"A really essential part of digital wellness, (is) understanding …. how this works."

~ Tamara Sobel

As the current National Advisor for Health Education and Media Literacy at  Media Literacy Now @medialiteracynow, Tamara Sobel is deeply committed to helping parents and schools gain healthy screen habits.  The founder of the Girls Women and Media Project, she led one of the first organizations focused on activism and education to raise awareness and improve images of girls and women in the media. She's a certified sexuality educator and a regular columnist for Psychology Today. ( Maybe you've already read some of her work!)  Our conversation covers a variety of topics surrounding Media Literacy and a great healthy screen habit.

Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For more info:

Media Literacy Now

Psychology Today:

 Healthy Minds and Bodies in a Digital Age

Dove Self Esteem Project:

#DetoxifyYourFeed

Parents' Guide

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson: (00:04)

Today we get to meet a Wonder Woman on the healthy screen habits hero lineup. She is a former public interest lawyer and the current national advisor for health education and media literacy. With Media Literacy Now, as the founder of the Girls Women and Media Project, she led one of the first organizations focused on activism and education to raise awareness and improve images of girls and women in the media. She's a certified sexuality educator and a regular columnist for Psychology Today. So maybe you've already read some of her work. I would like to welcome to Healthy Screen Habits Tamara Sobel!

Tamara Sobel: (01:15)

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Hillary Wilkinson: (01:19)

You are someone who has not done things in halves, as a public interest lawyer, you took on a massive advertising campaign surrounding a liquor company that resulted in the removal of 10,000 ads from public spaces, which I'm sure brought about all kinds of First Amendment questions. And I, I feel like we could have a whole conversation just on that, but to keep it in the realm of healthy screen habits, I think my leading question has to be: Is the internet considered public space?

Tamara Sobel: (02:01)

Right. Um, that's an interesting question. Yes. It, I think it is considered public space, maybe how we see things and legally, um, which is very good and very bad in a sense. Um, we, there's just endless amount of content out there, and some of it is just mind boggling and fantastic, and we have access to so much information. Um, unfortunately, some of it can be very disturbing and potentially harmful. So I think that's our challenge in this digital age, is to access the good stuff and find ways to protect ourself from the bad stuff.

Hillary Wilkinson: (02:38)

One of your current hats, as I previously stated, is as the National Advisor for Health education and Media Literacy. Um, can you talk about how these two things hold hands, this health education and media literacy?

Tamara Sobel: (02:55)

Sure. Well, media literacy, I'm not sure. I, I guess I'll clarify a little bit what the term media literacy is. So, so we're all on the same page here. Media literacy is really the ability to be able to analyze and evaluate all media, whatever media that is, whether it's social media, whether it's advertisements you still see on a street or in a magazine, television, movies, music videos. We need to be able to analyze the impact of the content, the impact of our habits, um, and something we call digital wellness, uh, which is part of the bigger picture of media literacy. Media literacy can include lots of things that can, includes include news literacy, like the whole, uh, movement around, you know, determining fake news or real news. Certainly it includes that, but it's much more than that.

Tamara Sobel: (03:44)

It does include this area of digital wellness, digital wellbeing, which is really taking into consideration the health impacts of media use, whether that's the mental health and emotional health impacts, or the physical health impacts. Um, there's been a lot of attention to the mental health impacts lately. The Surgeon General has issued an important advisory. The American Psychological Association has, um, also issued that kind of warning and recommendation that we really need to prepare kids with education. Um, but there are also physical effects. We're seeing an increase in myopia and eye strain in younger kids. We're seeing something they call tech neck. You know, if you just step back and look at people in public spaces, you'll see it. Everyone's bent over looking at a screen. Well, we're not particularly meant to be in that posture all the time.

