Kids want to learn more about mental illness and how to cope with parents who live with it
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
One in five teens has a parent with a mental illness such as anxiety or depression. These teens are at greater risk of developing a mental illness themselves.
And while they may be familiar with the day-to-day behavioral changes of their family member, they often don’t have access to accurate mental health information that can empower them and increase their ability to respond to mental illness stigma.
For nearly 30 years, I’ve researched the mental health information needs of children and teens who have a family member with mental illness. Study after study reveals that these young people don’t receive sufficient information — at home, school or online – about mental health and illness.
Many parents don’t talk with their children about their mental health disorders. Programs that increase teens’ ability to manage their emotions and interact well socially are on the rise in schools. However, schools severely lack funding, resources and staffing to provide structured lessons that cover the full range of mental health literacy. This includes common mental illnesses and treatments, mental illness stigma, coping with stress and seeking help for oneself or others.
Furthermore, young people with family mental health challenges are often overlooked by mental health providers who are responsible for treating their family member.
Children want help. For example, this study of kids ages 5-17 found that among children who know their parents take psychotropic medication, “there was an interest in knowing more about the medication purpose, regime and side effects.”
Our team recently completed a review of youth-targeted mental health websites that will be published in 2021. We found countries such as Australia and Canada have produced websites with information for individuals and families living with mental illness.
However, most of the content was written for those above the sixth-grade reading level needed for many teens, making it inaccessible. Furthermore, most countries – including the U.S. – do not have online resources addressing the needs of children of parents with mental illness.
After identifying this gap, we worked with colleagues to build new resources. Those include a mental health literacy program to teach children about mental illness as well as tools to measure their knowledge of mental health issues. We are now exploring ways to deliver the program online.
Most recently our team built the Mental Health Info for Teens website to provide accurate mental health information for teens. It was designed for those at an early sixth-grade reading level. American teens who have a family member with mental illness helped guide and review content development. This helped ensure the website matched their needs.
The website provides information for teens on the following four foundations of mental health literacy, which can help them cope when they face family mental health challenges.
1. Understanding mental illness
Identifying mental health disorders, symptoms and treatment is a key component of mental health literacy. This knowledge helps young people understand that symptoms, mood changes and other family dynamics are a result of the mental illness, not something they have done. For example, a teen whose father is diagnosed with bipolar disorder can understand that her father’s extreme mood swings and sudden changes in behavior are caused by his illness and can be treated and managed through a combination of medication and therapy.
2. Myths and stigma busting
Youths often believe that mental illnesses are rare, contagious and untreatable. These myths isolate children living with a family member with mental illness. They may fear what would happen to them if someone were to find out their family secret. Busting myths about mental illness reduces stigma and helps teens realize that many families – even celebrities – struggle with similar challenges.
3. Coping skills
Teenage years are often stressful. Teens are juggling academics, extracurriculars and social relationships. Family mental illness, though no one’s fault, can make these difficult years more stressful. Teens can build a personal plan to manage stress. For example, positive thinking, mindfulness and exercise can help them manage their thoughts, feelings and actions.
4. Seeking help
Teens with a family member with mental illness often find themselves taking care of others. It’s important for them to know where they can find help. Our website has a comprehensive list of resources, including links to crisis hotlines and tools to locate local mental health service providers.
We hope the website can provide a new resource toward increasing mental health information for teens, especially those with family mental illness.
Director of Doctoral Program and Associate Professor of Social Work, Michigan State University
Ph.D. Student, Michigan State University
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
How to Support Teens’ Mental Health During COVID and Beyond
Teens are struggling during the pandemic. Here's what they need from us right now.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
It’s been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic changed life as we knew it. Many families across the country have been living in “survival mode.” Tweens and teens continue to experience a range of emotions, including sadness, anger, and fear. If left unresolved, these feelings can take a toll on health and well-being.
Parents of teens share similar struggles. According to Lauren, a mother of two teens in Woodland Hills, California, “My daughter has a hard time spending so much of her day on screens. She says having to do so makes her feel more anxiety than she already was feeling.” Nancy, a mother of two teen boys in Chevy Chase, Maryland, says, “Junior year is supposed to be a key year in high school before college. But my son has shut down.” And Rafaela, whose daughter attends high school in New York City, says, “My daughter is completely stressed about having to go back to school in person because she worries she’s going to get coronavirus.”
Sound familiar? In a survey of more than 4,600 people in Canada last spring, more than a third of families said they felt “very or extremely” anxious about family stress resulting from the pandemic.
When it comes to teens’ emotional and mental health, they are experiencing a crisis, says Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a primary care pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Even before the pandemic, more than 16% of youth in the United States dealt with a mental health disorder, according to a 2019 study in JAMA Pediatrics.
Bracho-Sanchez, who often treats families in Latino and Black communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, says the pandemic created the perfect storm of emotional turbulence. “Families are experiencing a lot of stress. Many have lost jobs. They’ve fallen behind on rent. The rates of food insecurity have skyrocketed. All of these things are really hard for everyone in the family—teens included.” Add to these issues virtual schooling, fear of family members getting sick or dying from COVID, feeling isolated and disconnected—it’s no wonder doctors are seeing higher levels of anxiety and depression in teens.
As parents, we can’t control the course of the pandemic. But we can help teens by modeling good coping skills, encouraging healthy habits, and working to understand and relate to what they are going through.
Understand what teens are going through
The first step toward supporting young people through this challenging time is for caring adults to have empathy for the teen experience. And to work to understand how their developmental stage impacts their emotional well-being.
Adolescence is a time when tweens and teens are supposed to be stretching their boundaries and testing limits. That means getting out of the house and trying new things. Figuring out their place among peers and within their communities. Making mistakes and learning how to bounce back. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a matter of safety, tweens and teens are limited from many growth opportunities. And that flies in the face of typical teen development.
For teens, peer relationships are a big deal. Their brains are designed to feel rewarded when they socialize, in some ways more so than adults. Spending time with friends helps them discover their identities and gives them the courage to move away from the family and into the larger world. Being restricted from exploring this aspect of themselves may leave them feeling lonely and bored, and it goes against the messages their brain’s reward centers are sending.
And let’s not forget the missed milestones. From birthdays to graduations to religious or cultural celebrations of growth, adolescence is also a time of important rites of passage. But these celebrations didn’t happen or looked dramatically different in the past year. Teens feel a true sense of loss for missing out on important affirmations that remind them they’re growing up.
On top of all that, the pandemic has diminished teens’ support systems or eliminated some altogether. Besides parents, teens often get support from other caring adults, including extended family and kin networks—grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and others. Caring connections may also stem from teachers, coaches, after-school staff, or religious leaders. In normal times, schools also play an important part in providing mental health services for adolescents; research finds that just over a third of teens who get mental health services get them only at school. With these support channels disrupted, parents have an even bigger role to play in supporting teens’ mental health
Strategies to support teen coping
Start with yourself. One of the most important strategies for parents looking to help their teens is too often ignored: self-care. Parents must take care of themselves. You know, the whole “put your oxygen mask on first” concept. When parents show teens the hard but productive work it takes to cope with stress, they’re teaching them how to face challenges.
Children haven’t fully developed the ability to regulate emotions, so they need to co-regulate with the important adults in their lives. They look to see how their parents and other trusted adults are coping to figure out how they should react. They “borrow” our calm and gain a sense of safety by watching us. But they can just as easily “borrow” our frenzy or catastrophic thinking.
Dr. Ken Ginsburg, director of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, cautions it’s not as simple as just acting calm around your kids. “Looking like a duck calmly gliding on water is not actually the answer. While it may lend stability, it doesn’t teach strategy. As parents, we want to look like the duck moving through the water but also let our children see that our feet are paddling quickly underneath to help us stay afloat.”
Bracho-Sanchez says when she’s working with teens, she often first considers where the parents are in their own mental health and self-care journey. “I think we sometimes forget that until the parent has enough food, a safe place to live, a stable income . . . it’s really hard for them to help in a way that is sustainable. And until we have provided the parents with resources to care for their own mental health, it will be difficult to create the healing environment that we so badly want for all of our kids.”
Ways for parents to model good self-care for their teens include spending time with others (in a safe way), healthy eating, exercising, getting enough sleep, and making time to relax. Consider relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, reading a book, listening to calming music, or enjoying a hobby. Encourage your tweens and teens to de-stress and take part in self-care routines, as well. Let your teen know these are important tools to take back control of their bodies and minds.
