>> Good afternoon.
Welcome to the
second of four
Psychology Department
Speakers Series this year,
the second one
of this semester.
It is my pleasure to introduce
to you Dr. Sarah Domoff.
Dr. Domoff is a
clinical psychologist
and a professor at Central
Michigan University.
Dr. Domoff did her
undergraduate degree
at the University
of Connecticut.
Her PhD is from
Bowling Green,
and she did her postdoc at
the University of Michigan.
I believe I forgot
to introduce myself--
I'm Dr. Frank Connor.
I'm the Chair of the
Psychology Department.
I'm sort of irrelevant, other
than getting this set up, but--
so, if you would, please
welcome today's speaker.
>> Thank you.
(applause)
Can you guys hear me okay?
(applause)
Everyone hear
me okay?
Well, thank you so
much for having me.
I'm really excited
to be here.
It's my first time on campus,
and it's beautiful.
I ate at The Heritage Restaurant
and that was awesome,
so thank you again
for having me.
So, today, the
title of my talk
is "Child Development
in the Digital Age--
"How, and for Whom, Does Mobile
Media Use Become Problematic?"
So, just to kind
of orient you
to what I'll be
speaking about today--
this is a really big topic--
so the objectives I have.
I would hope that you leave
here with an understanding
of how screen media
and mobile device use
may impact child
social-emotional development
and academic
achievement.
And just to define two terms,
when I say "screen media,"
I mean media delivered
through a screen,
so not magazines or books,
but laptops, computers,
TV, video games.
And then, "mobile device use"
refers to smartphones
and tablets.
Secondly, I'd love for you
to be able to leave here
with the ability
to think about
and distinguish between
normative, or typical,
versus problematic use of
screen media during childhood.
So, as you all probably know,
we live in a digital age.
Teenagers, 13
to 18 years old,
average 9 hours of
screen media use per day.
This is a lot.
And children,
8 to 12 years old,
use approximately 6 hours
of screen media per day.
And we're seeing
that not only
is the amount of screen time
increasing for youth,
we're seeing that
children at younger ages
are getting access
to mobiles devices
and access to more opportunities
to view screen media.
Now, in 2013,
about 40% of families
with children
years 8 and under
owned tablet
devices.
But more recently, we've
found that by age 4,
nearly 75% of children
owned their own mobile device.
And I believe recent
research just came out
stating that that
number was higher for--
thinking about families with
children 8 years and younger,
most of them have access to
a mobile device of some sort,
including a tablet or their
own, like, a smartphone.
So, screen time
media use is growing
and children at younger
ages are getting access
to their own
mobile devices.
Now, in terms
of my research,
a lot of my work focuses on
diverse children's use of media,
so children from
lower-income backgrounds,
racially/ethnically
diverse children,
and how they
use media.
And we know that
low-income children
and racially/ethnically
diverse children
have the highest
amounts of screen time,
and this is especially
problematic
given the negative
correlates of screen time.
Specifically, black youth
use screen media an average
of 2.5 hours more than
their white peers...
and lower-income teens
spend an average
of 3 hours more
using screen media
than their higher-income
teens-- uh, peers.
So we're seeing
disparities
in how much children
use screen media,
and if this was all pro-social
and educational media,
you probably wouldn't
have me here today.
>> Excuse me, is that per day?
>> Yes, mmm-hmm.
Feel free to jump
in with questions.
Now, it's not just
kids and teens.
We also use our
devices a lot, right?
Adults in the US
spend over 10 hours
using screen media
per day,
and children are potentially
affected by this.
We have-- over half
of children report
that their parents check
their devices too often.
32% of children report
that they feel unimportant
when their parents get
distracted by the phone.
One of my collaborators
at U of M
did this really
interesting study,
looking at how families
use mobile devices
in fast-food restaurants
in the Boston area,
and she found that
70% of adults
use mobile devices
during meals.
And later research has shown
that children are more--
engage in more
disruptive behaviors
when their parents
are on mobile devices,
potentially to get
their attention...
and parents are more
quick to respond
with anger or frustration
to those children
when they're on or
preoccupied with their phones.
So this is really
raising some questions
about what does this
media use look like
and what implications
does this have
for family interactions, for
parent-child interactions,
for family
relationships?
The first study I'll
be presenting on
seeks to answer some
of these questions.
We know that children are
using screen media a lot.
Parents are.
Children at younger ages
are using mobile devices.
But what does this
look like actually--
what does this actually
look like in the households?
What do families-- how do
families use screen media,
mobile media?
Research on this and different
theories have been supported
looking at how
parental mediation,
or how parents manage
and talk to children
about their media use
can be really important
and can buffer against the
negative effects of media.
Does this still occur
in today's digital age?
Let me dive a little bit
more into parental mediation
because this is
really important.
There a lot of focus on the
negative effects of media,
but there's also this
protective factor here,
the role that
parents have
in reducing exposure to
certain types of media
and explaining
to children
what they're seeing
on television.
We know that children whose
parents use parental mediation
have fewer negative
effects of media use,
and that happens
through different types
of parental mediation, which
I'll briefly explain right now.
"Social co-viewing" just means
having a parent present
with a child,
watching TV or media.
"Restrictive mediation"
means setting limits.
Parents can set limits on
what their children see
in terms of content and for
how long they use media.
And then, "active mediation"
is the really good stuff,
what we want all
children to experience
and that's having
a parent present,
explaining the content
that they're seeing,
labeling character
behaviors as good or bad,
explaining the motivations
behind characters,
and really inserting
the family's values
into what they're
seeing on TV,
to really put that into
a context for the child.
So, parental mediation
can be really wonderful
and is necessary--
yeah?
>> Are these studies at all done
in correlation with schools
and how schools
use the media?
>> Not yet.
So these are-- a
lot of the research--
>> These are just home?
>> These--
a lot of this is based
on parent report of use--
children's use
at home, correct.
We don't know much about
what parental mediation
looks like today, in our
digital environments.
We have some ideas of
how parents manage
internet exposure, but we
still have a lot to learn.
And so, that's where
this study one comes in.
We know that research
has been focused
on mediation of TV use
and video games.
And again, this is primarily
through self-report,
but we don't know what it looks
like in real-time in households.
And so, the aims
of this study,
this first study
I'll present to you,
include using
observational methods,
actually witnessing how
children use media in the home
and how parents mediate, or
do not mediate, their content.
And then, identify
themes of measured
parent-child interactions
around media use
that are salient
in this digital age.
So, like I said,
we have research
on how parental mediation
works for TV exposure,
but does it still occur
to the same degree
for other
types of media?