Tamara Sobel: (04:36)

So, um, doctors are seeing more and more of this thing they call Tech Neck, which is a curvature of the spine in a way, younger and younger kids they never saw before. Um, there are all sorts of other, uh, physical effects of being on screen all the time. So these are things that we need to learn about. Not, not, we're not gonna say don't ever use a screen, but we're gonna say, let's be healthy and let's look at what the health impacts are so we can empower ourselves to make our own healthy habits. Um, so that's, that's why we need media literacy and health education. And I think that, I think teachers and, and families, even individuals recognize this, but I think we need to update our educational training and educational resources so teachers can teach this comfortably in their classroom.

Hillary Wilkinson: (05:21)

Currently I think there's a limited curriculum for classroom instruction. And, uh, does Media Literacy Now offer anything along those lines? 

Tamara Sobel: (05:40)

So at Media Literacy now, we don't design curriculum or offer curriculum ourselves. We're really focused on policy change. So we step back and say, um, how do we look at the policies and the laws and update them for our time? So laws and policies are hard to change, and they're often from years and years ago, and they're still on the books. So what we're doing is trying to modernize education policy and say, let's look at our health curriculum or our, in, in other cases, civics or science or other curriculum and say, we live in a digital age now, is the curriculum reflecting that? And how do we connect the dots? So, as I said, we are not offering curriculum directly to teachers in schools, but we're trying to change the policy so they have the resources they need. That is our role in it. Mm-Hmm. It's actually quite exciting because what we find is people really know they need these changes. So it's always nice to be doing work where people know change needs to happen, as opposed to trying to convince them that they have to change . Um, but it's very, very exciting. We get so much interest and they say, “Yes, yes, please help us. We know we need help!”. So that's actually great to be working in a, in a space like that,

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:54)

We have to take a short break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask tomorrow what she thinks are the greatest challenges facing media literacy and health today.

Ad - HSH Website

Hillary Wilkinson: (08:18)

I'm speaking with Tamara Sobel, the National Advisor for Health Education and Media Literacy At Media Literacy Now, a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization working to change and modernize educational policy to include the teaching of media literacy in K-12 education in the US. The organization has an extensive network of change makers in states all across the country. A successful record in policy reform and a commitment to creating a world where young people have the skills they need to thrive in a digital world, which we all absolutely need that!  So, Tamara, National Health Education Organizations are, uh, like we talked about before the break, are they're kind of currently in the process of revising standards for K-12 health educators across the country. Because our listeners are primarily parents, what are the most critical things that we as parents can look for to make sure that they're getting introduced and covered in these curriculum?

Tamara Sobel: (09:46)

As far as national standards, we don't know what's going to be in the revisions we are doing in our work. We do advocacy to suggest that these are really important, that need to be included. And we've gotten so far some, some positive feedback that, um, the, the professional organization that's working with these national teacher standards really acknowledges that. So that's a very good first sign. Um, but I would say that, uh, there's several areas that I think we really need to update and make sure that we're including in curriculum and health education. One is just the idea of digital wellness. I mean, it's a relatively new concept. You know, the idea of wellness has been around a long time, but putting the two words together is a relatively new thing. So we believe that health education really needs to acknowledge the reality that young people are spending 8, 10, 11, 12 hours on with media on their devices.

Tamara Sobel: (10:44)

So if such a huge part of their world is going to be a big part of their wellness as well. And again, we have the evidence that shows that there are these links between mental health and physical health issues. So it's just sort of a no-brainer in a way that it would be part of a health curriculum. Um, so the found just the concept of digital wellness, and also within that, the business model that social media uses or any media uses to keep people addicted. You know, so many kids, um, roughly half kids in, in a lot of surveys say they feel addicted. Addicted is never a good sign. Addicted to anything is not good. Um, so with so many kids feeling addicted, you know, they think it's their fault and how do they get over it? And how do they deal with it?

Tamara Sobel: (11:27)

But this is a bigger problem. These, these are often designed to keep eyeballs on the screen. So, I mean, people are approaching it from different ways. There's certainly people who are trying to change how, uh, the companies operate and there's people doing that work. Um, but from an education point of view, once you teach young people or anybody, um, what the business model here is how the, how these social media platforms keep you addicted. Um, it's very empowering to young people. 'cause they don't wanna be manipulated. They don't wanna be told what to do. Especially at a young age, you're, you're rebelling, you're, you know, questioning authority. So it's very informative once you teach young people about how the algorithms work to keep you hooked on things. They feel empowered to make better decisions for themselves. So that's really exciting. And I think that's a really essential part of digital wellness, understanding sort of how this works.