Check in with teens. Amid all the changes and chaos stemming from the pandemic, how do parents learn how their teens are really doing? Ginsburg stresses the importance of listening and taking cues from what teens are saying. And if they’re not saying much, ask open-ended questions that show you care about their well-being. For parents struggling to find the words, try saying, “This is a tough time. I want to know how you’re experiencing this. What are you finding that’s helping you get through it? How can I support you?” Parents don’t have to offer immediate solutions—sometimes kids just need a sympathetic ear.
Re-establish routines. My daughter is in high school, but during the pandemic it has felt like she (and many of her friends) have adopted more of a college-age lifestyle. Staying up late, talking to friends at all hours, sleeping in, snacking throughout the day instead of eating at regular mealtimes. There’s been a loss of structure. Social media and blog posts confirmed my suspicion that parents across the country are witnessing similar things happen with teens in their homes.
It’s essential for our teen’s mental health to get back some structure. Routines offer a sense of order that is calming in the midst of uncertainty. Help your teen re-establish bed- and wake-up times. Encourage them to get dressed in the morning, eat regular meals, and spend time away from screens.
Set the tone. Parents and caring adults can adopt an attitude that is honest, future-oriented, and hopeful. This doesn’t mean denying problems exist. These may be challenging times, but it is also an opportunity to demonstrate how to manage uncertainty. A time to find creative ways to re-connect. And a chance to build resilience.
While it may be difficult to keep a positive mindset, focus on what you can control and remind your children things will get better in the future. Part of this viewpoint includes looking at the reality of the situation and teaching them to believe that their actions (or inaction) make a difference. For example, if watching television news about the pandemic all the time is adding to your teen’s stress, remind them that while they can’t control what appears on the news, they can determine how much they watch. Choosing to turn it off, watch less, or vary the source of programs can impact their ability to maintain a more positive outlook.
Don’t forget joy. As the number of vaccinations continues to rise, Bracho-Sanchez has been encouraging families to (safely) find joy in their lives once again. “Families have been in survival mode for a while now. And when you’re just surviving there’s so much that you don’t allow yourself to do and feel. Families have so much culture and tradition that they can bring to their young people.” She focuses on joy because it’s a powerful emotion for getting through hard times.
For example, my daughter and I have been enjoying putting our own spin on old family recipes. Quincineras, bar and bat mitzvahs—often large, extended family celebrations—are alternatively being enjoyed with immediate family at home as friends and other family members take part “virtually.” Some families are creating new rituals. A friend now works with his kids to come up with “reflection and gratitude” prompts that they write down on slips of folded paper. They open one at dinner to start conversations about things they have to be grateful for and happy about.
Seek help. Sometimes it’s beyond our ability to help teens improve their emotional and mental health. Seeking help from others is an act of great strength. If parents feel unstable or if their own mental health is challenged, there is power in seeking help for yourself and modeling that “I don’t deserve to feel this way. I want to take the steps needed to feel better,” says Ginsburg.
There are many places to reach out for professional help. Find a psychologist near you from the American Psychological Association or ask your personal doctor for local counseling service providers. There are also professionals trained to help children and teens get through tough times. The family pediatrician or a school counselor is a good starting point. You can also reach out to someone you trust in the community for local resources.
Moving toward a new normal
As the pandemic wanes, Ginsburg, who is also author of Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings, says there’s a real opportunity for families and communities to better support teens’ emotional well-being.
Many parents wonder what’s going to happen to this group of teenagers after living through these unprecedented times. What they want to hear is that kids are resilient and will bounce back to normal in no time.
But Ginsburg has a slightly different answer. He says adults first must intentionally work to ensure teens have the support systems in place to help manage the enormous amount of stress they are still under. He adds, “I hope things don’t go back to the way they were before the pandemic. Every generation is shaped by what it’s exposed to during adolescence, and this generation has been exposed to an understanding that human beings need each other. This could be the greatest generation ever if they are shaped by this essential truth.”
Award-winning journalist, writer, and blogger
Executive producer and director of digital content at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Don’t Just Listen! The Social Benefits of Active Music-Making for Children
I’m a professor, but I’m also a parent. So, the long months of the pandemic have found me spending every Thursday teaching nine children from Pre-K to 2nd grade in my home, with my spouse as my fearless co-teacher. We are both lifelong musicians – the guitar-toting, songwriting, traveling kind – and when we started our remote school co-op with four other families, we knew music would be a big part of our day. What we didn’t realize was that it would become so central to so many aspects of our teaching approach. We began by sourcing a handful of affordable ukuleles, adding a few extra tambourines to our bucket of percussion instruments, and off we went. At first, we scheduled dedicated music time around math and reading and science, but we quickly discovered that no subject was beyond the reach of our voices, our guitars, our bodies, and the children’s rapidly evolving rhyming capabilities! We have found ourselves co-creating silly songs about snails and trees, exploring the physics of sound using electric guitars and banjos, and practicing greetings in Spanish over two chords on the ukulele. Music has come to infuse almost everything we do with these kids, but here’s the key: they have to be actively making the music – not just listening. Singing, swaying, marching, making up words, beating a drum – these are all examples of what researchers call “active music-making.” And more and more research is confirming that using active music-making with young children in a group setting offers unique social benefits.
As a social scientist, I am interested in how making music with other people can help bring us together. A 2010 study conducted with preschool-age children showed that when kids participated in active music-making that involved singing and dancing together, they exhibited increased helping and cooperation with peers when compared to a group in a control condition without musical elements. I recently published a study extending this work to unfamiliar adults; preschool-age children who participated in a singing and movement activity were more helpful and willing to share with a new adult than children in a non-musical condition. Why would that be? Well, the children in the musical condition in our study spent more of their time looking at their partners. They also made more attempts to move together, and moving together in synchrony has been shown to increase sharing and cooperation in preschool-age children. Dr. Miriam Lense and Dr. Stephen Camarata from Vanderbilt University have proposed that active music-making offers a convergence of qualities that make it ideal for encouraging social interaction. It requires shared attention between participants, it is predictable, and it is easily and naturally integrated into play for many young children. Because it is fun for most kids, it is also naturally reinforcing. Dr. Lense and I recently collaborated on a study showing preliminary results of a parent-child music class involving children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder, and many participating parents emphasized that making music with their child over the course of the program strengthened their parent-child bond outside of the class. A picture begins to emerge: actively engaging with music through singing and movement connects us to one another.
So, the question becomes, how can we – as a community of scholars and storytellers creating content for preschool and elementary school children – make use of this information in meaningful ways? First, preschool and early elementary content with musical elements should be intentional about eliciting active musical engagement from children during and after viewing. One way to do this is to build on familiar and accessible melodies and rhythms; Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood has done this brilliantly, recycling melodies while tying lyrics to everyday contexts in which children can sing the tunes themselves. Research suggests that engaging deeply with music requires children to allocate their limited attention and processing ability to unfamiliar elements; thus, using familiar tunes and varying only the lyrics is a worthy approach if lyrical content is significant. Interactive apps with embedded recording features like OK Play offer a great blueprint for eliciting joint music-making from parents and children. Content creators can also incorporate opportunities for musical improvisation, a special category of active music-making. Children’s efforts at musical improvisation may sound messy to skilled adult musicians, but emerging work shows that musical improvisation may help consolidate memory following a learning activity. The take-home message is that even though active music-making may look like pure entertainment, there is measurable benefit to kids and families singing and moving together.
Actionable Insights
Don’t underestimate the value of musical segments in preschool and elementary children’s media! Musical bits that are memorable and relevant to children’s lives can be important building blocks for social interaction outside of viewing time.
When creating musical segments, consider using melodies repeatedly and pairing with new lyrical content, particularly if the lyrical content is intended to teach something.
Consider ways to elicit active musical engagement from the viewer both during and after viewing. Gross motor movements that are easy to follow – or even sign language elements – can engage children physically with the music-making experience.
Sara Beck, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology at Randolph College
Collaborator of The Center for Scholars and Storytellers
Additional References:
How the media may be making the COVID-19 mental health epidemic worse
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
Since the pandemic began, anxiety rates in the U.S. have tripled; the rate of depression has quadrupled. Now research is suggesting the media is part of the problem. Constantly watching and reading news about COVID-19 may be hazardous for your mental health.
We are professors who study the psychological effects on people caught up in crisis, violence and natural disasters. COVID-19 surely qualifies as a crisis, and our survey of more than 1,500 U.S. adults clearly showed that those experiencing the most media exposure about the pandemic had more stress and depression.
It’s understandable. The intimations of death and suffering, and the images of overwhelmed hospitals and intubated patients can be terrifying. COVID-19 has created an infodemic; members of the public are overwhelmed with more information than they can manage. And much of that information, especially online, includes disturbing rumors, conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated statements that confuse, mislead and frighten.