And what's it look
like right now
in households in
the United States?
So, in this study, it was
an observational study.
I'll get into
the methods
of how we captured household
media use in a second.
So, it was a
smaller sample.
We had toddlers
and preschoolers
and approximately
50% were male.
A majority were
non-Hispanic white families.
And most mothers in
the study reported
having a high school
degree or higher.
This is what I'm really excited
to share with you today.
Has anyone heard of the
Language Environment Analysis,
or LENA,
technology?
It's really,
really cool.
So, it audio records
the home environment
to provide a deeper
understanding of contextual
and parent-child
interaction factors
potentially salient
to media use.
So, children in our
study wore the device.
It's right there on the
bottom of your screen,
and little kids put it
in a shirt that they--
they're designed to hold
the recording device.
And they wore it for
a couple days at home,
and it recorded all things
in their environment.
Now, what's really
cool about LENA
for people that,
like me,
that study technology
and media use
is that it tells us when in
the hour of the recording
an electronic media
signal is present.
So, we can isolate segments
of the audio environment
that have
media present,
and we can transcribe
or look more deeply
at what's happening
when TV is on,
what's happening when there's
electronic media that's audible.
And so, that's
exactly what we did.
>> Could you explain--
>> Yeah.
>> The different bars, what
the different colors mean?
>> Yeah, so the yellow
indicates the presence
of electronic media.
>> Okay.
>> And so, that's what I
was really interested in.
There's other types of
codes that they have
for different types of
things in the environment
based on acoustic
signaling.
I was focused on
the yellow bars,
finding those hours when
we had media present
because I want to know how do,
if at all, parents talk
to their children about
what they're seeing.
>> Okay.
>> On TV or any
other type of device
that provides audible
electronic media.
So, what we did,
we got a lot of data,
so we focused on
the first hour
in which a media
signal was present,
and we transcribed
parent-child communication
about media during
that segment.
These transcripts of
parent-child verbal interactions
were reviewed by
cross-disciplinary experts--
so people in-- somebody
from communication studies,
developmental behavioral
pediatrician,
and clinical psychologist--
reviewed the transcripts
and identified themes of
interactions around media use.
So I wanted to present to you
the four themes that emerged.
What did we actually
see in these homes?
So, as I mentioned, parental
mediation is really important.
And I talked to you about
some different types--
active mediation
being wonderful,
restrictive mediation,
and social co-viewing.
What we heard and what we
read in the transcripts
was that parental mediation
was primarily restrictive.
It was tech-focused, meaning
a lot of it was focused
on HOW to use
technology,
not really the content of
what the child was viewing.
So, to give you
some examples.
We have a mother
saying to her toddler,
"No no pressing
buttons now.
"Just talk to Nana,"
regarding a child
talking on the phone
with Grandmother.
"Come on, give
me the phone.
"Play a game," on
the mother's phone.
"Push next-- I'm gonna
tell you how to play."
So it was really focused--
the communication around media
was focused on instructing
the child to use the device
and not so much about what the
child was seeing on the devices.
Does that
make sense?
How to use
the phones
and different ways that we
charge a phone, for example.
So mother would say,
"Okay, someone needs
"to plug the
phone in."
"It is
plugged in!"
"You have to jiggle
it a little.
"It vibrates, that means
that it's plugged in."
So helping children learn about
how to use mobile devices,
but not so much what
we've studied before,
about talking about
what they're seeing
on the mobile
devices.
So, in some, parental mediation
was primarily restrictive,
so setting
limits on use,
and focus on using--
actually using the technology,
versus talking
about the content.
Now, when we did hear
active mediation,
though it was uncommon,
when we did hear it,
it was because the child
asked for it or elicited it.
Typically, when we study
parental mediation,
we think about the parent
kind of proactively saying,
"Okay," sit down
with the child,
and, "This is how-- this
is what you're seeing
"on TV or
whatnot."
In our research, we found that
it was more often the child
that was asking the parent
to join in with them
in their
digital world.
So, for example, a child
said, "What happened?"
in response to a scene in
"James and the Giant Peach"
and the mother
explained what happened.
So that's kind of part of
this active mediation piece,
but it's a child
bringing it about.
A child saying,
"I can't watch this one,"
and the mother asking,
"Is it scary?"
"Uh-huh."
"Oh."
"I don't like
the villain."
So, these may seem like
pretty simple statements,
but, really, what it's
showing is that children
are trying to get more
parental interaction
around their media use,
what they're seeing,
and they're
eliciting it.
Now, it probably doesn't come
as a surprise to most of you,
but we heard a lot
of negotiation
between parents and
children about screen time.
So, for example,
we had one interaction,
a mother saying-- okay,
trying to set limits--
"You get five
minutes of TV.
"It's too late
already today."
And the child saying, "I want
to watch TV for 10 minutes."
"No."
"What about nine minutes?"
(audience laughing)
"No."
"Can I watch-- can
I play on my iPad?"
What do you guys think?
>> Yes.
>> "Yes, you may
play on the iPad."
Isn't that
something?
And the child spends
time on the iPad,
and it's not
watching pro-social
or educational media
in this example.
It was actually a
glorified advertisement.
So, you know,
think about that
and how parents perceive,
or may perceive,
mobile technology
and its benefits.
When, if you're not seeing what
the child is actually viewing,
what they could be
exposed to, right?
So, that was
the third theme.
When we did hear
this back and forth,
it wasn't processing
content,
it was, "I want
to get more time,"
or, "Can you give me
this mobile device?"
What I think is really
kind of descriptive
of what at least a households
we observed look like
was what we're calling
"parallel family media use."
So, we observed
children being exposed
to multiple types of
screen media in the home,
with devices being
used at the same time
by different family members
across all the age groups.
So this is--
you know, a reminder,
this is including children
as young as 1 year of age.
So, examples of this type
of parallel family media use
include preschool-aged
children were exposed
to other family members
using their own devices
while they independently
viewed media.
So we heard siblings
use separate devices
at the same time.
So it's this concept
of "together alone."
They're together, but they're
not present with the same media.
What is of great concern
to clinical psychologists,
people that study a child's
academic functioning
and what can get in the
way of success in school,
is what we saw around
media multitasking
and I'll define
what that is.
I'm gonna give you some more
examples of the negative impact
of media multitasking
in a few slides.
We often heard TV on
in the background
while children and their parents
were using mobile devices.
So children at young ages
are media multitaskers.
They are playing with a
device and watching TV,
using multiple media
at the same time.
Media multitasking.
And this is
really concerning,
because we know that that
has negative associations
with a variety of
cognitive outcomes
for at least adolescents
and young adults.