Tamara Sobel: (12:22)

Hmm. Um, you know, and, and we all have ambivalence. It's, it's not about saying, okay, I'm never gonna use social media again, necessarily. I mean, there could be people who say that and that's fine, but it's about ambivalence and just talking about that ambivalence is really empowering. So I think health classroom and other class classrooms are really a good place to talk about all the things that everyone's experiencing at the same time. Um, but putting that on the agenda, the, the concept of digital wellness, I think is really important. The other thing is that body image and eating disorders prevention have really not gotten enough attention as a serious, potentially serious problem. Um, in most surveys, you see a majority of girls, and definitely a growing number of boys are dealing with hating or disliking their own bodies, which we shouldn't take for granted. I mean, these are not new studies, necessarily new numbers.

Tamara Sobel: (13:15)

I mean, they're new ones, they're older ones, but they're all kind of the same. A majority of people dislike their own bodies. I mean, what does that say about us ? And it's certainly not our fault. Um, you know, we're certainly inundated with so many n now with social media, the sheer number of images you see, all of the perfecting techniques and Photoshopping. So we're, we're comparing ourselves constantly. We're basically envying everybody else. We see this is not good for our own self-esteem and can lead to depression, anxiety. Um, girls are particularly, girls are, uh, quitting   more and more. 'cause they don't have that perfect fitness body they see from influencers. So they're actually saying, well, I don't wanna play sports 'cause I don't look like so-and-So, um, depression, substance abuse, all these things can happen once if you really dislike yourself and hate your body.

Tamara Sobel: (14:11)

Um, so there are mental illness issues that are associated with that, that are pretty serious and very pervasive. And you get kids at a younger and younger age, you have four and five-year-olds who say they're too fat. You, uh, had a story of an eight-year-old who said, can I starve myself so I can look like one of these influencers, an eight-year-old. Um, it's very disturbing. So I think we really need to take more seriously this i the idea that, um, we are really doing poorly in positive body image and social media has a lot to do with that. And there are things we can do besides, again, quitting all social media, although reducing social media time certainly has been shown, uh, helpful. Um, but I think that we really have to again, step back and look at that and say, don't take it for granted that we feel bad about ourselves.

Tamara Sobel: (14:59)

Say, wait a minute, I have a right to feel good about myself, and if these images are making me feel bad about myself, how do I get rid of them? And there are ways to minimize your exposure, even if you wanna stay on social media. So again, it's about learning, about stepping back and saying, how is this making me feel and what can I do about it? And that's part of media literacy and digital wellness education. And I think it's so important to be in the health education classroom. And then the last thing, um, is health information literacy, which is sort of similar to the news and information literacy, but understanding how to evaluate information for credibility, for bias, for, for accuracy. Um, they're also stories of teens sort of self diagnosing, uh, taking medicine that they don't need to take or might be dangerous.

Tamara Sobel: (15:50)

Um, in the worst case scenarios, people recommend to them that they should end their own lives because that's the solution to something. I mean, there have been instances where, where young people are taking their own lives based on a recommendation of someone on social media. Clearly we need to teach young people, you know, how to evaluate credible health information and know the difference between what's legit and not legitimate. Um, so these are really important. If you look at what's happening in the culture, you can't ignore that. We really need to help guide people better. And the health classroom health and safety is a really important, uh, entry point and touch point for that education.

Hillary Wilkinson: (16:34)

Right, right. So to summarize that, you're telling us that the, the key things that parents wanna kind of maybe checklist when we're looking at, say our district's adopted curriculum would be, um, a teaching of digital wellness, which includes the, the breakdown of how algorithms work with business models and you know, how things get driven to you. A, um, body image teaching or, being very aware of body image, evalu, self-evaluation of how different accounts make you feel and how to, and given the tools of how to kind of cleanse your feed. And then the third big takeaway that I got was the, um, fact evaluation of credible information. Have I summarized that?

