we've got a survey we have some upcoming events get in touch with us let us know what you want to hear about what you want to explore and have a conversation about our conversation our topic this month is media literacy and i'm here to introduce aaron mcneal for media participation positive social behavior that they can learn from media positive health behavior they acquire knowledge they may learn tolerance they may have a result in school readiness for younger children even video games there are there are a lot of advantages they learn collaboration resilience sometimes you fail you try again but there are negative consequences and some of them are obvious i think for most of us smoking alcohol use substance abuse junk food leading to  also other things exile the depression other mental health issues and risky sexual behavior and some of these things can lead to to aggression violence so let's take a look at some of the pictures that will help to illustrate these potential problems one of the one of the  one of the ones that we know are particularly pervasive is sexualization of girls this is just a few samples of something that's found in every form of media with very hi frequency today and it's girls and women so here we see these are dolls bradstock that are also a show on television and down here we see  still from a video game that kids are very likely to come across on some of the video games that they play some marketing from victoria's secret for middle schoolers and it's hard to see those words on the underwear but it says things like i dare you so you can imagine your fifth grader wearing that or maybe you can what is this way to help  definitely mental health problems for girls eating disorders low self esteem depression and for boys really it may lead to an increased risk of dat violence we see this happening from a from a very young age and then of course there's violence violence marketed heavily to young children today this game in fact is an eight year olds and it's for eight year olds it's a building toy it's it's around the modeled around the the video game halo which is m rated m rated for  and so we have to wonder why is that being marketed to young children so there's a lot of debate in the media right now about whether or not media violence has a direct effect on  actual violence and the fact is that we have plenty of evidence that shows that it is definitely definitely belated to real violence thirty years and hundreds of studies have settled that science we know if you're a parent you know that children especially young children imitate what they see so they see a lot of violence on t v in fact it's said that on television two thirds of the shows contain violence and on tell television children shows contain the most violence and believe that so what does that lead to in terms of health well violence is  they see violence but if there are several factors together it can it can result in aggression violence bullying so in fact that takes us to the next slide bullying in the in the blue hair you can kind of see she's she's the one who's going to be both the others are beautiful and glamorous and she's the one with the kind of the smart one i guess it's it's it's so prevalent in children's shows its own i think there was a study that showed that they were of the top fifty children shows more than ninety percent h frequency and often showed no consequences so a psychologist that that i've talked to often her name sharon maxwell she said making jokes at another the bread and butter of some of these shows we place our kids in front of these shows and then we're surprised when they do exactly the same thing another one that you might find fairly obvious is body image so we're pretty familiar with the the problems of body image for girls and this picture here is actually a target ad  and some went into a very good photoshopping job and they left some of the evidence behind so you can see under the arm there is a little spike which shows how much of this fairly same girl's body was actually cut off to make  much much thinner you can see down here is a thought the gap that's been kind of cut into her body very very unpleasant looking so normal about themselves when they see when they they don't see images of themselves or they see that the media needs to lighten up their skin and boy so the new target works well for girls why not point out boys so up here you see not sure and what do you feel about that is that a positive thing is that just more manipulation it's good if if the advertisers start to show a better a better image but yeah we definitely kind of look behind the scenes and you see for example is owned by you know whatever which also makes axe body spray which produces some of the most sexist commercials that you're likely to see directed a pparently directed at young men but really the ones who are most attractive these ads are middle school boys so it seems like they're having it both ways many times so yeah so if it works it works with women and girls make them feel bad about themselves maybe they'll buy stuff so we're seeing it with boys more and more and this is a a film that actually has been mentioned by young men as making them feel better about themselves i think this is called three hundred rise of an empire so as a result we're seeing girls more younger and younger and diets getting cosmetic surgery and now we're seeing boys younger and younger with with eating disorders there they're getting mostly mostly with boys it's getting bigger so you see them with steroids we see them not too much of steroids because they're hard to get but they'll try to protein powders to get bigger and having a negative self image with boys actually they've they found that they're more likely to binge drink when they have some of the problems associated with with body image issues so that brings us to some of the ones that you would probably think of right away when you think of the media and he and here we have young taken smoking and one of the things that the marketers have realized is that the use of celebrities is very effective but teens so smoking in movies has been shown to have a really high incidence with coincidence with with teen smoking and here of course she looks very glamorous in fact you may have heard we're seeing we're seeing all the all the old marketing techniques being used for cigarettes including the use of candy flavors like chocolate tree cherry  peachy keen so you want to be aware that that's the thing that these companies sometimes do is they they they go under the radar of parents and they find ways to to market directly to your kids when  so over here we have it it's a little bit blurry but that's the budweiser man of the match from the world cup and this is one that definitely was going under my radar till one of my sons mentioned  and definitely a way to get under under your radar and of course he is a celebrity is at the bottom you see a froot loops video game again a way to get in under  the parent's awareness own younger kids playing playing video games that are better matched with with a product in particular junk food