This is showing that
this needs to be studied
at younger ages, 'cause
it's happening today
with younger
children.
So, this observational study
gives us some evidence
that there are
changing practices
in how families
use media.
Now, granted, this
was a small study.
We definitely hope that
this encourages people
to do larger-scale studies,
using surveys if they can,
to capture some of the
things that we saw here
to see how
widespread it is,
predictors of this type
of use in the home,
and what that means for
the child's development.
We did hear a
limited amount
of parent-child engagement
around media use.
When it did occur, it was
because the child asked for it
and the child
got it to happen.
We actually also heard siblings
mediating the content
for their
younger siblings.
And so, siblings may be
playing an even greater role
in media management in
the households, today.
Multiple media mobile
devices may challenge
parental
mediation efforts.
So, it's really hard to mediate
content that you can't see
when you're-- if you're on
your phone across the room
and your child's
on the tablet.
So it's really challenging
parental efforts
to manage and talk about
what the child is seeing.
Thinking about what the media
use was like in these homes,
it made me wonder if I
were to call a family up
and ask them how many hours they
used screen media that day,
I don't know if they'd be
able to tell me accurately
because if most of
the family members
are using
their own media,
how can you report on
your child's media use
if you're
using media?
You know, it was just really
remarkable how much media
and different types of
media were being used
that it's really
gonna necessitate us
using things like
passive sensing
which automatically
captures
what people are doing
on their phones...
and can give that
information to researchers
to capture that amount of
use and what type of use.
And in one of my
future studies,
we will be using an
app to capture this
on adolescents'
phones,
so that way, we won't be
as reliant on self-reports.
Yeah, quick question?
>> One question, though.
>> Yeah.
>> When the children
wore the device
in your study, of the
interaction between parents
and the child during
their media use,
does that take into
account, like, the context
of what they're
watching?
Like, if some was
informational
and you don't have to interact
with the kids as much
because it is a teaching
video or something,
compared to
watching a movie
where you kind of need
to explain what's going.
Do you all take that into
account in your studies?
>> Yeah.
We did not take into
account the content,
but I do want to emphasize
that even if it's pro-social
or educational media,
we do want parents present
with that child, one-to-one,
talking to them about
what they're seeing
because kids
retain information
from positive media like that
or instructional media better
when they have an adult
scaffolding the content
and talking to
them about it.
So, even though
it's better content,
we still would highly encourage
parents, and teachers,
to be present with that child,
processing the content.
That's a great
question, though.
Yeah?
>> You might have
said it already,
what was the length
for the study,
as far as time of
listening to it?
>> So, it was just
the first hour
in which a media
signal was present.
>> Okay, and then, also
what level of information
was given to the parents
prior to this test?
Just, obviously, like,
the bias in knowing
that they're being, or what
level did they know the input?
>> That we were going
to observe and listen
to whatever was in their
child's environment.
So, it's been coded
for other types
of how children are
communicated to
about different types
of things besides media.
Parents had the
option to not submit--
obviously, they could decline
participating in this
and not share
certain segments
if they don't want
us to hear them, so.
But yeah, I think you
bring up some good points
about the
observer effect.
Like, how you make--
great point.
So there are
limitations, obviously.
The goal with this type of
research is just to try
to describe a new
phenomenon in our society,
and encourage other people
out there to study this,
to quantify it across
the population.
We definitely want,
I'm really interested
in how often this family
parallel media use is happening,
and what impact that has on
how parents and children
interact with
each other,
and their relationships, and
the child's social development.
That's definitely
to come.
I'll take any
other question
before I move onto my
conceptual framework.
>> So, parents were told
that they were observing
the media use...
>> Correct, correct.
>> Okay, so parents
could monitor that.
Obviously, if you were told
that you were being monitored--
>> Yep, so--
>> They could use less?
>> Say that one more time?
>> Because you said
it was
self-reporting.
>> So, the parent-- so the
children wore the device all day
in the home.
So, they had-- the parents knew
that the child was recording
what was in their environment.
>> Okay.
>> But it wasn't
like we told them,
"We're gonna look for when
you talk to them about this,"
or, "We're gonna see how you
talk about feeding practices."
We didn't tell them specifically
what we would be transcribing.
Does that answer
your question?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, awesome.
So, I want to just
present this to you
to give you a kind of a dive
into how I think about
and study children's
media use.
So, we know there's a lot
more screen time today
than there was when
we were younger,
that children at younger
ages are gaining access
to mobile devices, and family
dynamics around media use
have been
changing.
So, what does that mean
for a child's development?
There are three
different mechanisms
that have been studied, and
that I'm interested in studying,
looking at how does actual
media use in children
affect their
development?
And there's three different
mechanisms or processes.
The first one is called
"time displacement."
So if children are
spending time watching TV,
they're not spending time
doing something else
that could be good
for their development.
So, if they spend most of
their time playing video games
that's not multiplayer-- just
single-player video games--
they're not spending time
socializing with other peers.
So, it's this idea of, we
take time away from something
that could be beneficial
to the child.
What I've been seeing a
lot more in the research,
and the two mechanisms
that I look at
specific to how media use
affects a child's health
and their
well-being
are these bottom
two mechanisms,
and I'll talk about those
more in-depth later.
So, one is that
it's not so much
how much time children use
media, but what they see.
So the content.
Content matters.
And the second is interference
with other contextual behaviors.
So, with
mobile devices,
viewing media through
your mobile device,
you can take
that anywhere,
and when you use the mobile
device, when you view media,
can matter maybe more so
than how much time you spend
with that media.
And I'll tell you what
I mean in just a second.
So, in terms of content, many
of you have probably heard
about how viewing violent
content can influence
antisocial and aggressive
behavior in children.
We also see negative
associations
between viewing violent content
and school achievement.
We see that viewing violent
content or aggressive content
can negatively influence
executive function,
especially ability to focus
and sustain attention.
So, there's a lot of research
on how content matters.
This is true for viewing
sexually-explicit media.
Viewing commercials can have
a negative impact on children
because it makes
them want and desire
or request those things that
are advertised, like fast food.
But I do want
to point out
and I do focus a
lot on the negative,
but I should point out that
we see positive outcomes
for positive content,
so content matters.
Educational programming
for preschoolers
can have a positive impact
on cognitive development,
including vocabulary,
literacy,
social behavior,
academic knowledge.
And so, programs like
"Sesame Street" or "Mr. Rogers,"
those are pro-social
educational programs
that have been
developed by people
that know about
child development
and how to promote these
positive things for kids.
So, content matters in
both good and bad ways.
