After hearing that kindness would be the school year’s theme, I immediately began thinking about possible Chapel Talks which would capture the theme and connect it to the boys’ daily lives. Seeking inspiration, I began scouring my “go to source” for all things content and information: the Internet. Once online, I found a video, a TikTok video to be precise. I watched it several times. The video was hosted by @Julian de Medeiros. Now, to qualify. I have not fact checked the video or done a deep dive on the host’s background. But, the content of the video itself is what is most important here. He spoke of the author Tolstoy and his take on kindness. After a number of views, I took a proverbial step back and put on my Media Studies and Literacy “hat.”
The video hit all of the right marks. It resonated with my outlook on life (i.e., being kind is a very good thing), it reflected my values, and the presenter himself appeared to be “smart,” and thoughtful. His whole style, appearance, manner of speaking, and general approach (close up with a tilted camera) made me like him, feel like I was having a conversation with him and, most significantly, trust everything he said. The last piece is the key goal of any good social media influencer: to earn trust. If I were a greater user of social media, there would have been a very good chance that I would follow, like, subscribe or friend this “influencer.” Ultimately, I appreciated that he was sharing content for the intellectually curious and reflective, offering something, on the surface at least, which was much more than vapid entertainment.
At that last thought, I began to go back in my mind to my own early and mid-adolescent years, when cable television also offered both types of content. Like most people that age and at that time, I thoroughly enjoyed using the medium for both entertainment and to learn about the world well beyond my immediate reach. At a certain point though, I recall asking my parents for a television in my own room so that I could watch my sports in peace. Unfortunately for me at that time, my mother had attended a PA book talk by a leading child psychologist about raising children and teens in a world dominated by cable television.
The author made a convincing argument against the merits of allowing children unfettered access and without parental oversight to cable television, especially in the privacy of their own bedrooms. The author dubbed the medium and the messages shared through it as the “third parent” who really “gets, understands, and knows” the young viewer.
Thirty years later, the same challenge exists but through a different medium: social media. There is plenty of research, data, and analysis about its negative impact on young people, but what frankly surprises me is that the natural comparison to the impact of television is missing. Social media and television in many ways are inextricably linked by the way they share information. Both use video and audio in a sophisticated and intentional way. The lighting, music, background sound, camera angles, colors, props, clothing all play equal roles in the performance, along with the overt intent of the content. Each has a real impact on the mind of the user on a significantly deeper level than immediately known to him or her. With social media, I would argue that the third parent of pop culture has grown even closer to the mind; that the dangers of television have jumped from the walls to the palm of our hands and are with us constantly.
As our brains digest and process the information received from audio/visual messages, we should approach it critically and actively analyze, like a novel, the work’s plot development, characters, the creator’s intent, overarching themes, mood, tone, soundtrack, etc. It is important to actively engage because messages and information shared from an audio/visual medium are delivered in ways that are quite different from reading the printed word.
American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman discusses this topic in one of his most seminal works: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Although he published the book in 1985, it resonates as clearly today as then, if not more so. In it, Postman covers considerable ground on the history of communicating ideas through media ranging from the printed word to television. Before delving into television, Postman classifies the type of literacy needed when reading the printed word. The excerpt below, to use a parlance of the youth today, “lives rent-free in my mind.”
The audio/visual medium however is based on capturing interest, attention, and focus. Postman notes that television used the form of entertainment to achieve just this with its users. The whole construct was to keep viewers ’glued’ to their sets. Postman writes, “...television offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend it, and is largely aimed at emotional gratification… American television, in other words, is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment.” (Pg 86-87). Like the scroll through social media or the online world, the digital marketplace is packed with content designed to capture the user’s attention and time with the goal of having them follow. With clever edits, music, humor, and all the other tools in the content creator’s toolbox, amateur and professional content creators, influencers, and advertisers use social media to keep the users ‘glued’ to their smart devices.
One last clinching note from Postman, “We face the rapid dissolution of the assumption of an education organized around the slow-moving printed word, and the equally rapid emergence of a new education based on the speed-of-light electronic image. The classroom is, at the moment, still tied to the printed word, although that connection is rapidly weakening … One is entirely justified in saying that the major educational enterprise now being undertaken in the United States is not happening in its classrooms but in the home, in front of the television set, and under the jurisdiction not of school administrators and teachers, but of network executives and entertainers… like the alphabet or the printed press, television has by its power to control the time, attention and cognitive habits of our youth gained the power to control their education.” (Pg. 145)
The power referred to above has moved to the online world with people, who go by the actual and unironic title of Influencer, providing the lessons on life and critical thought to the young people who follow them. Some have toxic while others have good intentions, but all are wrapped up in a smooth and slick entertainment package. This is the third parent young people engage with today anytime they venture into the digital world, frequently in the privacy of their bedrooms with headphones on. So, what is to be done? As previously mentioned, the essential literacy skills learned in school can very easily be applied to breaking down audio/visual content found throughout mass media. With younger people who do not yet have those skills as well developed and defined, a close and cohesive partnership with the parent is essential. In May 2023, the American Psychology Association published its Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence. One of its recommendations include, “In early adolescence (i.e., typically 10-14 years), adult monitoring (i.e., ongoing review, discussion, and coaching around social media content) is advised for most youths’ social media use; autonomy may increase gradually as kids age and if they gain digital literacy skills.”
In many ways, my own parents did this with me as I explored the greater world around me through the convincing and entertaining audio/visual medium of television. We must do the same for our young ones as they begin to navigate the very influential and all consuming audio/visual digital world before them. If we do not, then we invite them to follow, like, subscribe, or friend the third parent online and be raised by them.
Going back to the beginning, that video on kindness represents some of the good that can be found online, but just like in the real world, we can only know how to identify it after we are taught what to look for and why it is important and valuable. The digital world is obviously here to stay. We must be the ones who teach the youth of today how to find and live that kindness both online and in the real world.
Notes: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (Penguin Books, 1985).
American Psychological Association, Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence (May 2023): https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/health-advisory-adolescent-social-media-use.pdf