From Teenager to Screenager
Last week I participated in two events in which the documentary Screenagers (2016) was shown. The documentary explores the perils, pains and realities of how children and adults engage with media, specifically social media, smartphones and the Internet. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to jumpstart a dialogue about media and this film did just that.
Both events were held at Temple University, but for completely different audiences and different purposes. The first event was the Youth Media Symposium sponsored by the Center for Media & Information Literacy, a center I direct at the university. Although the event was open to students, faculty and the community, the audience was mostly made up of college students. In fact, the only non-students in the room were those of us on the panel! The second event was the Teaching with Technology Symposium, a professional development event open only to faculty and administrators at the university.
Panelists at the Youth Media Symposium acting out our smartphone obsession!
Craig Santoro (WHYY), me, Teri Yago-Ryan (Big Picture Alliance), Thomas Rolhinger (Radiojojo)
At the first screening the credits barely started their crawl when the first comment from a student was expressed. “We could talk about this for hours!” Truth. There was a collective sigh of agreement and then people started sharing stories about their own media use, often beginning by admitting their bad decisions. And these stories weren’t just coming from the students.
We told stories about our struggles…
-feeling the pull of an idle smartphone screen while it sits on our desk
-inappropriately accessing email or social media during a meeting or class
-resorting to a text exchange for an uncomfortable conversation
-feeling agitated after playing a particularly complicated or violent video game
-being lured into a late night check of our social media to assess recent “likes”
-clicking “purchase” on a shopping site too quickly and spending money we shouldn’t
-juggling online map directions on our smartphone while driving
-keeping our smartphone beside our bed…just in case...and then using it to send just one more late night message or email
-doing computer work at home during personal or family/friend time
This list could literally go on and on. Such are the struggles of a media-rich life.
But I could also create a different list: the one where we tell stories of our joys with media.
-sharing photos with a friend while waiting in line at a restaurant
-listening to a great new song through shared headphones: one earbud in your ear and the other in your friend’s/child’s ear
-finding your way out of a deserted neighborhood at night with the help of Google Maps
-staying in touch with a friend you met in Europe (or other country) with What’s App (or other free texting app)
-skyping a family member who lives too far away to come home for the holiday
-creating an engaging new assignment using a new video editing app
-laughing with your family while playing a new video game
-planning vacation details with advise from the users of Trip Advisor
That list, too, could go on and on.
Making decisions about our media use is a series of decisions; a balance between the perils and the joys. What I found most interesting about both post-screening discussions were how similar they were. Most of the student’s worries were the same as the faculty and the same as the media professionals. We all worried about relying too much on digital communication and not enough face-to-face. We all worried that easy access to online information was making us lazy in pondering our own thoughts about life’s problems or asking people in our circle for advise. We all worried about keeping up, staying informed about new media technologies and learning how to use them. Not surprisingly, our greatest differences were around decisions affecting children. Those of us with children under sixteen had more concerns about how and when and what media our children were consuming; especially when they weren’t with us…which is fairly often.
I would definitely recommend this documentary. It is different than many similar-themed films in that it is based on an authentic story about the filmmaker and her twelve year old daughter’s disagreements about getting her a smartphone. It raises several important themes. It provides examples you’ll probably agree with, and others you won’t, and in that way it provokes conversation. It’s not perfect. It’s missing an effective discussion guide as a companion to the film. With a run time of just under seventy minutes it’s a bit long for a classroom screening or an afterschool parent event. But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. If you’re engaging in a conversation in which you reflect on your own media use, that’s always worth the time.