What a lot of my next
studies will be focusing on
is how and when children
and adolescents use media.
The context.
The context of
media use matters.
I want to focus
on bedtime
because that's gonna be one of
my big projects next semester
in our "Tech and
Teen" study.
We're going to be looking at how
adolescents use mobile devices
after bed, and if that
affects their sleep,
and their functioning
the next day...
using passive sensing,
so automatically tracking
what they do on
their mobile devices.
What we do know
from prior research
is that having a
television in the bedroom
is a major
health risk.
It predicts increased
obesity risk,
beyond overall
TV viewing time,
so, again, the
context matters.
Screen media use around
bedtime may stimulate children,
especially if the content
is fast-paced or violent,
which has also been
found to associate
with greater sleep problems
in preschoolers.
And what do sleep problems
look like in kids
when they go
to school?
What do those
kids look like,
kids that don't
get enough sleep?
Hyper, hyperactive,
impulsive.
So we have-- sleep is so
important for everything, right?
And so, media use
around bedtime,
the context of when
you view media matters
for a child's
development.
We know that shorter sleep
duration is associated
with metabolic
disturbances.
And sleep deprivation
has been associated
with increased desire
for high-calorie foods,
along with decreased activity
in the frontal cortex
and insular cortex
regions of the brain,
responsible for
evaluating hunger.
So, I don't know if you
all have experienced this,
when you don't
get enough sleep,
the next day, you
want to eat junk food
or you may not feel
as full as you would
if you had
enough sleep,
so you're seeing
media use especially
with its impact on sleep
being a big mechanism
linking screen time to
child health and development.
And it's not
just bedtime.
Think about any context
that's important
for child development
and child functioning.
Think about
academic-related time.
We see a negative effect
on academic outcomes
when youth use media
or mobile devices
when learning
or studying.
We have a majority
of college students
report using
electronic media
while in class, studying,
doing homework.
That sound about right?
>> Mmm-hmm.
>> And this may begin as
early as 5 to 8 years of age.
And many children have to
deal with background TV,
background media, while
working on homework
which has been shown
to slow them down
and decrease
accuracy.
And then, media
multitasking,
which I reported to you as being
common even in younger children,
has been found to be
negatively associated
with older
students' GPA.
So, again, the theme of it's
not how much necessarily,
but WHEN children
are using media
that may have an impact on
their health and development.
I want to talk a little bit
more about media multitasking.
This is common-- about of
the 8 hours youth use, that--
of the 8 hours that youth use,
using screen media per day,
29% of the time involves
media multitasking.
So heavy media
multitaskers,
those to watch and use multiple
media at the same time a lot,
show differences in
their cognitive abilities.
So, this is important
for people like me
who do testing
and assessment
of what may be causing problems
in academic success.
Heavy media multitaskers often
have poor working memory,
poor interference
management.
They have difficulty on tasks
requiring sustained attention,
and they underperform on tests
of relational reasoning,
inhibitory control,
and long-term memory.
So, basically, it's
not just how much,
but it's how youth use
media, when they use it,
that can have an impact
on different outcomes
for them, right?
Yeah?
>> Just a clarification, here.
You're looking at a-- so
having media multitaskers
is identified as a population?
>> Mmm-hmm.
>> And then, you're
using that population
and giving them independent
assessments outside of media use
and comparing them to a
low media use population?
>> Mmm-hmm, yep.
>> And so, these results are--
have nothing to do with
the technology itself?
>> Mmm-hmm.
>> It has to do
with that relationship
between that population?
>> Exactly-- does that
make sense to everyone?
Yeah.
>> So, uh, I just had
a thought in my head.
And so, it's
important to know,
especially if, like, kids
who have cognitive issues,
you can kind of pinpoint
what's going on
in their environment that
can contribute to those,
versus someone who is,
like, has a predisposition
to have ADD or to have those
kind of cognitive (indistinct).
So, when you
evaluate people,
you can like see what's
going on in their environment
that might be a
contributing factor,
and when you change
it, it would--
>> It, it--
>> It would change
the behavior
and then actually
that person, you know,
actually didn't
really have ADD.
It was just because of what was
going on in the environment?
>> That's a hypothesis
that needs to be tested.
This is what the
results suggest,
that definitely need to be
tested in greater detail,
using intervention
designs.
Now, I should note that
there are some youth
who are susceptible, more
susceptible, to media effects.
There's this
differential susceptibility
to media
effects model.
Basically, in a nutshell,
means that youth
who may be most affected
may also be naturally drawn
to this type of
use of media,
so youth who have ADHD
symptoms may be more drawn to,
or use, initially more,
play more video games
that are
fast-paced,
but we see this
kind of cycle
where they may be
initially drawn to it,
but it is associated with
poor functioning over time.
So, there's definitely
individual differences here
that need to be studied--
I do want to point that out.
Thanks for
the question.
Yeah, I'll take
one more question,
then we'll move onto
the next objective.
>> What age are you
referring to?
>> Those were
young adults.
So, this has not been
studied in children yet,
and that's definitely
something that needs to happen.
>> Young adult,
meaning what age?
>> Like college-aged
students.
>> That's what this is?
>> Yeah, mmm-hmm.
So we have a lot
more to study
in terms of what this
looks like in children.
For sure,
great question.
So, the second objective
I had for you for this,
this presentation is,
we know that youth are
using media a lot
and we know different ways
that media may affect children,
but when does it
become problematic?
When does it become a
clinical concern, if you will?
Obviously content matters,
when they use it matters,
but what about
those youth who--
whose parents say they think
that they may be addicted
to using social media
or using mobile devices?
What's normal
versus not?
Well, in the
literature,
there's been three types
of problematic use defined.
One is this excessive
or addictive-like use,
use that interferes
with functioning.
Risky use.
So, for example, use
while driving, sexting...
use that can harm the
user themselves or others.
And then,
anti-social use,
which cyber-victimization,
cyber-bullying would fall under,
use that harms others,
on purpose.
I should make a
point to say
that a lot of youth spend
a good amount of time
using screen media,
and their use doesn't
seem to appear--
interfere, if you will--
with their functioning.
So, it's not that
all children show
these types of
problematic media use.
It's a small proportion...
but it still matters.
We see a lot in the
media, this really--
blowing up of how
media use is all bad,
and that all kids
can be addicted,
and that's definitely
not the message
I want to give
you today.
I want to talk about what
are the different ways
and behaviors that may indicate
a problem with using media,
with the caveat
that, for most youth,
it doesn't
become a problem.
So the examples I'm
about to give you
are really more clinical
examples, okay?