Stress worse for some than others
A June 2020 study of 5,412 U.S. adults says 40% of respondents reported struggling with mental health or substance use issues. This finding did not address whether respondents had COVID-19. Since then, some people who had COVID-19 are now reporting mental health issues that appeared within 90 days after their illness subsided.
Taking care of a relative or friend with the virus might result in mental health problems, and even just knowing someone with COVID-19 can be stressful. And if a family member or friend dies from it, anxiety and depression often follow the grief. This is even more likely if the individual dies alone – or if a memorial isn’t possible because of the pandemic.
Essential workers, from hospitals to grocery stores, have a higher risk for COVID-related mental health problems. This is particularly true for health care workers caring for patients who ultimately died from the virus.
Black and Hispanic adults also report more mental health issues, including substance abuse and thoughts of suicide. Having access to fewer resources and experiencing the systemic racism running through much of U.S. health care may be two of the factors. The COVID-19 pandemic also intersected with episodes of police violence toward Black Americans. This alone may have exacerbated mental health problems.
Children, young adults and college students also show comparatively worse mental health reactions. This could be due to the disconnect they feel, brought on by the isolation from peers, the loss of support from teachers and the disappearance of daily structure.
Setting limits essential
Staying informed is critical, of course. But monitor how much media you’re consuming, and assess how it affects you. If you are constantly worrying, feeling overwhelmed, or having difficulty sleeping, you may be taking in too much COVID media. If this is happening to you, take a break from the news and do other things to help calm your mind.
Parents should frequently check in with children to see how they are affected. Listening to and validating their concerns – and then providing honest responses to their questions – can be enormously helpful. If a child is having difficulty talking about it, the adult can start with open-ended questions (“How do you feel about what is happening?”). Reassure children that everything is being done to protect them and discuss ways to stay safe: Wear a mask, socially distance, wash hands.
Finally, you can model and encourage good coping skills for your children. Remind young people that good things are still happening in the world. Work together to list healthy ways to cope with COVID-19 stress. Then do them. These activities will help your children cope – and it will be good for you too.
Associate Professor of Communication and Public Health, University of Missouri-Columbia
University of Tennessee, College of Social Work, University of Tennessee
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
Avoiding Mental Health Stigmatizations & Encouraging Help Seeking Through Entertainment Media
Mass media have the power to shape our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs toward certain groups, issues and individuals. For better or worse, most forms of media, including entertainment media, serve as primary sources of information for many viewers, influencing our understanding of those around us and in turn, our future behaviors and actions.
Unfortunately, for those struggling with mental illness, the depictions of characters with mental health issues often focus on negative and extreme stereotypical traits that portray these individuals as a danger to society and themselves. These depictions are not only inaccurate and unrepresentative of the millions of people worldwide who face mental health challenges, but they also reinforce preconceived stigmatizations which can lead to diminished self-esteem and social exclusion.
Mental health professionals are often portrayed as odd, unhelpful, unrelatable and/or unavailable, which can have major consequences on those affected by mental illness. These negative portrayals can interfere with help seeking behaviors and prevent individuals from receiving treatment due to factors such as fear, shame, embarrassment and discrimination. A startling two-thirds of individuals with a mental health disorder never seek professional help.
Too often, entertainment programs portray mental illness as something that destroys lives and fail to show viewers that mental illness is common and treatable. By depicting treatment and recovery, the media can help normalize mental health issues, fight stigma, offer hope, and connect viewers with resources for themselves or loved ones.
In a survey commissioned by the mental health organization Mind, based in the UK, findings showed that after seeing a news report or drama involving a character with mental health challenges, more than half of the respondents expressed that it had improved their understanding of mental health issues and a quarter said it had inspired them to start a conversation about mental health. Furthermore, out of the respondents affected by mental health issues, one third were encouraged to seek professional help and get assistance.
Several other studies have highlighted the power of the media to reduce stigma, increase understanding of mental health and increase help-seeking behaviors. For example, one study found that participants who watched a film depicting an accurate portrayal of an individual with schizophrenia, were less likely to endorse stigmatizing attitudes toward individuals with the illness compared to participants who saw an inaccurate portrayal of schizophrenia. Another study found that having a strong relationship to the main character of a television series who had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) was associated with lower OCD stereotypes and greater willingness to seek and disclose mental health treatment specifically among participants with a mental illness.
It is clear that the media have the power to influence our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs about individuals living with mental illness and also to help those affected. Therefore, it is in the best interest of millions of viewers and their loved ones for content creators to portray characters with a mental illness accurately and positively.
Here are some actionable insights for storytellers:
Avoid perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness that may be stigmatizing and harmful.
Avoid including stigmatizing language in scripts, such as “crazy,” “psycho,” “looney,” “wacko,” etc.
Avoid making mental illness the defining feature of a character’s personality.
Introduce likeable and relatable characters who also might happen to encounter mental health challenges.
Portray doctors and therapists as helpful and supportive rather than incompetent or unavailable.
Model help-seeking behaviors such as talking to therapists, talking to trusted friends/adults and calling/texting helplines.
Model help-seeking behaviors not only for serious or diagnosable problems but also for common challenges such as stress, divorce and death.
Show supporting cast characters modeling supportive behaviors and describing options for seeking help.
Insert message of mental health treatment, hope and recovery.
Vicki Harrison, MSW
Program Director, Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing
Stanford Psychiatry Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing
Adrianna Ruggiero
Senior Research Coordinator for CSS
Adopt: A New Perspective
Being the youngest child in a sibling group of five brings some unique challenges that can build character, a thick skin, and a can-do attitude. Some "good ol' fashioned" ribbing from older siblings or running as fast as you can to keep up with the cool older brothers never hurt anyone. I hold those memories dear, and I am grateful for them, as they helped to shape me into who I am today. But in retrospect now as an adoptive parent and social worker in the field of foster care and adoption, what I remember as "good ol' fashioned ribbing" sheds new light. My older siblings would say to me, "Mom and Dad haven't told you yet, but you were adopted." I remember feeling scared about what that meant, too young to quite understand. But what I knew for sure was they were attempting to convey bad news, and it revealed I didn't belong in the same way the older four did. I actually was quite younger than the older four and was a pleasant surprise to my parents, as they thought their family was complete at four children. Needless to say, I joined the Guilfoyle family the same way the rest of the crew did and it was not through adoption.
Where did my siblings learn to believe that adoption was something negative? Media has a major influence in our society, establishing norms and beliefs representing how we see ourselves and how we see "others." These messages are then passed on through our relationships within our families, neighborhoods and communities. While my experiences may have been in the 1970s the negative connotations, some 50 years later, still exist and are easily slipped in as a joke or passing comment without a second thought to their effects.
Recently on Good Morning America, host Amy Robach interviewed actors Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard from the FX show "Breeders," which is described as a dark and honest look at parenting. The focus of the interview was on the actors’ and host’s children in real life.
In the episode clip that followed, the parents are chatting about parenting woes. The wife says to her husband, "Should we just give the kids up for adoption?" Her husband responds with "Done." And they laugh.
In 2021, adoption continues to be used as a punch line by writers in TV and film. When I hear "jokes" like this it takes my breath away—not because of any leftover anxiety from my older siblings’ teasing—but because I have felt and seen, first hand, the effects via my experiences as an adoptive parent as well as a social worker who has assisted children and families on their own adoption journeys. I immediately think how this "joke" lands on and impacts these children and my son. What does it say to a parent who has made a plan of adoption for their child? Such a difficult, heart-wrenching decision should not be made into a punchline. What does it convey to a child or adult adoptee about their adoption experience and their place in their family? I must have done something wrong. I must have been bad.
I hear the counterargument ringing in my ears as I type, and it goes something like this: "Kids need to toughen up these days. We are creating wimpy kids. Everyone is so easily offended, lately." Truthfully, I do not want to create an argument through this blog, instigating each person to defend their opinion. Rather, I am hoping for writers to consider not using adoption as a punch line because they know there are real children and real adults who have a connection to adoption in their viewing audience. Some of these children are in foster care waiting for a family to say "YES" to their adoption plan and certainly have experienced enough in their short lives. Being on the other end of a "joke" in media or learned through media is cruel.
I believe kids can build resiliency, character, perseverance and determination from healthy and natural outlets and experiences without being figuratively “poked in the eye” with intention.
Consider the response to seeing an adult walk up to a child and purposefully poking them in the eye, causing the child to cry, believing they did something wrong to deserve it. Would the response be, “Buck up,” or “It will make you tougher for the road ahead” or “It builds character”? Participating in a sport or learning to play an instrument, whiffing at strike three, or forgetting the notes to a song and coming back to try again and again, build those characteristics we see as valuable. Children have plenty of real-life experiences to draw from to assist in building healthy resilience, fortitude and strength. Let us not create artificial and hurtful experiences through media that beat them down.
