Plugged In
Page 33
It is clear that the youth and media field will need to tackle many more questions in the years ahead. As media experiences continue to become more realistic and responsive, efforts to understand how interactivity influences the effects of media will certainly receive increased attention. For example, do virtual-reality experiences enhance youth’s learning about topics such as the solar system or ancient Rome? Do immersive violent games lead to increased arousal and subsequent aggression? Moreover, as media continue to become more ingrained in the daily lives of children and teens, we will undoubtedly ask more questions about media multitasking and social media addiction. And as social media continue their push to become one of the primary ways that youth communicate with peers, scholars will certainly work to understand the opportunities and pitfalls of tomorrow’s Facebook.
To answer these questions with the empirical vigor they deserve, it will be crucial for youth and media scholars to continue their march toward more complex theoretical models. The trend in communication studies toward taking a greater interest in individual differences in susceptibility to media effects is in line with similar trends in other disciplines. For example, the medical field is looking at the opportunities of “personalized medicine.” In education, personalized learning has been given another boost by developments in communication technologies. And developmental psychology has embraced the dandelion-orchid hypothesis, which states that most children are like dandelions, able to thrive under good and bad environmental conditions, but that a small group of children are like orchids, requiring supportive environments lest they wither or fade.11
Of course, investigating how individual differences in development, disposition, and environment affect children’s media selection, their processing of media, and the effects of media is no easy task. It is complex, messy, and challenging. But if we understand how and why media use influences youth, which youth are susceptible to positive and negative media effects, and how their social environment can maximize positive media effects and combat negative ones, the answers will be worth the effort. And by all accounts, today’s plugged-in generation is most certainly worth the effort.
NOTES
1. Youth and Media
1. Vicky Rideout, The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens (San Francisco: Common Sense Media, 2015).
2. Nico Drok and Fifi Schwarz, Jongeren, Nieuwsmedia en Betrokkenheid [Youth, news media, and involvement] (Zwolle/Amsterdam: Hogeschool Windesheim / Stichting Krant in de Klas, 2009).
3. Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A. Ross, “Transmission of Aggression through Imitation of Aggressive Models,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63, no. 3 (1961).
4. Marie E. Schmidt et al., “The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children,” Child Development 79, no. 4 (2008).
5. Robert Kraut et al., “Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?,” American Psychologist 53, no. 9 (1998).
6. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Harold North Fowler, Loeb Library 36 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999 [1914]).
7. danah boyd, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014), 16.
2. Then and Now
1. Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Vintage, 1962).
2. Linda Baumgarten, Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1986).
3. Ariès, Centuries of Childhood.
4. Frank Musgrove, The Family, Education, and Society (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1966).
5. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, rev. ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
6. Rita Ghesquière, Jeugdliteratuur in Perspectief [Children’s literature in perspective] (Leuven, Belgium: Acco, 2009).
7. Ibid.
8. David Elkind, The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1981).
9. Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (London: Allen, 1983); Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
10. Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place, 227.
11. Postman, Disappearance of Childhood.
12. Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place, 227.
13. Eleanor E. Maccoby, “Television: Its Impact on School Children,” Public Opinion Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1951).
14. Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961).
15. Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place, 229.
16. George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli, “Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process,” in Perspectives on Media Effects, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1986).
17. Ibid., 18.
18. Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: Norton, 1950).
19. Margaret K. Nelson, Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times (New York: New York University Press, 2010).
20. Kim Parker, The Boomerang Generation: Feeling OK about Living with Mom and Dad (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 2012).
21. Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap (New York: Bodley Head, 1970).
22. Jannetje Koelewijn, “Lunchgesprek Met Anna Enquist” [Lunch meeting with Anna Enquist], NRC Handelsblad, 12 July 2014.
23. Mead, Culture and Commitment.
24. James U. McNeal, The Kids Market: Myths and Realities (New York: Paramount, 1999).
25. Stephen Kline, Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing Toys and Children’s Culture in the Age of TV Marketing (London: Verso, 1993).
26. Patti M. Valkenburg and Moniek Buijzen, “Identifying Determinants of Young Children’s Brand Awareness: Television, Parents, and Peers,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 26, no. 4 (2005).
27. Mark A. Bellis, Jennifer Downing, and John R. Ashton, “Adults at 12? Trends in Puberty and Their Public Health Consequences,” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60, no. 11 (2006).
28. Werrett W. Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth: A Summary (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
29. James R. Flynn, “Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure,” Psychological Bulletin 101, no. 2 (1987).
30. Jan te Nijenhuis, “The Flynn Effect, Group Differences, and G Loadings,” Personality and Individual Differences 55, no. 3 (2013).