So, in terms of
problematic media use,
most of this research
has been studied
or done in adolescent
populations.
Pathological gaming, or
video game addiction,
has been the type of
problematic media use
that's been
studied the most...
so much so that in our
diagnostic manual, in Section 3,
they have an "Internet
Gaming Disorder" listed.
Now, this is not something
I could diagnose right now,
but it's something that they
want to have more research on,
and to see if this is an
actual disorder that exists,
that we'd want to
include in the DSM-6.
Given what I
shared with you
about children at younger
ages using mobile media,
you know, a question
comes up as to,
"Could these symptoms manifest
in children, younger children,
"so children
under age 14?"
So, could we apply
these nine symptoms,
these nine criteria,
to kind of quantifying
problematic media use
in younger children?
So, this is where
my second study
that I'll be presenting
today comes in.
My collaborators
and I developed
the "Problematic Media
Use Measure," or "PMUM."
Now, this-- as I mentioned,
these items were generated
based on the criteria of
Internet Gaming Disorder
in DSM-5,
and the content used
to generate these items
are questions drawn
from the literature
on problematic
media use.
Clinical experiences,
so working with families
whose children had
issues with gaming
or other types
of media
that were causing problems
in their lives,
and interviews that we did
with mothers, in Michigan,
about their experiences in
managing excessive use of media.
60 items were
generated.
We sent them to experts
around the country,
experts from
different disciplines,
but who studied
behavioral addictions,
or media-related or screen
media-related addictions
and they gave us feedback
and we revised it.
And this is before we actually
carried out the study.
To give you
some background,
this is the measure
instructions.
Now, we wanted to
keep it broad enough
so that it could be
used as a screener,
that clinicians,
pediatricians could use this
as a way to see
what symptoms were being
endorsed by parents,
if they needed to talk
to them about it
in more depth
in the office.
So, this is a
parent report form,
and we asked them to think
of any type of screen media
or devices that
their child uses,
and we asked them a
variety of questions
that tap into those
nine criteria.
So this is what the PMUM
Short Form looks like.
Nine items, one item
per symptom.
And so, the types of
questions are not,
"How many hours does
your child use media?"
It's, "What are the
behaviors around media use
"that may cause problems
in the child's life?"
So, my child's
screen media use
interferes with
family activities.
It causes problems
for the family,
the child becomes
frustrated
when he or she cannot
use screen media.
We heard parents talk
about how the child
won't go to
sleep at night,
in order to
keep gaming.
Refuses to go
to school
in order to keep playing
video games or use a tablet.
When my child has had a bad
day, media is the only thing
that seems to make him
or her feel better.
So, really, symptoms of
root problematic use--
do you see how this is
different and more clinical
than the typical questions
we may ask
just about overall
media time?
So, in terms
of the method--
and this was just
recently published
in the "Psychology of
Popular Media Culture,"
we recruited
parents, mothers,
for the first part
of the study,
ages 4 through 11 years old,
on Amazon Mturk.
They completed the PMUM,
the full measure,
and additional measures
to test validity.
So, they answered
questions
as best as they could
about child screen time,
about if they had concerns
about the child's media use,
and then psychosocial
functioning difficulties
with the Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire,
basically capturing
those subscales
of potential problems
in the child's life,
so peer relationship problems,
hyperactivity/impulsivity,
emotional symptoms,
and so forth.
We had 291 mothers
who reported
on their youngest
child in the home.
The most commonly-used media
in this sample was tablet...
not different
from television.
More recently,
television's still
the most popular
used media,
but now, it seems that tablets
are reaching same level.
69% of children in this sample
owned their own mobile device,
again, you know, showing
how common this is
and that younger ages children
are owning their own devices.
And on average,
children received
their first mobile
device at age 7.
Average daily screen time was
5.47 hours in this sample.
So, we did a variety of
data reduction analyses
to select
the items
that were most consistent
with this concept
of problematic media use
as an overall factor.
We found, to test
convergent validity,
we looked at correlations
between the PMUM score--
so how parents reported
on that measure
about children's problematic
media use-- and screen time.
And mother-reported worry
about child media use.
To determine
incremental validity,
we did multiple
regression analyses
to determine whether that
measure we developed accounted
for significant variance
in these child's functioning
over and above
screen time.
Exploratory factor
analyses indicated
that this was capturing a
unidimensional factor structure,
just meaning that
these symptoms capture
this overall construct
of problematic media use.
We selected the three highest
loading items per symptom
to create a final scale of the
27 items for the full-scale,
and a nine-item version
for the short form.
We saw great internal
reliability
and evidence for
convergent validity...
that higher scores on the
Problematic Media Use Measure
associated with more screen
time, which makes sense.
If parents report
problematic media use,
more likely than not, the
child has a lot of screen time.
And mothers' own
reported worry
about their
child's media use.
What's really important
is this table, here,
in terms of
incremental validity.
More often
than not,
pediatricians or even
researchers like myself
measure or quantify
children's media use
by how many hours
they use screen media.
For a while,
it was just--
number of hours was what
was defined as the problem,
and there have
been guidelines
that pediatricians had about
how many hours was too much.
And so, typically,
we ask parents,
"How many hours does your
child you screen media?"
as a proxy for what
could be a problem
or what could interfere
with a child's functioning.
What we found with
the PMUM is that
it did a better job in
predicting total--
in predicting total
dysfunction in a child's life,
than total amount
of screen time.
So, even when we
controlled for screen time,
the PMUM score
associated
with overall indices
of child functioning,
indicating that this may be
more valuable or predictive
than just
asking parents
about how many hours their
child uses screen media.
We confirmed the factor
structure of this scale
in an additional
sample of 600 parents,
and confirmed the
factor structure
in the nine-item
version
and we found that it works
equally well for boys
and for girls, and also
supported additional analysis
of convergent
validity.
And so, there are a lot of
strengths to this measure,
and that it's suitable for
children aged 4 to 13.
And up to this point, we
didn't have a measure out there
that would capture
this addictive-like
or problematic
use of media.
It was really
specific to adolescents,
so it's looking like,
based on this study,
that this measure could
do a good job at that.
Now, you know,
we see here
that how children use media
may be more predictive
than how long
they use media,
but there are several
limitations to this study
that I want to
point out,
that I hope that
having this measure
will encourage researchers
to study this further.
We don't know if there
are certain children
who are at more, or
at a greater risk
for excessive or
addictive-like use of media.
Some people
have posited
that maybe kids with
poor self-regulation
have more problematic
media use.
Or does more
problematic media use
associate with poor
self-regulation,
or do we find
support for both?