Our son does not need to live through punchlines about adoption to build his resilience. He does not need to be exploited through media, with other children learning these punchlines and using them on the playground to build his character. My hope is that writers and actors will keep in mind that their audience includes families and children with connections to adoption, and understand that perpetuating negative connotations impact the real feelings of real people.
When we know better, we all have it in us to do better.
Actionable Insights
Content creators have an opportunity to influence viewers with their storylines and narratives about adoption. Using adoption as a punch line by suggesting a child is less than because of their connection to adoption or that birth parents created a plan of adoption for their child as a flippant decision can negatively impact the self-image of a large number of children and adults. The implications of a content creator’s writing can also create positive change for how adoption is perceived by an adoptee, prospective adoptive parent, birth parent, and peers on the playground. Using positive adoption language, not stereotyping adoptees or birth parents, and simply removing adoption in any format as a punch line provides an opportunity to create positive change in our community.
Consider these statistics:
There are approximately 120,000 children just in the United States in foster care waiting to be adopted.
One out of every 25 US families with children has a child who joined their family through adoption. About half of these families have both children through birth and adoption (US Census).
Approximately 7 million Americans were adopted.
Around 140,000 children are adopted by American families each year.
Nearly 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate family, whether this includes adopting, placing a child, or being adopted.
Six in 10 Americans have personal experience with adoption, meaning they themselves, a family member, or a close friend was adopted, adopted a child, or placed a child for adoption.
It is estimated that between 1 and 2 million couples are waiting to adopt, yet only 4% of women with unwanted pregnancies make the decision to place their children through adoption.
On average, children wait 3 years for an adoptive family and the average child waiting for an adoptive family is 8 years old.
Marianne Guilfoyle
Chief Innovations Officer, Allies for every child
How Activist Audiences Are Changing the TV Industry
This article originally appeared on Shondaland.com
Television, like all other art forms, has gone through various eras over the years. Often the era corresponds with what is happening within the culture, particularly the generations coming of age during that time. We are now in the streaming era of television, the a la carte programming boom that allows users to watch whatever they please, whenever they please. Gen Z, the politically active and outspoken adolescents of today, have different TV habits than previous generations. Even when binge-watching Friends, this group is unafraid to poke holes in the television industry’s framework and call for content that respects their values.
I work with UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), where we harness the power of storytelling to help the next generation thrive and grow. In the lab, we study adolescents to understand their media habits and the effects that media have on young minds. Social media is a fixture of daily life, particularly during the pandemic, and it has become a place for activism and political engagement that allows young people to become informed on causes happening around them.
Gen Z is more racially diverse, educated, and queer than any of our previous generations. This group uses social media to develop their identities and engage with heterogeneous peers that might not be living in their hometowns. As a result, this progressive group has become interested in representation in media and social impact entertainment, seeking diverse and authentic casting and storytelling on- and off-screen. They are vocal about wanting to see themselves and their peers reflected back to them on-screen, carrying the torch from Millennials and Gen X’ers — notably Black women — who spearheaded movements like #TimesUp and #OscarsSoWhite.
“Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen.”
In recent years, content has been shifting to be more diverse and inclusive, particularly when looking at adolescent-focused shows. Diverse programming in this space is not new — I grew up with That’s So Raven and True Jackson VP — but these series did not capture the attention of adults. Now, spaces that have been vehicles for complex adult programming such as Netflix and HBO are producing shows that feature adolescent characters that appeal to wider-ranging audiences — and might even prompt parent-child conversations.
Some recent examples are Sex Education, Never Have I Ever, Euphoria, and We Are Who We Are. All of these shows feature people of color prominently in the principal cast and deal with mental health and racial, sexual, and gender identity. HBO Max’s most recent debut Genera+ion, is an intriguing addition, as it was created with significant contributions from a 19-year-old. As a new socially conscious generation comes of age, more change must be on the horizon for the industry, even outside of adolescent-focused programming.
In order for this to happen, entertainment companies have to take a hard look at their hiring practices and slates of content. One company that has been doing this is STARZ. While the global media company serves an adult demographic (with a majority coming from the 18-54 range), their programming captures the attention of some Gen Z viewers in the stage of late adolescence. Through my work with STARZ, I have come to see that their leadership team understands the necessity to make changes within their organization to be more inclusive of underrepresented groups, both in front of and behind the camera. STARZ recently launched the #TakeTheLead initiative, which kicked off in February with a research report that I co-authored, and will continue with a series of monthly “Transparency Talks” throughout the year leading up to an industry-wide summit in the fall focused on representation that STARZ will host.
In late 2020, STARZ asked CSS to assess the diversity within their shows — both in front of and behind the camera — and their leadership team, relative to the rest of the television industry. Our team began by reviewing all of the recently released industry reports analyzing representation in front of and behind the camera to get a sense of the landscape. We chose three reports to illustrate the comparative numbers for the industry: UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2020, Part 2: Television, the Writer’s Guild of America West (WGAW) Inclusion Report 2020, and Boxed In 2019-20: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in Television from San Diego State University (SDSU). We then dove into the numbers for STARZ, focusing on race and gender for their senior leadership, showrunners, executive producers, directors, writers, series leads, and series regulars. In order to provide more accurate comparisons to the industry, we used the criteria from the industry reports to better define the data analyzed for each category. We were encouraged by our findings.
The numbers showed that STARZ exceeded industry hiring practices for people of color by more than 123 percent at the showrunner level and more than 85 percent at the executive producer level. People of color also make up over 53 percent of the writers’ rooms on STARZ’s series and nearly half of all episodic directors. As a result, many of the stories that STARZ is telling — the Power Universe franchise and the upcoming series Run the World and Blindspotting — are refreshingly diverse and representative of communities often ignored by Hollywood.
A standout is the STARZ original P-Valley, which showrunner Katori Hall adapted from her play with an uncensored name, about the inner workings of a strip club in Mississippi, The Pynk. The show received critical and audience acclaim when it launched last summer for its nuanced depictions of the dancers and the southern strip club scene. The secret to the success of P-Valley is how the series puts the spotlight on women of color on-screen and behind the scenes, including in the director’s chair and writers’ room. The show demonstrates that when the people who are telling stories behind the camera truly represent the actors who bring those stories to life, what we gain is a richness often only seen in stories about white men.
Recent research reports from SDSU and UCLA have demonstrated that more diverse representation in leadership roles translates to more diverse representation at every level of production.
In our work at CSS, we analyze Authentically Inclusive Representation (AIR), taking a deeper look into the substance of the storytelling and noting intersectionality, tropes, and stereotypes. We used Mediaversity’s extensive grading system to create a sliding scale to rate where a work ranks relative to the norm of having some — often stereotypical — representation across gender, race, and LGBTQ+ or disability. Films and TV shows score above the norm for AIR much more often when members of underrepresented groups are heavily involved in the storytelling process, as with P-Valley.
What is most important is that executives and content creators work together to make AIR a priority within their shows or risk negatively affecting perceptions of self within audiences of color.
Viewer habits and appetites are changing. Content creators looking to capture the short attention span — about 8 seconds — of Gen Z need to focus on making their stories authentic reflections of the world as this young audience experiences it — diverse, inclusive, and honest.
Demand for this kind of content is also increasing rapidly amongst Millennial and Gen X audiences.
An important first step toward change is to invite underrepresented groups into the rooms where decisions are being made and to give these individuals real decision-making power.
Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen. Actors, writers, directors, producers, showrunners, and executives all have a part to play here, and when their voices come together in a positive way, it can shift audience attitudes and promote tolerance. Organizations like CSS can offer guidance on how to make changes to promote more responsible storytelling, but ultimately it is up to the leaders in the entertainment industry to make the decision to start the process.
Program Director, Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.
Samantha, 20
Media Consumption: about 5 hours per day
Favorite Media/Technology: Netflix, YouTube, Instagram
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
I live apart from my parents so we call and text a lot to keep up. We also like to watch Netflix as a family and my brother and I share memes and other videos over social media.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We keep up through text, Facebook messenger, and DMs. We also have movie nights and watch many streaming platforms together. We definitely live on our phones and interact through them, sharing updates about our lives or content we are passionate about.
What do you use media for?
Most often I use it for entertainment purposes as well as to educate myself on current events, but I try not to use it too much for getting information. I also use Instagram and Snapchat to share content with others and see what they are up to.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing is that it can connect you to a host of different people pretty easily. It allows me to keep up with relationships as well as see other people’s perspectives on various platforms that I wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to. On the other hand, various forms of media can be incredibly toxic and promote a certain body image standard. It can also act as an echo chamber and only accept one opinion and if you are not within that, you can be ostracized and become prey to the “cancel culture.”