31. Ibid.
32. James R. Flynn, “Requiem for Nutrition as the Cause of IQ Gains: Raven’s Gains in Britain, 1938–2008,” Economics and Human Biology 7, no. 1 (2009): 23.
33. Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable—than Ever Before (New York: Free Press, 2006); Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (New York: Free Press, 2009).
34. Jean M. Twenge, “The Age of Anxiety? The Birth Cohort Change in Anxiety and Neuroticism, 1952–1993,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 6 (2000); Lara J. Akinbami, Xiang Liu, Patricia N. Pastor, and Cynthia A. Reuben, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among Children Aged 5–17 Years in the United States, 1998–2009,” NCHS Data Brief 70 (Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics,2011).
35. Elisabeth J. Costello, Alaattin Erkanli, and Adrian Angold, “Is There an Epidemic of Child or Adolescent Depression?,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 47, no. 12 (2006).
36. Joel T. Nigg, What Causes ADHD? Understanding What Goes Wrong and Why (New York: Guilford, 2006).
37. Laura Pearce and Andy P. Field, “The Impact of ‘Scary’ TV and Film on Children’s Internalizing Emotions: A Meta-Analysis,�
� Human Communication Research 42, no. 1 (2016).
38. Sanne W. C. Nikkelen et al., “Media Use and ADHD-Related Behaviors in Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis,” Developmental Psychology 50, no. 9 (2014).
3. Themes and Theoretical Perspectives
Epigraph: Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961), 3.
1. M. L. DeFleur, Mass Communication Theories: Explaining Origins, Processes, and Effects (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2010).
2. Richard Koszarski, An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915–1928, vol. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
3. DeFleur, Mass Communication Theories.
4. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: Murray, 1859).
5. Steven E. Jones, The Emergence of the Digital Humanities (London: Routledge, 2013).
6. Hilde T. Himmelweit, Abraham N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Television and the Child: An Empirical Study of the Effect of Television on the Young (London: Oxford University Press, 1958).
7. DeFleur, Mass Communication Theories.
8. Werrett W. Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth: A Summary (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 16.
9. Edgar Dale, The Content of Motion Pictures (New York: Macmillan, 1935).
10. Herbert Blumer, Movies and Conduct (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
11. Wendell S. Dysinger and Christian A. Ruckmick, The Emotional Responses of Children to the Motion Picture Situation (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
12. Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth, 16.
13. DeFleur, Mass Communication Theories.
14. Hadley Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952).
15. Bernard Berelson, “Communication and Public Opinion,” in Communications in Modern Society, ed. Wilbur Schramm (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1948), 112.
16. Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction, 1955); Joseph T. Klapper, The Effects of Mass Media (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960).
17. Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth, 16.
18. Michael D. Slater, “Reinforcing Spirals: The Mutual Influence of Media Selectivity and Media Effects and Their Impact on Individual Behavior and Social Identity,” Communication Theory 17, no. 3 (2007).
19. Albert Bandura, Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986).
20. Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, “The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Leonard Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1986).
21. Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman, “Human Aggression,” Annual Review of Psychology 53 (2002).
22. Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, “The Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model,” Journal of Communication 63, no. 2 (2013).
23. Schramm, Lyle, and Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children, 3.
24. Slater, “Reinforcing Spirals.”
25. Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley, The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live and How You Can Change Them (New York: Penguin, 2012).
26. Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, “Five Challenges for the Future of Media-Effects Research,” International Journal of Communication 7 (2013).
27. Tom Grimes, James A. Anderson, and Lori Bergen, Media Violence and Aggression: Science and Ideology (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008).
28. Jessica T. Piotrowski and Patti M. Valkenburg, “Finding Orchids in a Field of Dandelions: Understanding Children’s Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects,” American Behavioral Scientist 59, no. 14 (2015).
29. W. Thomas Boyce and Bruce J. Ellis, “Biological Sensitivity to Context: I. An Evolutionary-Developmental Theory of the Origins and Functions of Stress Reactivity,” Development and Psychopathology 17, no. 2 (2005).
30. Schramm, Lyle, and Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children, 3.
4. Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers
1. Jean Piaget, The Construction of Reality in the Child (New York: Basic Books, 1954).
2. Daniel R. Anderson, Elizabeth Pugzles Lorch, Diane Erickson Field, and Jeanne Sanders, “The Effects of TV Program Comprehensibility on Preschool Children’s Visual Attention to Television,” Child Development 52, no. 1 (1981).
3. Daniel R. Anderson and John Burns, “Paying Attention to Television,” in Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Processes, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1991).
4. Jessica T. Piotrowski and Patti M. Valkenburg, “Finding Orchids in a Field of Dandelions: Understanding Children’s Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects,” American Behavioral Scientist 59, no. 14 (2015).