Tamara Sobel: (17:31)

Absolutely, yes. Okay. And those are all, yeah. And those are all within this umbrella definition of media literacy.

Hillary Wilkinson: (17:36)

Yeah. Yeah it's so, I mean, far reaching, right. It's just amazing how it kind of trickles into all areas. Yeah. So there are parents that, um, really are choosing to take a stance of, this doesn't apply to us. We aren't gonna have tech in our home. We've got everything on lockdown. We're, we're good. We don't have to, we don't have to to be concerned about this because I, I mean, I very often I hear, um, you know, one parent or another saying that the other one's got it covered. There tends to be one IT person in the house I have noticed. And it's like, oh, they've got everything . So what, what's your reaction to, to that sort of, um, that sort of parental response?

Tamara Sobel: (18:45)

Right. Well, there's certainly different approaches parents take. Um, one thing I will say is that kids are really smart about workarounds and getting around parents' rules. And if they're restricting access via a phone, the phone is taken away or in lockdown, you know, kids can use other ways. They can use desktop computers that are supposed to be only for their homework. You know, , they can go to school and use devices, they can go to a friend's house, use somebody else's device. So I think there may be a little, sometimes naivete in terms of parents thinking they can really shut everything down for their child. Um, you know, I guess I, I'm not a, I'm not someone who, you know, immediate literacy. Now, we don't give parental advice necessarily. We don't work on that part of the, the issue. But I will say, just from my own personal experience, I think that, and I, and I've read quite a bit about this, um, bit, I think that bit these skills, the media literacy skills and safety skills, uh, all these skills that come within the, the topic of media literacy are so important for a, for a young person to develop starting early on, um, because they'll need them at some point in their life.

Tamara Sobel: (19:58)

Media literacy skills generally are valued in college and in the workforce. I mean, these are all related information literacy, understanding the world of media, you know, these are all skills that, that are going to be useful to a child later on. So in my mind, helping a child develop these skills early on is wonderful. And it's something a parent and a child can do together. It increases that bond. It can be very eye opening for a parent to see what's out there, uh, in a good way and a bad way. Some of it very good.

Hillary Wilkinson: (20:30)

Mm-Hmm, ,

Tamara Sobel: (20:31)

Um, to keep an open mind that it's not all bad. I think that's really important. And to build a, a, a bond with the child about using media, what's good, what's bad, because, uh, then the child will trust the parent a little bit more to come to them. Maybe if there's a problem, if you're sort of seen as the, the jail warden or the Terminator , you know, you're not gonna be someone that a child approaches, they're gonna go somewhere else. And maybe you'd rather them come to you. So, um, I would just say I understand the instinct to shut it all down. But I do think that there are other approaches and teaching kids these skills is important in the home and in the school. I mean, our work is focused on the school, but certainly there's a place for learning a lot of this in the home too. So, um, but again, every, every parent has to make their own decisions. But I would just say that I'm, my personal view is more for that we have to approach this from many different angles, from parents, from school, um, from, from many different ways.

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:32)

Right. And one of the, one of those angles  is, um, the angle of policies and bills and action movements. Are there any that you would like to promote or gain listener support on that you're currently working on?

Tamara Sobel: (21:50)

Um, well, we're working on a lot . I would definitely encourage people to visit our website at, um, www.medialiteracynow.org. Um, depending on what kind of level of interest or time commitment you might have. Um, if you're in a state where you really would like to work on getting the state to incorporate this more into its, um, state Board of Education guidelines or perhaps work on legislation, um, we certainly encourage that. And, uh, we may have people already working in your state. So, uh, you can join with people who are already trying to get policies changed. Um, there's a lot of opportunity. We offer a lot of guidance to those advocates in states who wanna try and work in their state. Um, we, you can, uh, sign up for our newsletter, which talks about the progress we're making on many levels you can donate if you are so inclined.