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
While this may be a contested point of view, some media creators could employ more censorship on their platforms so we can minimize incidents like the January 6th riots. Media creators have a right and responsibility to excise extremist groups who promote violence and facilitate terrorist ideologies. While Twitter and Facebook have begun to do so, this took a lot of public pressure and needs to continue.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Messaging platforms because I can’t see my friends, and other social media sites to stay in contact.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
I don’t keep too up-to-date with COVID-related things because it has become exhausting for me. I occasionally get news through the Wall Street Journal or campus publications with updates on places opening up and rates.
What media has been helping you stay busy/stay calm during this difficult time?
Mostly streaming platforms to take me to another place and get my mind off the present. I love finding new shows on Netflix and definitely partake in binge-watching more than I would like to admit.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
I have learned patience and who my close friends are. I have focused on self-discipline and needing to be my own motivator each day. I also try to accept help when I need it and extend grace to others. I have tried to better understand how other people are feeling and accommodate them as well.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I have noticed in the absence of extracurricular activities and places to go, I tend to turn to social media instead. I need to monitor my use as I could sit for hours in my room scrolling through media and wasting the day away. But with all the social movements that have been incited during the pandemic, I have learned it can also be a powerful tool for social change if used correctly.
Interviewed by: Sahar Shirbacheh, UCLA 3rd Year Student
What Can Children Learn About Social Justice from Picture Books About Migration?
Many young children encounter refugees and migrants for the first time in the picture books read to them by their parents. But what can they learn from these stories? Amidst growing hostility towards immigrants in both the UK and the US in the Brexit and Trump era, we set to address this question and shed light on the role that these books play as socialization agents in young children’s lives. We selected 40 popular books published in these two countries during 2015-2019 and systematically analyzed their content, following a codebook developed specifically for this study.
We found that the stories are characterized by three dominant narratives. The first centers on the immigrant’s resolve to overcome a range of hardships and difficulties involved in the journey to their new home and the adjustments such a move requires. The second narrative focuses specifically on the migrants’ or refugees’ quest for social acceptance in their new cultural context while concurrently harboring memories of their home country. This tension is expressed through specific cultural markers, such as a Persian carpet in a story of an immigrant from Iraq to Europe, embedding words in Creole in a story of a migrant from Haiti, or employing images of Barbie and Nintendo to signify the US as the host country. The third narrative depicts a happy ending of the journey, better life in the host country, often characterized by a celebration of the protagonist’s realization of the American Dream.
“Half of the books we examined focused on contexts of forced migration, where children flee violence, war, oppression, poverty, and/or famine.”
The construction of the host country as a haven is often achieved by depicting the migrant’s life in the country of origin as extremely difficult, miserable, and dangerous. Half of the books we examined focused on contexts of forced migration, where children flee violence, war, oppression, poverty, and/or famine. In this sense – and similar to other media portrayals of migrations (such as news coverage) – these books introduce children to the dire reality of many of their counterparts around the world, by reinforcing the negative experiences of migration. In turn, they downplay voluntary migration, for example, stories of migration motivated by the desire to pursue education or a profession. The implied message in many of these children’s stories is that people migrate to “our country” (the US and the UK) which is safe, welcoming, and prosperous, in order to leave behind places that are unsafe, dangerous, dirty, and poor.
To bypass highly politicized contemporary discourses about immigration and their often divisive tendencies, one strategy that 40% of the books employ is to locate their stories in the past, using history as a prism through which to understand contemporary migration. In this way, migration is presented as a story that is safely secured in the bygone era, as in, for example, stories of immigrants who entered the US through Ellis Island or of famous figures such as Irving Berlin, who immigrated from Tsarist Russia to hospitable New York.
Interestingly, the depiction of antagonists was largely absent in the stories; the world is presented as a safe place full of well-intentioned people, similar to TV content for young audiences. The protagonists, half of whom are children, are mostly migrants themselves and are represented by and large as human characters. They are frequently characterized as active and positive, exhibiting creativity, talent, innovativeness, bravery, resilience, kindness, and optimism. Their gender identity follows the typical imbalance in children’s media more generally – namely, the majority of characters are male, and are mostly depicted as active. It was striking that even the stories that did focus on a female protagonist completely ignored the particular gendered hardships and injustice faced by millions of girls in their countries from which they flee.
Finally, we also noted that the trend of diversifying the representation of children in contemporary media and culture manifests itself in picture books as well: over a third of the characters have brown skin, which can signify a range of races and ethnicities, including African, Latinx, Middle-Eastern, and/or South Asian, a quarter have white skin, and the rest are non-human or had more than one skin colour. In addition, some of the child characters are depicted in dual-parent families while others are presented in single-parent families. At the same time, heterosexuality remains the norm: there is no reference to non-heterosexual families or characters.
So what lessons can children learn from picture books focusing on immigration?
They may learn that migration stories are success stories, where children move from unfortunate circumstances in their home countries, which are predominantly in the global South, to much better lives in the host countries in the global North – most frequently the US. They are generally greeted with generosity and hospitality and find their host country to be a safe place of comfort, acceptance, and happiness, which is devoid of antagonists, and in which opportunities are bountiful and individual efforts are rewarded.
“[These picture books] miss an opportunity to broaden children’s knowledge and appreciation of the plurality of cultures, experiences, and places and the urgent need to respect and protect them.”
This is a familiar construction that celebrates ‘bootstrap neoliberalism,’ whereby individual determination, perseverance, resilience and optimism bear fruit in the ‘land of opportunities.’ Yet it misses the chance to engage young children with issues of equity, discrimination, and injustice in their own ‘host societies.’ It also contributes to the binary and stereotypical depiction of the global North as a safe haven, and the global South as a monolithic space of misery and suffering. The richness and diversity of cultures, traditions, histories and experiences outside of the western world is, in this way, largely erased. Therefore, we concluded that “paradoxically, while children’s picture books concerning migration are aimed at highlighting, appreciating, and celebrating difference and are part of the growing trend of children’s ‘diversity’ books that promote justice and fairness, they seem concurrently to erase difference and injustice. They thus miss an opportunity to broaden children’s knowledge and appreciation of the plurality of cultures, experiences, and places and the urgent need to respect and protect them.”
Shani Orgad
Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
Dafna Lemish
School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University
Collaborator of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Anna, 14
How do you and your family interact with media and technology?
Lately, the biggest use of technology is using Zoom on the laptop, and my sister and I mostly use Netflix and other social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. My parents mostly use technology to watch TV and Korean dramas. We use technology much more than our parents.
How do your parents feel about you using media?
When we were little, they limited our use of technology in terms of time, but now they are open to me using any kind of social media. When I tell my parents that my friends aren’t allowed to use certain platforms, they find it weird because they believe we should be able to use them if we want to. They trust that I’m not doing anything bad, but sometimes they worry that it’ll be a distraction from school.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I use TikTok the most. We send each other TikToks, and the screen time is really bad because of it. When I start watching it, it’s hard to stop watching.
Do you have different views towards media use than your parents?
Even though my parents use social media, they don’t view it as something that is necessary. I find it an easy way to interact with my friends. TikTok allows me to see what influencers and other celebrities are doing, and most people I know around me feel that way too.
What is your favorite and least favorite thing about media and technology?
When I’m bored, it’s something that I can do, and I can spend a lot of time on it for entertainment. It’s really fun to see a variety of things. A bad thing I guess is that people get bullied through social media, and it’s kind of hard to prevent it.
Is there anything else you don’t like about social media?
Not really.
Do you think you use the media too much?
Definitely too much, but when I try to limit it, I end up failing. It’s kind of hard to control it.
Have you ever felt the need or want to get away from technology?
Yeah, I thought about it, but I never did it. I think it would be nice, but I never actually tried it.
How did you feel about this interview?
It was interesting to talk about my media use because I never really think about the things you asked me. It made me think a lot about how the media is really affecting me.
Interviewed by: Yejin Ban, UCLA Student
Joshua, 18
Media Consumption: 10 hours per day (school and leisure)
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Well, it has definitely increased because when I was on campus at UCLA, I would spend most free time hanging out with friends on campus, but now I have to interact with friends through social media — Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat — and my YouTube time has gone up a lot. Just overall an increase in social media use.
How many hours a day do you use digital technology?
I would say a good chunk of my time. Most of my day — at least 10 hours a day on-screen, which includes school and everything else. For school-related activities, at least 6 hours school because I have coding which is online, and I can’t do any of it on paper. For personal use, probably 4 hours.
What are some social media channels that you use? What are their purposes? What are some pros and cons about each?
