.
We witness Delaney as she finds her way from ineffective parenting to much-improved strategies. We follow other personal stories of families from an array of backgrounds with a spectrum of emotional challenges. We also observe approaches in schools that provide strategies relevant beyond the classroom setting. Interwoven into the stories are surprising insights from brain researchers, psychologists, and thought-leaders that reveal evidence-based ways to support mental wellness among our youth. The impact of social media and screen time in general is incorporated in topics brought to our attention in Screenagers NEXT CHAPTER, how it may be impacting our teen’s mental health, and what we can do to help support youth in the face of struggles.
Delaney Ruston chose her two career paths of primary care physician and documentary filmmaker for one reason: to help create positive change in people’s lives. Her experiences receiving medical care in free clinics while growing up motivated her to pursue health care. During her medicine residency, she began studying filmmaking for social impact and made her first award-winning film.
For twenty years Delaney has split her time between providing primary care and creating short and feature-length documentaries, such as Screenagers. Examples of her other films include Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia about her father and Hidden Pictures about global mental health. These films have been screened widely, aired on PBS, and were at the forefront of advocacy campaigns, including with the World Health Organization. For her work in using films to building movements, Delaney has won several awards including Harvard’s McLean National Council Recognition Award and New York’s Fountain House Advocacy Award.
Delaney trained at Stanford Medical School, followed by a medicine residency at UC San Francisco. She has practiced and taught medicine in diverse settings including faculty positions at The University of Washington School of Medicine and at The Center for Medical Humanities, Bioethics and Compassionate Care at Stony Brook School of Medicine, NY.
Ruston has conducted investigative research in diverse fields—including biophysics at NIH, bioethics, and communication at UCSF and behavioral health as a Fulbright Scholar. She has spent the past six years intensely researching the impact of screen time on youth and solutions for screen time balance.
“It was AS EYE OPENING AS the first Screenagers.”
“I found it to be VERY POWERFUL and VALIDATING for both teens and parents.”
Really captures the struggles we see parents and students having across the board. I appreciated the “hope” parents/kids felt at the end.”
“I can’t imagine what school counsellor would not be eager to share this with their families.”
“Amazing documentary… very relevant for parents, teachers and students. Many parents left asking when we were going to show it again because they wanted to bring their friends.”
Delaney Ruston is a Stanford trained physician, mother of teens, and international speaker who makes documentaries to foster social change. Along with creating Screenagers, and Screenagers Next Chapter, she has made other award-winning films such as Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia, about her father and Hidden Pictures about global mental health. A Fulbright Scholar and former researcher in Bio-Ethics and Communication, Dr. Ruston has been faculty at top medical universities. She has been the featured speaker at places such as Google, The United Nations, Facebook, Harvard, and at conferences and schools worldwide. For her work in using film in launching advocacy movements, Delaney has won several awards. Along with her film and advocacy work, Delaney provides medical care to the underserved and homeless.
Lisa Tabb is a distinguished producer with a rich background in digital media and parenting. She co-produced the four Screenagers Movies and co-directed Screenagers Under The Influence: Addressing Vaping, Drugs, and Alcohol. She also co-produces The Screenagers Podcast and edits the “Screenagers’ Tech Talk Tuesday weekly blog. Tabb has made significant contributions to the global discourse on youth screen time, with the films reaching over 10 million individuals in more than 100 countries. Her publishing achievements include Parenting in the Digital Age: A Guide to Calm Conversation. Before her foray into film, she spent 15 years at ABC 7 News in San Francisco, focusing on parenting trends and emerging technologies.
David is an Emmy award-winning producer and editor, a feature film and music video director, and a motion graphics designer. Over the past 15 years, his work has appeared on CBS, NBC, PBS, and various cable television channels. "Screenagers: Next Chapter" is his first experience editing a feature-length documentary.
Geoff Schaaf is a Los Angeles-based award-winning cinematographer with over 35 years of experience. His credits include feature films such as Her Lucky Star, and Midnight Heat, and feature documentaries Eat, Drink, Laugh, The Wall Street Conspiracy and One Germany: The Other Side of the Wall. TV documentaries include Middle Ages, Sharks of Rangiroa and Tour de France. He is currently working on the feature documentary Wounded Warriors. Geoff has 13 Emmy Nominations and 4 Emmy Awards.
Paul Brill has composed over sixty films as well as many TV shows. He has won several Emmys and awards for his music. He has composed films that have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, other top festivals, PBS and HBO. His films include Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Freakonomics, The Devil Came on Horseback and Page One: Inside New York Times.
Kathryn Bostic is a composer, producer and singer/songwriter known for her work on film, TV, live theater and cinematic concert music. She is a recipient of many fellowships and awards including the prestigious Sundance Time Warner Fellowship, Sundance Fellowship for Feature Film Scoring, Sundance/Skywalker Documentary Film Scoring and the BMI Conducting Fellowship. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Dahl is the Chief Science Officer at the Center for the Developing Adolescent. is the Director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley. He also runs the Adolescent Research Collaborative and is a Professor in the School of Public Health and the Joint Medical Program.
Dr. Galván is a Professor of Psychology at UCLA whose expertise is in adolescent brain development. . She is the Director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory. The focus of her research is on characterizing the neural mechanisms underlying adolescent behavior.
Dr. Kastner is a clinical professor in the Psychology Department and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She has authored numerous academic articles in the fields of child, adolescent and pediatric psychology. She has also co-authored five books about families, children and parenting, including Wise Minded Parenting.
Dr. Siegel is a mindfulness expert and clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He is also the co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and author of Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.
Johnson is the co-author of The Self Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives. He believes giving children the ability to feel in control is enormously beneficial to their performance. He is also the founder of PREPMATTERS, a tutoring and test preparation service.
Dr. Walker-Harding is the Chair of the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics. She is also Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for the Department of Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Pine is the Chief Research Psychiatrist of the National Institute of Mental Health. He is an expert in mood, anxiety and behavioral disorders in children. He is currently leading research examining the degree to which mood and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents are associated with underlying abnormalities in the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and associated brain regions.
The Gottmans founded the Gottman Institute in Seattle, where for 40 years they have conducted research on relationships, trained mental health professionals and help couples and families repair broken relationships.
Dr. Gross is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He is also Director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, a research and teaching laboratory that uses behavioral, autonomic and brain imaging methods to focus on the measurement and analysis of emotion and emotion regulation.
Rideout is a world-renowned expert on children and the media. She is the founder of VJR Consulting, a group that conducts high-quality research on youth, families and media for universities, advocacy groups and media companies.
Dr. Koplewicz is Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Child Mind Institute. He is also one of the country’s leading child and adolescent psychiatrists and a recognized advocate for children’s mental health.
Lyons is a psychotherapist specializing in anxiety, especially in children and families. She describes herself as a HOW therapist, one that teaches her clients how to manage their anxiety by changing their behavior. She is also a sought-after speaker and author of several books, including Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents.
A research psychologist and Professor Emeritus in the psychology department at CSU Dominguez Hills. Rosen specializes in multitasking, social networking and adolescent development. He is the author of 7 books.
A licensed psychologist and a certified DBT therapist and co-author of the DBT STEPS-A social-emotional learning curriculum for middle and high school students. Dexter-Mazza was the Clinical Director and a research therapist for Dr. Linehan’s research studies, which provided both individual DBT and DBT group skills training.
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