5. Piaget, Construction of Reality.
6. Helmuit Moog, The Musical Experience of the Pre-School Child (London: Schott Music, 1976).
7. Anne Fernald, “Four-Month-Old Infants Prefer to Listen to Motherese,” Infant Behavior and Development 8, no. 2 (1985).
8. Russell J. Adams, “An Evaluation of Color Preference in Early Infancy,” Infant Behavior and Development 10 (1987).
9. Ellen A. Wartella, Vicky Rideout, Alexis R. Lauricella, and Sabrina L. Connell, Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology: A National Survey (Evanston, Ill.: School of Communication, Northwestern University, 2013).
10. Alissa E. Setliff and Mary L. Courage, “Background Television and Infants’ Allocation of Their Attention During Toy Play,” Infancy 16, no. 6 (2011).
11. Holly A. Ruff and Mary K. Rothbart, Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
12. Patti M. Valkenburg and Marjolein Vroone, “Developmental Changes in Infants’ and Toddlers’ Attention to Television Entertainment,” Communication Research 31, no. 3 (2004).
13. Tiffany A. Pempek, Heather L. Kirkorian, John E. Richards, Daniel R. Anderson, Anne F. Lund, and Michael Stevens, “Video Comprehensibility and Attention in Very Young Children,” Developmental Psychology 46, no. 5 (2010).
14. Juju Chang, Christine Rakowski, and Daniel Clark, “Toddlers and Tablets: Way of the Future?,” ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toddlers-tablets-future/story?id=19332916.
15. Wartella et al., Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology.
16. Erik F. Strommen, “Is It Easier to Hop or Walk? Development Issues in Interface Design,” Human-Computer Interaction 8, no. 4 (1993).
17. Sarah E. Vaala and Robert C. Hornik, “Predicting US Infants’ and Toddlers’ TV/Video Viewing Rates: Mothers’ Cognitions and Structural Life Circumstances,” Journal of Children and Media 8, no. 2 (2014).
18. Dimitri A. Christakis, “The Effects of Infant Media Usage: What Do We Know and What Should We Learn?,” Acta Paediatrica 98, no. 1 (2009).
19. Mary L. Courage and Mark L. Howe, “To Watch or Not to Watch: Infants and Toddlers in a Brave New Electronic World,” Developmental Review 30, no. 2 (2010).
20. Valkenburg and Vroone, “Changes in Infants’ and Toddlers’ Attention.”
21. Henry M. Wellman, The Child’s Theory of Mind, vol. 37 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990).
22. Janet W. Astington, The Child’s Discovery of the Mind, vol. 31 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 54.
23. Catherine Carvey and Rita Berndt, cited in ibid., 63.
24. Leona M. Jaglom and Howard Gardner, “The Preschool Television Viewer as Anthropologist,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development no. 13 (1981).
25. Dafna Lemish, “Viewers in Diapers: The Early Development of Television Viewing,” in Natural Audiences: Qualitative Research of Media Uses and Effects, ed. Thomas R. Lindlof (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1987).
26. Jessica T. Piot
rowski, “Participatory Cues and Program Familiarity Predict Young Children’s Learning from Educational Television,” Media Psychology 17, no. 3 (2014).
27. Jerome S. Bruner, “On Cognitive Growth II,” in Studies in Cognitive Growth, ed. Rose R. Olver and Patricia M. Greenfield (New York: Wiley, 1966).
28. Cynthia Hoffner and Joanne Cantor, “Developmental Differences in Responses to a Television Character’s Appearance and Behavior,” Developmental Psychology 21, no. 6 (1985).
29. Piaget, Construction of Reality.
30. Daniel S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher, What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids (New York: Free Press, 1997).
31. Paul Ekman, “An Argument for Basic Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 6, nos. 3–4 (1992).
32. Peter J. LaFreniere, Emotional Development: A Biosocial Perspective (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2000).
33. Ibid., 178.
34. May L. Halim et al., “The Case of the Pink Frilly Dress and the Avoidance of All Things ‘Girly’: Girls’ and Boys’ Appearance Rigidity and Cognitive Theories of Gender Development,” Developmental Psychology 50, no. 4 (2013).
35. Eleanor E. Maccoby, “Gender and Relationships: A Developmental Account,” American Psychologist 45, no. 4 (1990).
36. Anne Moir and David Jessel, Brain Sex: The Real Difference between Men and Women (London: Mandarin, 1991).
37. Carol L. Martin, “Cognitive Influences on the Development and Maintenance of Gender Segregation,” New Directions for Child Development 65 (1994).
38. Acuff and Reiher, What Kids Buy and Why.
39. Bradley J. Bond and Sandra L. Calvert, “Parasocial Breakup among Young Children in the United States,” Journal of Children and Media 8, no. 4 (2014): 484.