I am on Instagram a lot. I usually see what people post and what they are up to. But most of the time I’m on TikTok because it’s so addictive. The scrolling option is really addicting. I don’t know if it’s a pro or con but it consumes a lot of my time. More than I would like it to. So I would say probably 3 out of my 4hours — if I spend 4 hours a day — would be on TikTok because you get that addictive scrolling. It’s not the same with Instagram because TikTok allows you to see 6-second videos and you scroll and get hooked on something else again and again. I first got into TikTok at the start of quarantine because I wanted to feel more connected to people. And it's just another outlet to do that.
Do you try to limit your media use? How?
Since I’ve been at home, I know I’ve had too much screen time so I am trying to limit my time for both personal and school use because I do not want to ruin my eyes. Most of the time, I try to cut down my personal use because I can’t help my school-related stuff. I try to cut off my TikTok time as much as I can. On the TikTok app, a guide pops up every so often and says “You’ve been on here for a while. You probably need to get some rest,” which is helpful. I do have notifications on YouTube for if you watch for too long (1 hour) or if it’s your bedtime. For TikTok, I don’t have anything set up, which tells me how much time I’ve been on it. So 3 hours can go by and I wouldn’t notice. So I should probably set up an alarm now that I think about it.
When did you get your first phone? What type of phone was it?
This was back in the day, so I was probably 8-years-old; 2010. It was a BlackBerry. It was one of those that had a wheel on it with the plastic keyboard. So there wasn't much functionality to it. I just played a game where you bounced the ball and hit stuff. I didn’t really contact anyone with it besides my parents because my peers did not have phones at that age. For smartphones, I got my first one in 2013/14. I did more than press plastic keyboards.
How did your parents regulate your technology usage growing up?
Once I came to college, funny enough, they encouraged me to install an app. I forgot what it was called but it basically tracks your location. So wherever I would go, they would monitor where I was at. So I guess they were paranoid of how much freedom I had in college. But before that, in high school, they would monitor messages without me knowing. So I thought that was kind of weird. I don’t think they cared about the content. They didn’t give me murder games but as long as it was within a reasonable range, they won’t care about what I was playing. In terms of screen time, they were responsible parents and limited my screen time when I was on my PS3 or tablet or phone.
Have you been influenced by ads you saw on social media?
I noticed that after I looked something up, they had popped up for that thing I looked up. So whenever I see ads, it's for something that I’ve already seen or looked up so I don’t really pay much attention to them. I actually installed an ad skipper for YouTube. So every time a skip ads button pops up, this ad skipper automatically clicks it so I don’t have to deal with clicking it, so I don’t even watch the ads.
How do you feel about big companies taking your data and feeding it to advertisers?
I think it’s kind of creepy and more annoying than anything. I’ve seen these things and looked it up and it’s just really annoying.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
I like how many different perspectives I get to see. Not so much from Instagram and Snapchat because the media you consume is based on who you follow. But TikTok is personalized to you in a way that it gives you content that you like but not necessarily [have] seen before. So I like that I get to see a lot of different people that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen because I don’t follow them.
Do you have any thoughts on Facebook?
Before college, I thought that Facebook was only for old people. But now that I’m in college, I realize the importance of it. Because for the Dragon Boat Team, we really utilize all the features such as Facebook messaging, announcements, and discussions. So I like how all of that is intertwined with one another and we could create events on Facebook and send reminders to people. I don’t really use the Facebook platform for anything other than that. But I have been using Facebook messenger a lot more recently. I use it as my main source of communication with people.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I appreciate those messages that pop up for TikTok. I haven’t put something in my settings where it's like I only want an hour of screen time. So I appreciate those messages from TikTok saying you probably spend too much time on this app and it’s probably time for you to go to bed.
Do you think screentime is bad before going to bed?
I think it might be for some but for me, it's kind of a routine now. It’s my routine so it gets me in the mood to sleep. I try not to let social media dictate sleep, but it often does if I’m hooked on the content. Especially TikTok when it seems like there’s an endless void of content to go through, as opposed to YouTube. When a video ends, after you watched for 40 minutes, you kind of know it’s time for you to go to bed. But for TikTok, there’s no sense of direction or time. So it’s kind of difficult to dictate when I sleep when I am on TikTok, but for other apps, I feel like it’s fine.
When the notification pops up, what do you do?
For YouTube, I know that I’ve been on there for one hour, so I should probably get off, but for TikTok, it doesn’t tell you a certain time. It feels like it's only been 5 minutes. So I feel like I could do it for a little bit more. [With YouTube] usually, I disregard the message, but I do keep it on my mind so I get off a couple of minutes later.
Interviewed by: Quynh Vo, UCLA Student
Anna, 13
How do you and your family interact with technology?
We usually watch something together in our parents’ room or sometimes we text on the phone.
On your own time for fun, how do you use digital media?
I watch YouTube, call my friends, and read comics. I call my friends every day from morning until night.
Are there any rules around media use in the house?
On the weekends, mommy makes us start playing only at 9 or 10 in the morning. That is when we are allowed to start. And then we have to stop at 9 or 10 at night to do something else. She tells us to get off our computers and phones, and if we don’t then she will yell at us.
How do you use social media?
I use Discord. I barely use Instagram and Twitter. I use Discord the most to call and text friends. If one of our friends wants to stream their homework for help or stream YouTube or Netflix. I also did Secret Santa. One of my best friends had a bunch of mutuals on Twitter and I was invited and we all gathered together. I was part of the organizing. Everyone filled out a form and everyone had to fill it out to match people depending on what they wanted and what they could make. It was pretty hectic but I got through. It was pretty cool.
How has your media usage changed during the Covid-19 pandemic?
Before I was only on Discord for an hour a day but now I’m on it every day at every hour.
How do you feel about celebrity influencers online?
I only watch them when they pop up on my recommendations. Some of them are kind of problematic. They get into scandals. They’re just people who I watch, not really role models. They say “don’t wear this, it will make you look fat.” It’s sad and mean. All those girls, especially models. You just have to be like them — shave, no body hair, have a thin face, and have all this stuff appearance-wise. It’s sad.
What lessons have you learned from Covid-19?
Be more aware of your surroundings and follow the rules.
Interviewed by: Adela Tran, UCLA Student
Michael, 20
Media Consumption: Around 4-5 Hours a Day
Favorite Media/Technology: Video Games and Twitch
Why do you play video games?
I use video games and streaming to be entertained and feel linked to other people online. Video games link me to my friends and a community of other gamers [people who he does not personally know] where we can chat through the PlayStation app to schedule a time to play multiplayer games.
What type of content do you play?
Call of Duty Warzone and Rainbow Six Siege. Both of these video game titles are shooter games rated M for mature. Video games have taught me how to socialize. Ever since I was a kid on the PlayStation 3 console, I met and still meet new people every day online.
What do you like about Twitch?
Twitch has helped me learn more about myself. I learned that I am similar to other Twitch viewers as “game lovers” even though I am twenty years old.
Are there media interferences in your life and what are they?
My smartphone is the biggest distraction of all mankind. Instagram and YouTube are the two main platforms that should be held responsible and punished because I fall in loopholes and lose track of time. I take breaks only to find myself with a bag of Lays chips on my bed, scrolling through ads in my Instagram feed.
Is your family also affected by the media interferences and how so?
Smartphones in general interfere with my family. Smartphones are a replacement for social interactions during family dinner. Every family member is on their phone; therefore, it is all quiet during dinner.
How has COVID affected your media usage?
I have not been able to see my friends as frequently as before. However, I can still game with them every day. My friends are very important to me and to see my friends less, hurt me. However, video games saved my relationships with my friends and we are able to talk about everything from school to gaming content while playing video games.
Interviewed by: Daniel Fouladian, UCLA 3rd Year Student
Mia, 18
Media Consumption: 2 hours a day (4-5 if not at work)
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
We use WhatsApp, since my dad lives far away in Lebanon this is the only way I can speak with him freely. Other than that, none of my siblings live together so we FaceTime and keep in contact mostly through there especially because of COVID.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We mostly text over iMessage, not as much as we used to talk in high school but that is probably because everyone works now or is busy in college. Oh, we also all use Insta (Instagram), we comment on each other's pictures and support each other on there.
What do you use media for?
I mostly use media to keep in touch with my family, like my dad and siblings. Or occasionally I will drop an Instagram picture to let everybody know I’m still doing well and I still exist, mostly because everyone else is still using that. Snapchat is dead now so I don’t use that and Twitter is something I will occasionally use. Oh, and I watch Netflix a lot - does that count?
What is your favorite/least favorite component of media/technology?