Like, with the model
I mentioned earlier,
the differential susceptibility
to media effects model,
that maybe some
children are just--
with poor emotion
regulation, are more likely
to use media excessively or
mobile devices excessively,
and that, in turn,
takes time away
from those opportunities to
learn how to self-regulate...
and then, associates with
poor self-regulation.
We don't
know yet.
We also don't know if these
the behaviors reflect
a distinct
syndrome.
When, you know, my initial
impetus for studying this
was as a result of some of
my clinical experiences.
Could these behaviors
reflect something,
a separate disorder, or is
this just a manifestation
of symptoms related
to screen media
that is part of a
different disorder,
like ADHD or Autism
Spectrum Disorder?
We don't know
that yet,
but we do know that parents are
really concerned about this,
and they want to know if their
children are using media
in problematic
ways.
And up to this point,
we weren't really sure
what behaviors best corresponded
to problems in functioning.
But now, we
have something
and I really do hope that
researchers take this
and validate it
in other samples,
and see if it does, in
a longitudinal study,
associate with
longer-term outcomes.
>> So, thinking about
this as a predictor
or a co-morbidity
or looking at--
have you looked at the data
on the known percentage
of disorders present
in a population?
So, we know, roughly, how
much media use is reported.
We also know how much
spectrum disorder is incident.
Have you, then, tried
to overlap these data
with that to see,
do they overlap?
Or are they identifying a
distinctly new population?
>> And that's what we
definitely want to do.
We-- this, again,
was in two samples
that do not represent
the population at hand.
That would be a great research
question, for certain.
We will be testing
this in our--
for children who are
getting treatment
at our ASD
assessment clinic,
to see if we see differences
in problematic media use
in children who have
diagnoses of different types
of different
clinical diagnoses,
but, yeah, I definitely
think there's more to come.
This was just the
first tiny step.
That's a
great question.
Any other questions
about this measure?
Okay.
So we are also looking at,
"Do those nine symptoms
"also exist for
not just gaming,
"but addictive-like use
of phones in teens?"
Again, similar symptoms,
adolescent report,
and a future study, we're
going to be looking at
how do these teens--
what are some predictors
of addictive phone use
in adolescents?
Do we see differences
in adolescents' brains
for those who report being
addicted to phones, versus not?
And so, we have just completed
an fMRI study looking at this,
and I'm happy to share those
results as they emerge.
Again, it's this question
of, is this addiction--
is this behavioral addiction
something that's distinct?
Do the measures that we have
capture this phenomenon?
And so, there's a lot
of work to be done,
but I'm really
excited about it.
So, in addition to
addictive-like use of media--
we're trying to get at
what makes it problematic.
In addition to the behaviors
that I listed before
and use that interferes
with a child's functioning,
there's also risky
and antisocial use.
Risky use, as I
mentioned before,
is use that can harm the
youth doing the posting.
We have sexting,
for example,
or excessive
disclosure,
or inappropriate sharing
based on norms of peers.
Whereas, with antisocial use,
it's use that can harm others,
so cyber-bullying,
cyber-victimization,
trolling or harassing
others online.
We recently developed an
intervention to help teens
who have been hospitalized
for suicide attempts...
use social media
in healthy ways
and to decrease maladaptive
use that may have
or may not have been related
to some of the depressed mood
and suicidal ideation
that they endorsed.
Some high-risk adolescents
may use social media
to post content that includes
threats to commit suicide,
saying good-bye or announcing
plan to commit suicide,
and disclosing sensitive
or private content.
So, in these
examples, you know,
I want to know,
as a clinician,
what teens-- what my teens are
using in terms of their apps,
but also what they
share, what they post,
how they make decisions
about what to post...
because some of these
examples of risky use--
obviously, these are
really high-risk examples,
but we also have
teens sharing
that they post things
that they regret
that may not reach
this level of severity,
but that they regret later on
and they feel embarrassed about.
And so, what we're
really trying to do
is help teens use
social media in ways
that is healthy
and protective.
And so, we just developed
an intervention to do that
and, if I have time at the
end, I'll definitely show you
the components of
that intervention.
I want to briefly get into
what clinicians can do,
because I know we have
some clinicians out here
in the audience.
Before I jump
into that,
I would love to answer any
questions that you have
about how children
use screen media,
what that may mean
for their development,
when it becomes
problematic.
Are there any examples
that I didn't share
that you've seen in your lives
about problematic media use,
use that can
get in the way?
Yeah.
>> I guess for, like--
for the children
that don't have parents
that monitor their media use
or have more parental controls
on what they're viewing,
the internet is,
like, you can--
there's a lot of
information to absorb,
and there's some things that
kids shouldn't be looking at.
And I think, I mean,
kids are exposed
to those kind
of things,
and so, definitely,
expect to, like,
affect their
brain development
because being exposed to
adult things that, you know,
a teenager or an adolescent
maybe should not.
>> Exactly, and we're
seeing kids at younger ages
exposed to, like, online
pornography, inadvertently,
because there
aren't controls
put in place
on their devices,
and I have resources for those
of you who work with parents,
or are parents,
on how to do that.
I'll put them
up at the end.
We'll do you-- yeah?
>> I had a question,
when it comes to kids,
you know, using media
and with
binging stuff,
with everything these days
being digital and electronic,
do you think like keeping
your kids away from media,
and anything like that,
would that set them behind
since other kids will
be using it a lot?
And when they, when
everything's going
to computers
and stuff,
and kind of like you teach
your grandpa how to text,
with computers.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you think that
would put those kids
a little bit behind the kids
that are always using media
and digital
stuff?
>> I mean, I think it
depends on the age
and there's a lot of different
thoughts I have about this.
For one, really young
children quickly learn.
They learn how to use
technology very, very quickly.
I'm not so concerned
about them
not being able to know
how to use a laptop
when they're in
kindergarten,
if they haven't been exposed
to it right out of the womb.
I'm not concerned
about that.
For teens, though, most of
their social interactions
and their social
world is online.
And so, I would
hesitate to say,
"No media
for kids,"
because that could take
away an opportunity
for them to interact
with others,
because a lot of kids
use it in healthy ways.
I think it should be
seen as more like...
like how we
teach kids
on how to eat healthy
foods, in moderation.
It should be seen as something
that's part of our lives
that we can't necessarily
get away from,
but children can learn how
to use it in adaptive ways,
in moderation,
but we also have to get
buy-in from parents
because it's also
tough for us
to put away our mobile devices
and to not always be on it.
So I think there's a lot
more that can be done
by the adults
in this world
to shape children's use of
media in ways that are healthy.
It's a great question--
yeah?