was obviously can result in obesity in bad health and smoking and binge drinking and other substance abuse so what can parents do every doctor says no t v in the bedroom and something i seventy five percent of kids had a t v in the bedroom that is the number one thing to do get the t v out of the kids bedroom even even screens of any sort besides the fact that they're watching probably media that you may not want them to and you don't have a chance to watch it with them and find out and ask them questions the screen in the bedroom can contribute to poor sleep so the next one watch watch with your great kids asking questions and this is where media literacy comes in and it really works have kids question the media that they're saying if we don't question these messages if we don't question them to our kids and say do you believe in this and and maybe say that you don't if there's values that are that you're seeing that that you don't agree with you want to you want to talk to your kids about this because if you're not if you're  questioning them if you're not talking to them you were basically saying to our children that we we agree with these messages and we except them and then the kids will send them to so it's really important to to ask the questions so what it what  some of the questions you want to ask you want to ask things like who who made this message and why and what values are they showing and what are the techniques that they use to get my attention  us a teenager are particularly vulnerable to kids find out this kind of information it makes them really angry and they want to do something so it's really empowering for children media literacy  educate yourself and you have resources by site for parents a couple of places that you can go to learn more about about the media that's out there there's common sense media center and media and child health and cyber was three in particular that are especially good for parents so i want to show you an example of what happens when children and teens are taught me a literacy skills they are taught question what they're seeing and then they're taught to create their own positive messages so this is a short film that one one minute film that i think you'll  enjoy that was produced by some teenagers to counter the problems of cyber bullying that we're also familiar with today i really enjoy watching mad kids really shows the power of media time watching and listening and really we're not talking to them about it in a in a really comprehensive way and giving them a chance to talk about it so when they get a chance they love it they love to talk about it they have a lie to of restrictions and or media literacy discussion i think that certainly the media literacy discussion has to start very very early because kids are certainly being targeted by marketers very early so before before school preschool as young as they can understand what you're saying and at the same time there is a lot that they don't understand at that age so as a three year old really doesn't understand your discussion about sexualization for example so it's just it's important to try to at younger ages to to block some of the really the negative media i mean they're certainly really positive good media for children at that age and so violence sexualization those kind of really tough subjects it's it's a good idea to  kind of to know your child obviously you know but also remember that they are a child and and that these things do affect them the things that they're saying pediatricians say no t v no screens until age two that's probably a good idea that allows them to develop different parts of the brain and be more creative with with real real objects in the real world which is what children need at that age  they don't care for and maybe maybe it sometimes can even can even have some self control as far as how much time they spend videogames that's that might still need a little bit of parental guidance but it seems like as they get older restricting them restricting it doesn't really become an option because that's how they interact that's how the engages who they connect with their friends so if your kid doesn't have a cell phone or if your kid has to get off the computer at nine o'clock they aren't part of the social network and how do you know lies them to some degree that they're not part of that right how do you manage that well i think we're still exploring that question how do you manage that it's very tough for parents today there are so many opportunities using different kinds of screens and do you do you risk if you give your child a cell phone in sixth grade  old and they're both in belmont public schools and i have a sense though i don't know details about the curriculum that they've both been exposed to some some sort of media savvy training because it's messages that i hear back from them do you have a sense within massachusetts in the nationwide where school just how many school districts are incorporating that kind of content it seems like it actually would be useful in teaching critical thinking more broadly not just in terms of being a savvy consumer do you have a sense of where things stand kind of in school districts across the country well thank you for that question definitely would be really effective is very effective in teaching critical thinking skills in all subjects so besides language arts it's also history and social studies health even math and science definitely definitely effective in art it is not broadly taught in the united states unfortunately that's that's our our mission at media literacy now is to is to ensure that it is being taught and working at the state level to change policy there are countries where it is being canada for one it's many of the european countries even places like singapore a stone all sorts of countries have recognised that this is really important for our kids and for their for their health and wellbeing and for our economy and for democracy but it's not we're not there yet in the united states it's not very comprehensive we start getting that advantage and i would say most we do see literacy in high schools sporadically more often than any other film analysis that sort of thing definitely but we are working to get it down to the very youngest ages kindergarten in the public schools thank you now you actually have legislation on happening in a few different states not just massachusetts do we have a bill in massachusetts and then we have a bill in new york and new jersey so we're hoping to start to see this go across the country and like thomas said as as as one state and the next state passes some sort of media literacy legislation that would generate some competition and really build awareness and help people to recognize the urgency well i think just even as an adult you can go to one news source that has the story and you go to another news source that has the same story and if you didn't know it was the same story you would know it was the same story so even as an adult you know i think i'm pretty media savvy i don't have you know three hours to research every single issue to get to like ok