My favorite thing is talking to my family that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to talk to. Also seeing what my friends from high school are up to this past year, and being able to entertain myself on TikTok for hours. My least favorite thing is that it feels like a competition. We are always competing to post the best pictures and see whose life looks the most glamorous. It sounds weird but you kind of want to have the most likes and the most comments, to know people still care or are interested. You also compare yourself on media because since everyone posts their best pictures you only see that side of them and you constantly feel like you’re not good enough. Or maybe that is just me.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I want the people who create media to know about vulnerable people on their sites. And yeah they aren't responsible for people’s mental health or anything but maybe put some disclaimers? Like younger kids use their sites and it would be helpful to include that not everything is real - or that could be the parents’ job. Maybe they should make the age requirement stricter because you just have to say what year you were born and anyone can do that.
What media are you using more now because of COVID-19?
Because of COVID-19, I stopped going to school so I mostly stay off my computer and only use it for Netflix. On my phone, I use TikTok a lot. Like for hours, but other than that social media is a little toxic so it’s best to just not scroll through Instagram or anything for hours. But TikTok is funny, I am so grateful for it.
Interviewed by: Rassile Jamaleddine, UCLA 4th Year Student
Mia, 15
Media Consumption: 6 hours a day on phone and computer
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok on her iPhone
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Every day my mom uses her Apple Watch to count her steps when she goes on runs and hikes. My dad uses his Alexa as an alarm to wake him up for work every day. I use technology in many ways. I set alarms to remind me to feed my puppy 3 times a day and I watch TikToks when I’m bored. My sister uses technology every day as well by using her laptop for school and she also uses her Apple Watch when going on walks. As a family, we always watch TV in the living room together sometimes.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I communicate by Snapchatting each other and sending text messages throughout the day. I also send many TikToks to a lot of my best friends and send funny pictures. We also FaceTime almost once a week by using our phones. We send many snaps to each other almost like a vlog daily about how the day went or what we did that day. With some of my friends, I also have streaks which are when you send a snap — a picture on Snapchat every day — and eventually, you earn a streak.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing about media/technology is how toxic it can be at times. Women and men tend to compare themselves to celebrities or social media influencers and that can be a very toxic environment. It can also lead to anxiety and depression, I know this because it has also given me much anxiety seeing other people's better lifestyles and just better appearance which can make your self-esteem very low. I have had a few anxiety attacks because of my appearance and comparing myself. It can also be very exhausting to post pictures on Instagram because of the pressure of the anxiety of everyone looking at your picture and judging you and the amount of life or comments can determine how popular you are to some people and overall it is extremely toxic. I have stopped posting and sometimes deleted Instagram to get less anxiety.
What do you use media for?
I use the media for a lot of things, I like to use Pinterest for room decor ideas. I love YouTubers who promote healthy lifestyles and give mental health advice. I like to watch ASMR youtube videos and breathing exercises when things are stressing me out and I can't sleep. I also use Twitter to catch up on the latest news of everything that is going on. I use TikTok for fun entertainment with quick videos that are very fun. I use Instagram to see what everyone is posting and sometimes can get news about new music or other things. I use Snapchat to communicate with people. It's the same thing as messages but more fun.
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I use my phone for alarms and entertainment. I also use my computer daily for Zoom and to do homework. I use my TV to watch YouTube videos after school. I also use my Apple Watch when going on runs. I also use my phone to look up Apple News.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
During this difficult time, my Calm app has helped me stay calm and relaxed and although TikTok is a fun app it can also be very helpful. It can reassure that people are going through this as well.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID?
I never realized how much I rely on it by using technology for alarms or music and because of how much my screen time has increased. It's also made me realize how many hours a day I use my phone and how helpful it can be daily.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/ play/ interact with to know?
I would ask Emma Chamberlain to make more videos on meditation and mindfulness. Her videos help me a lot and I wish she focused more on mental health. I also wish she did more fashion videos because I love her style.
Interviewed by: Natali Delgadillo, UCLA Student
Maya, 15
Media Consumption: 7 hours and 48 minutes daily average
At what age did you first start using these devices
I shared an iPad with my sister starting age 5 and got my own iPhone when I was 9.
What are your most-used apps and which is your favorite?
Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are my favorite. I would say my most favorite is TikTok.
Why is that one your favorite?
The TikTok algorithm brings up videos that have to do with my interest without me even having to search anything. It is a way I have formed some of my favorite friendships. If I meet someone at a party and we make a TikTok together that basically makes us best friends.
Are there any negative parts of TikTok that comes to mind when you think about it?
People like to post videos that have to do with their music taste, clothes, hobbies, or opinions and sometimes this causes a divide among classmates, and cyberbullying is common with the app.
I see Instagram is your second most used app. What can you tell me about your use of it?
I mostly just follow celebrity figures, school friends, animal accounts, and a couple of weight-loss accounts to motivate me.
What do you and your friends usually use Instagram for?
I love the app because it allows me to know what my friends are up to. I mostly just post because if I don’t then people will get bored and unfollow me. I only have two posts right now though because I stared at them for so long that I started thinking I looked weird so I deleted them, and they barely got any likes anyway.
Can you tell me any reasons you have to believe that Instagram can be problematic?
People usually talk behind each other’s backs about their Instagram posts, and a couple of times other students have anonymously made accounts aimed toward posting unwanted pictures or things about other students in the class. Anytime I take a picture my friends force me to delete it, crop them out, or even photoshop them.
Do you ever buy the stuff you see on one of your social media accounts?
Not that much because I have to use my mom’s money to online shop so I can’t do it too much but my friends and I have a few times. Like there is a TikTok dancer named Charli D’Amelio who has a Dunkin Donuts signature drink named after her, and we have all gotten it and posted pictures of it even though I hated the taste of it.
Does social media impact your productivity?
I do spend a lot of time on my phone. I’m pretty addicted to it and I have put settings on TikTok and Instagram so it locks me out after I have used each of them for three hours to try to limit my time on it, but I always end up changing the settings to use the apps again until late at night.
Does the social media you use get monitored in any other way by one of your parents?
My mom used to slightly monitor my phone use when I was 12-13, just to make sure nothing dangerous was going on, but now that I’m in high school my mom does not take part in any kind of monitoring or control of how much I use technology.
Interviewed by: Melanie Aghayane, UCLA 4th Year Student
Audrey, 8
Favorite Media/Technology: Roblox & YouTube
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
I like how my family always texts each other and I’m able to text my sisters whenever I want. I like to play Roblox with my older sisters and watch scary movies with them.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
A lot of my friends play Roblox so we talk about it during school. I don’t text my friends because we all don’t have our own cell phones. We like to just talk about the games we play in person at school.
What do you use media for?
I like watching YouTube videos like unboxing videos because I want to see how the toys look before I buy them because I will be sad if the toy doesn't look how I imagined. I like watching YouTube prank videos because they’re funny.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing about technology is Roblox because, in the game, I can dress up my character to whatever I want it to be. I can buy pretty accessories and jewelry to make myself pretty. I can also dress up my character to whatever I want and change the color of my hair to pink. The thing that I don’t like is that sometimes people can be mean online and scam me in Roblox.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID- 19)?
Roblox
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
Sometimes on TikTok, there are videos about COVID. But my parents and sister usually tell me about COVID.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
I learned how to use Zoom. Online learning isn’t that fun because I don’t get to see my teacher or friends in person.
Interviewed by: Evelyn Xiong, UCLA 4th Year Student
Madison, 18
Media Consumption: 4-5 Hours per day
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok and Instagram
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
My family and I use iMessage to communicate, and my mom uses Instagram and Facebook, but my dad doesn’t use any. We used to use an app called Life360 to know each other’s locations, but now we just use Find my Friends since we all have iPhones.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We all use most of the social media platforms, the most popular being TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. We always message each other using various apps, but mostly with iMessage. We send each other funny videos and posts all the time through the direct messaging features on the app. Some of the videos and posts are very relatable and bring us small bursts of happiness.
What do you use media for?