>> Mine is similar
to that,
but has your research or
anyone else's research
showed what would
be kind of, sort of,
the appropriate age for
a child to have a phone?
Like, I see some
6-year-olds
and I think that's
ridiculous,
but is there kind of
an appropriate age?
>> Well, they-- the American
Academy of Pediatrics
has some guidelines
on this.
For children, you know,
zero to 1.5, 2,
having access to
mobile technology
if it facilitates
social interactions
with a loved one
is okay.
So, if a child wants
to Skype with Grandma,
that's one thing,
and just in terms of
exposure to any screens.
There's a move away from
giving exact age limits
or age
recommendations
because it's not
so much the device,
it's what they see,
how they use it,
versus it just
being present.
So it depends
on a lot
and it's kind of growing
to be something that we,
as clinicians and educators,
need to be able to talk
to parents about over time,
and as a child grows,
to determine what would
be best for that child.
And there's
some children,
like we found with that
measure I developed,
that may just
have a propensity
to be really, really engaged
to a problematic level
with certain
types of media.
You know, I really
want to know what happens
to those kids in school when
there's screens all around
and what that means
for their functioning.
And so, it also
could depend
on a child's individual
characteristics.
There's some children
that just...
just not really that
interested in mobile devices.
They want to
play outside.
And so, the answer
is, it depends
and it takes a lot of
thinking to determine
what would be appropriate
for your own child.
Yeah?
>> I had a question.
You talked about
three items,
on media use and
time displacement.
You know, are there
guidelines or benchmarks
for what an item is that
could be beneficial,
like to
compare it to?
>> Can you explain
that one more time?
>> Like, as far as
time displacement.
>> Yeah.
>> So, time spent not
doing something else,
is there like a guideline for
what is considered beneficial
and how much time we
should have doing that,
where you should be
beyond the both?
>> It is-- again,
the policy is
to move away from giving
exact time limits.
It should be a balance
and moderation
throughout the
child's day.
That child should be engaged
in a variety of activities
that promote their
development,
so a portion of that
may be some screen time.
But it's important that they
have opportunities to play,
and to get
exercise,
and to interact with people
in their environment.
What the American Academy of
Pediatrics has, right now,
I can show you
real quick,
is a family
media use plan.
And that's a great way
to start figuring out
what would be best
for your own family.
So, if you guys want to take a
picture this with your phone.
(chuckling)
The first website,
right there,
is-- and I don't know if
I can get internet access,
but basically
what it does is,
has you create goals
for your family.
It could be-- and it may
not be specific to time.
It may be, "Let's not have
devices at dinner time
"for three of the
nights this week."
And it has you select
the different age range,
age ranges of
your children.
And so, you can set up
different plans for your family
or for families
that you work with.
It's great.
Again, they did
this because it's--
we can't give, like, black
and white answers anymore
about what's, like,
the amount of time
that beyond which
is problematic.
I mean, it's
too simplistic
because, for some kids, it
could be less amount of time.
For other kids, it could
be more amount of time.
It's more about how they
use it and what they see.
The content is what
really matters.
>> For those that are trying
to take a picture here,
this entire presentation will
be online early next week,
through the Psychology
Department website,
so you'll be able
to scroll forward,
and you, too, can get
to this thing, so.
>> Awesome, I'll also put this
up on my website as well.
>> There are some questions.
>> Oh, yeah, hi.
>> I just want to go
back to your comment
about risky behavior
in adolescents.
I'm a former health
teacher in high school,
and one of the areas that
I was aware of near the end
of my teaching career
is using social media,
especially
the internet,
to get information about how
to design substances for use.
So how to-- god--
intensify their usage
of different types of drugs.
>> Yeah.
So that, there are
some projects
that are being funded
by the NIH, right now,
to look at-- and I didn't speak
about that in terms of content,
but content related to
seeing risky behaviors,
whether it's consuming
alcohol, using drugs,
promoting or normalizing
alcohol or drug use
or other
substances.
It's really powerful,
through social media,
and so what the researchers who
are experts, in that domain,
are looking at, how does
viewing these types of content
and social media
affect youth?
We do see some evidence
that it does associate
with earlier
initiation and use,
but that's also--
when I say "content,"
it could be any
type of content
you wouldn't want your
adolescent to see
that can influence
their behaviors
in those different
health domains.
Yeah?
>> I have a question on
if parents actually are
engaged in asking questions
versus their child
asking questions.
Does that-- like,
what kind of difference
does it
actually make?
Is it just a like a continuum,
because I imagine no screen time
is still probably
idyllic, right,
and then maybe the
parent being engaged,
versus not so much?
>> Yeah.
>> So we--
>> Or, kids by themselves?
>> We actually don't know a
whole lot about differences
when children elicit-- like
elicit the active mediation,
versus parents
eliciting it.
This is something,
to our knowledge,
hasn't been
studied.
And that's why it was one of
our themes in our research.
It was like, "Wow, this
is really interesting.
"Children are
asking for this
"or trying to get it
from their parents,"
so we don't know about
those differences.
It could be that children
who are more verbal
or have better communication
with their parents
may be doing this, and
so they may already have
some protective factors
related to media use,
so it'd be really
interesting to see
what child factors may
be at play in children
who are getting more of
that active mediation.
You know, from a
clinician standpoint,
I want to know what the
child's favorite shows are,
their favorite websites,
their favorite apps.
If the parents
don't know that,
then that's a moment
of intervention
where I can do some
psychoeducation on that,
and talk to them about
some of this research.
With teens, I love asking
them about what types of apps
they like to use, what's
their favorite social media,
you know, who do they
follow on social media?
A lot of them
follow celebrities,
so that can kind of
give me some insight
into what their
interests are.
So there's a lot of questions
that we could be asking
in the clinical arena
to help understand
where these
adolescents are at
and what they may be seeing
that could be risky for them.
>> I guess I was thinking
more like the younger kids,
with cognitive
development, right,
it could make a
big difference
to our trying to engage
them more socially,
and ask them, like--
think about,
"Oh, what happened
to that character?"
>> Yeah.
>> Or, "What would you do?"
>> We know that kids who
have active mediation,
even if the content is
pro-social or educational,
have better effects of
seeing that type of content,
so it's a
good thing.
We definitely want
parents to be more engaged
and talking about pro-social
and educational content as well
'cause we do see positive
outcomes for those kids.
>> It's still better
to read a book, right,
and talk about
that, versus...
>> Umm...
there's some--
I definitely think
kids should be read
to every day,
but there are some
great programs
that do teach
children some things.
I mean, if that's
a possibility,
if you can read
a book, great,
but I think for a lot
of families, it's--
children have to be
with their screens.