Primarily out of boredom, or when we are simply procrastinating schoolwork or other work. It’s a great source of endless entertainment. We don’t really have any other need for it other than communication and staying in touch/contact with our friends/peers.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing would definitely be how toxic the social media community is. As funny as it can be at times, there’s also an extreme level of toxicity that exceeds cyberbullying. Some people are so cruel and have no regard for others and it can so sad to read some people’s comments as “trolls” can be ruthless. There’s no way to put a stop to it either which sucks.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
Try and do whatever you can to limit the cyberbullying and trolling online, as it can really be detrimental to the mental health of a lot of users. The internet can turn from a helpful and resourceful place into a toxic one real quick.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Definitely TikTok and some streaming platforms. Boredom has been at an all-time high, so anything to cure that boredom is what I look for, and that includes streaming and binge-watching shows, as well as any funny videos from creators I like.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
Honestly, TikTok has a lot of doctors and medical health experts, so they provide a good amount of information, but I also check the news and I make sure not to watch any biased news networks.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
Like I mentioned earlier, TikTok has been great, as well as streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu have helped cure a lot of boredom, as well as provided me with mindless entertainment.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
The biggest thing I learned isn’t even media-related, but a huge takeaway I got was to not take any time I spent with my friends and family for granted. I really miss not being able to see or hang out with them a lot, so going forward I will cherish our time together much more.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I didn’t learn much but I realized how difficult it can be to put the phone down, as well as how much control social media has over our lives. We may not realize it but social media has a huge grasp on our daily online interactions, internet usage, and is a pivotal part of our culture. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops over this decade.
Interviewed by: Christian Beltran, UCLA 3rd Year Student
Ivan, 17
Media Consumption: Around 5 hours a day
Favorite Media/Technology: Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Through the social media app Instagram, I sometimes find relatable videos or videos that I would like to share with my mother and/or the rest of my family and it ultimately serves as a bonding experience at times.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
I interact with my peers through social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, where we send each other funny videos, or news involving what’s going on in our surroundings. It serves as a way to bring us closer together through the videos, or simply to inform ourselves of what’s going on in the world.
What do you use media for?
I use media in order to learn about global and local events, as well as to distract myself with what’s going on in the world around me. It’s a good escape from reality if one can find funny videos online.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing about social media is how much it can bring people closer together through entertainment. For example, I’m able to bond more with my friends because of funny videos, or through a political discussion based on a post that we find on the internet. However, this very thing that brings people together has the potential to tear people apart because of the dangers of abusing social media.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
One thing I want the people who created social media to understand is the impact of social media on people’s everyday lives. For some people, it is their only form of taking in information, and if their platform is full of conspiracies, it’s ultimately going to cause some sort of danger to society. Additionally, it’s difficult to measure the dangers it poses to young and vulnerable minds.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
I’m using Instagram more as a result of the global pandemic because it’s the platform where I have most of my friends on and it’s the most convenient way I have to understand what’s going on in their lives and if they’re doing ok. Additionally, I use Instagram to find information about how the coronavirus is doing on both a national and local scale.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus?
I get most of my information about the coronavirus from the governors of California and the mayor of LA, as well as from news channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
What media has been helping you stay busy/stay calm during this difficult time?
Through the use of Instagram and discord, I’m able to converse with my friends, sometimes all day long and I find myself being busy and focusing on my relationships with them during this difficult time. Additionally, Tik Tok is a good way to distract me because of how personalized one’s experience is.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
From this pandemic, I’ve learned to not take any experience I have with any person for granted, because we never know when something can change within their lives or our own. I also understood and found a new way to process my emotions that I didn’t have before.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I’ve learned that I have to rely more on media because of the pandemic because I no longer have other people as a new source outlet and have to seek information out on my own.
Interviewed by: Brandon Le, UCLA 3rd Year Transfer Student
AAPI Hate is a Virus: How We As a Nation Can Find the Cure
How Asian Stereotypes In Media Led to a Shocking Rise in AAPI Hate Crimes in 2020-2021 — and What You Can Do About It.
Editor’s Note:
The importance of Asian representation in media could not be more clear in light of the recent Atlanta spa shootings and COVID-19 pandemic. The killer was motivated, in part, by films' and TV's frequent depiction of Asian women as sex objects and proper targets for abuse. Conservative media's constant references to the "Chinese Virus" and the "China Virus" have fueled a rising number of hate crimes against all Asian-Americans. Read below how you can support the AAPI community by creating more three-dimensional and positive Asian characters in movies and TV shows, patronizing Asian restaurants and businesses, donating to AAPI causes, and more.
By now, you have probably heard of the senseless shootings in Atlanta that targeted Asian people at massage parlors. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian and seven who were women. While mainstream news outlets like the New York Times used a trite headline “8 People Killed in Atlanta Area Massage Parlor Shootings,” the fact of the matter is that this wasn’t a random act of shooting fueled by passion or impulse. It was a hate crime. Unfortunately, this watered-down reporting is not an isolated incident. Reputable news outlets have a history of dismissing racist attacks toward Asians, and this lack of widespread media coverage invalidates the increasing prejudice and physical attacks Asians are facing on a daily basis, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A History of Hatred
According to a national report by Stop AAPI Hate, there have been 3,795 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents from March 2020 to February 2021. And that does not account for the more subtle microaggressions that go unreported, such as a resentful glare at the grocery store or hearing someone call Covid-19 the “Chinese Virus” or the “Kung Flu.” While the national conversation is slowly beginning to put this issue to the forefront, Anti-Asian American hate is not new. The Chinese Massacre of 1871 murdered 17 Chinese men. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. The Rock Springs Massacre of 1885 led to 28 Chinese miners being slaughtered and 78 homes burned. The Watsonville Riots of 1930 beat Filipino field workers and left them to rot. Executive Order 9066 forced 127,000 Japanese Americans to move out of their homes and be imprisoned in internment camps. To say that this is a recent issue is not only deeply misguided but historically inaccurate. As deep as our roots may be in American soil, people of Asian descent are viewed as foreign. White supremacy and xenophobic tendencies are baked into the heart of our nation.
Creating better Asian characters in films and TV must move beyond tokenism. Casting people from different ethnic groups, without giving them much dialogue or opportunity to advance the plot, is not enough. Read more about writing more than token characters in movies and TV shows.
Even Hollywood, which is considered liberal-leaning and is slowly beginning to incorporate diversity and inclusion into its industry, has a history of racism that is still on display today. Asian women are often hypersexualized, objectified, and abused in films. It’s no coincidence that the Atlanta murderer, who blamed his actions on his sex addiction, specifically targeted spas comprised of Asian women. His remarks are rooted in a history of misogyny and stereotypes that are all too familiar for Asian and Asian American women. There is an unspoken belief in this country that Asian women are supposed to submit to the white savior, and this isn’t just limited to the public or the workplace. A 2016 report by the National Network to End Domestic Violence found that “41 to 61 percent of Asian women reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, a higher rate than any other ethnic group.” Seeing these harmful stereotypes reinforced, even in films that are supposed to advocate for our community, is dangerous due to its reinforcement of the model minority myth. So what can we do about it?
Call to Action
The police are not the answer to stopping Asian American hate; not when their origins are deeply problematic; not when they sympathize with the murderer instead of showing compassion for the victims. Rather, we must rely on the collective strength of our communities of color and meaningful allies to fight for systemic change, going beyond performative action. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “Dismantling racist, anti-Asian violence means standing up to white supremacy - the same ideology that asks us to empathize with those who commit racist violence rather than the families destroyed and communities targeted by it. Standing up for Asian communities means standing up to racist policy, anti-Asian tropes, & understanding the long history of anti-Asian racism fueling this violence.”
Share and amplify the stories of the AAPI community. Check-in on AAPI friends and family. Support your local Asian restaurants and businesses. Call your legislators and ask what they are doing for the Asian community. Volunteer to help escort seniors in areas that have seen hate crimes. Report if you see any instance of a hate crime. Donate to organizations that support the cause against Asian violence. Petition to hold the media accountable for covering these stories. Follow platforms that discuss AAPI issues. Provide mental health resources to those who are struggling. But most of all, do not be silent. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Reducing racial violence against Asian Americans begins at home, especially with kids' TV and movies. Find images of positive Asian characters for your children's entertainment. Help them develop cross-group friendships. Talk explicitly about racism and its influence in society. Read more about how to reduce racial bias in kids.
Hatred and violence against the AAPI community cannot and should not be tolerated. We must do whatever it takes to combat this issue while it is still part of the national conversation, not only for ourselves but for the subjugated and oppressed of the past. Then, and only then, we have a chance at curing this virus.
Actionable Insights
Support local Asian restaurants, businesses, and creatives.
Share and amplify the stories of the AAPI community who have experienced hate
Hold your elected officials accountable for what they are doing (or not doing) to help stop AAPI hate
Donate to organizations that support the AAPI community
Provide mental health resources to those in the community who need it
Create characters and content that authentically represent Asian Americans in Hollywood
Watch films that authentically represent the AAPI community
Denounce harmful stereotypical portrayals of Asians in TV and film when you encounter them
Call out yourself, friends, and family members for anti-Asian jokes and stereotypical comments
Rewrite history books in a way that accurately represents the struggles of the BIPOC community
Follow organizations that support the AAPI community and teach about their plight
CSS Intern
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.