And so, we have to do
harm reduction approaches
in today's
age, so.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah.
What other question?
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry-- I
didn't see you back there.
>> In relation to screen time
and children with ADHD,
is it harmful to not have
that outlet for them,
for like-- I'm not saying
video games or I'm not saying--
I'm saying just to give
them something to do
with their energy
and all their--
I mean, I understand how
the gaming could be harmful,
but is it possible to take
away that outlet for it?
>> I--
>> Do you understand
what I'm saying?
>> Yeah, I would work
with the parents
around other outlets for the
child that they enjoy as well,
that would involve peers
and things that are--
aspects of where they're
at in their development
that I want them to
be on target with.
>> One more, so
let's say it's--
maybe someone in the
audience sees this information,
and says, "Okay, my kid
is on media too much."
If they have been
doing it for a while,
could it be harmful, kind
of like an addiction,
to just go home and say,
"Okay, from now on"--
could that lead
to bad behavior
or is it something you might
want to slowly wean down?
>> So, like in terms
of too much use,
what I-- and so, that's
actually one of the symptoms
that was on that
measure, remember,
was about how it
was really hard
to get their child away
from screen media use.
So parents that may
have tried this
and it just did
not go well.
So, as a clinician, what
I would do is come up
with some sort of
a treatment plan
that would reduce the
amount of screen time
and increase other types
of enjoyable activities,
or set limits on the child
can get the screen time
when these things
are completed.
It's really tough,
especially with adolescents
and social media.
When things go wrong on
social media for adolescents,
they're really-- they really
don't want to share that
with adults 'cause they
don't want to lose access
to social media because
that is their social world.
So that's, I think,
even more challenging,
is to figure out
how can we manage
the social media
of adolescents
who may have done harmful
things on social media,
but yet, still allow them to
have some sort of social outlet.
And it's
really tricky
and I think clinicians are
going to be more tasked
with working with
families on these issues.
And we need training in this
because this is not something
that we're trained on in
our doctoral programs.
Any other questions
about the studies?
I really just wanted to
show you some studies
that kind of showcased
where my research is going.
Observational methods,
passive sensing,
is gonna be so critical
for studying media use,
over the
next decade,
because, as you saw,
in those households,
it's really hard to quantify
what children are seeing.
So, I'm excited
to do that
and see how adolescents
use their mobile devices,
what apps
they're using,
what types of apps may
be more problematic
for sleep
and bedtime,
and if that, in turn, has
an impact on their health
and their academic
functioning, over time.
So, we'll be starting up
that longitudinal study
next semester.
And then,
seeing more--
learning more about that
problematic media use,
trying to understand what
problematic media use looks
in clients coming
through my door
or children of different--
with different diagnoses.
Yeah, I can
definitely talk more
about what I recommend
to clinicians if--
because I know we have some
clinicians in the audience,
or if you guys have
more questions,
I'm happy to
answer more.
Yeah.
>> As a clinician,
based on some of
the research,
our recommendation that
we usually give
is no more than two hours
of screen time,
not including
homework.
Is that kind of where most
clinicians are selling that
or do you see
a spectrum of--
and, again, I know
it's not an exact time,
an exact number.
>> Yeah.
>> It's just like
you said, it's a "how,"
but to start to
set some boundaries
on their kids-- is that
kind of a reasonable?
>> I wouldn't even
talk about hours.
I think-- at least with the
mothers that we interviewed,
they hear that
and they're like,
"Eh, it doesn't
matter how much time
"because my child's
watching positive content."
I don't know
if families--
at least the families that
I may come in contact with,
have like the schedule
all planned out
for when the child
can view screen time.
A lot of it's dependent
on different factors
in their lives,
so I would rather you talk
to them about the content,
and the internet controls
they have in place,
when the child
uses screens.
"Do they watch TV
during mealtime?
"Do they have TV
in the bedroom?"
Those are the questions that
I think are most important.
I don't know if
asking parents--
telling parents two hours
a day is meaningful
to some families
anymore,
because I don't know if
they could even tell you
how many hours a day
their child uses media.
Yeah.
>> It seems to me
that it's not gonna make
a, well, much difference
for a parent to try and monitor
the total amount of screen time
if the parent is equally
addicted, because they--
>> That's another point.
>> The apple doesn't fall
far from the tree,
and if the child doesn't have
those boundaries on them,
it's because parents
haven't imposed them
and the parents are
also as much engaged.
>> Exactly-- and so-- and
that's the other thing,
especially with the
observational study
that I told
you all about.
A lot of parents are spending
many hours using media
or their mobile devices
themselves,
so it's becoming an issue
of reporting and monitoring,
and I think we're gonna rely
more on technology itself
to help us manage
technology.
And there are some
initiatives out there
from social media giants
to act more quickly
when bad things are
being broadcasted live.
Still a long way to go,
but I do think
that we'll have to partner
more with technologists
to create interventions that
parents can use automatically
to reduce some of
the negative effects.
>> Well, thank you.
>> Thank you!
>> Dr. Domoff will be
here for a little while,
so if you want
to speak with her
in the next 10,
15 minutes, feel free.
Thank you all
for coming.
Let's give her a hand
for sharing her research.
(applause)
As I stand up here
with a media device,
mostly 'cause I just don't have
that good a memory anymore,
suggesting that I ever did.
(audience laughing)
But for those of you
from the community,
those of you who are going
to be around next semester,
just to let you know what
we're gonna have coming up
in the Speaker
Series, then.
Dr. Jeff Nevid is
going to be here.
Those of you who might be
in General Psych, right now,
if you take a look
at your textbook,
you'll see the same name, so
it is actually the author
of the General Psych textbook
we're using right now.
And Dr. Nevid
does research
around unconscious
decision-making.
And so, his
presentation is
"Unmasking the Automatic Mind--
Toward a New Understanding
"of Unconscious
Cognition,"
so when you make decisions
and you don't even know
what cognitions are
influencing your decision.
And then, the second one,
actually, is complementary
to the one that
we just saw.
It's Dr. Brian Gibson.
And Dr. Gibson is going
to be talking about,
more, the cognitive
effects of media.
His presentation is "Media
Effects-- Can Watching TV
"or Playing Video Games
Really Change How You Think
"and What You Do?"
So, Dr. Nevid's presentation
is on Wednesday, February 14th,
and Dr. Gibson is on
Thursday, March 22nd.
They're always
from 1:00 to 2:30.
So, thank you
for coming,
and, again, if you
wish to ask questions,
feel free to come up
and talk to Dr. Domoff.
Thank you.