Tamara Sobel: (22:41)

So it helps support our work, our goal of really, um, hoping that every student across the country will have this type of education to keep them safe and well. Um, so there, there really is a lot we're doing. And we certainly would love people to check out, uh, what we're doing and sign up to stay in touch with, with our progress. I'll also do a little bit of a plug for my Psychology Today columns, because I'm, I do write a lot on these topics and, um, people seem interested in them. I would tell people, you know, they can go visit, uh, the column I write for Psychology today on staying healthy in the digital world. Mm-Hmm. . And, um, but I would say the bottom line, I think the real takeaway is we all just have to be more attentive to our own media habits, by the way, which are models we can never forget that we're modeling for young people.

Tamara Sobel: (23:31)

They look at us and they see what we're doing. Um, so I think we all have to pay more attention to what we do, what our kids are doing, and just, just make sure that we're using media in a constructive way, in an empowering way. Um, and also make sure that schools are doing their part, schools have a role to play in this. And that's what we do at Media Literacy Now, is making sure they, um, are doing what they should be doing. And we're helping to connect, uh, people with, um, resources and policies and things they need to support the teaching of this. And, um, we have a lot of work to do. We've made a lot of progress, but we continue to do it. And it's, it's very exciting. I think that we're going to see a lot of changes, uh, coming about. And, um, it's, it's time.

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:21)

Yeah. Yeah. No, it is an exciting space for sure. Uh, so circling back to our previous public spaces conversation, but if you could put one ad or a piece of media in front of teens, say, on their walk to school or inside their bus on the way to school, you've done so much work in this field,  surrounded by health and wellness and all of this stuff. I just feel like you're the perfect person to ask this question.

Hillary Wilkinson: (25:06)

 What, what would that be?

Tamara Sobel: (25:11)

Um, well, I've come across the resource. You and I talked about this a little bit. I've come across a wonderful resource from, um, I don't know if you know this, but Dove, the, the company Dove has a really wonderful project on body image. Um, and they've, they did just do a lot of great work on and messaging on, um, changing young, particularly young women, but changing people's attitudes about, you know, feeling better about their bodies. Um, so they have a lot of resources. They have some resources for parents, and they have, um, resources for young people, but they have a wonderful tool. It's a, I think it's a little YouTube video, and then they have some other content that's related to that, and it's called Detox Your Feed. And I think, you know, people don't realize they have more control over what they see than they realize.

Tamara Sobel: (25:58)

So there's a wonderful little exercise. I think it's meant to be done with a parent and a child together. Um, but it's going through concrete steps, and it's very short, of how you can change what you're seeing every day in your social media feed if you're, if you're using social media, um, you know, such things as looking at influencers who really might not be healthy for you. And then just unfollowing them or changing the settings, you can do some turning off of algorithms, um, to control some of what's in your feed. Not, not entirely, but that partway. Um, so I think there are tools you can use, and I think it's a really interesting experience to, to have a parent and child do it together, because it's learning for both of them.

Tamara Sobel: (26:48)

And I think it, and parents, it's really funny, but parents are really learning themselves. Parents realize that they have a lot to learn and it's an opportunity to learn alongside their kids. So anyway, I think that's a wonderful tool. It's very short. And I'll just, part of that message is we have a right to feel good about ourselves. It's a right. It's not in the constitution yet, , I would put it there. But we do, we have a right to feel good about ourselves. So we need to step back and look at what's not making us feel good about ourselves, what's making us feel bad and do something about it. And what we do about it is up to us. But I think let's not take for granted that we're all envious, we're all competitive, we're all comparing ourselves. Let's not take that for granted. Let's do a reboot and a reset and say, wait a minute, I have a right to feel good about myself every day. If there's something standing in the way, I'm gonna do something about it.

Hillary Wilkinson: (27:51)

Yeah. So that, um, ad/YouTube tutorial that Tamara was talking about can be located in our show notes for this episode. We have to take a short break, but when we come back, I am going to ask Tamara Sobel for her Healthy Screen Habit.

—Ad Break: HSH Workshops & Presentation

Hillary Wilkinson: (32:05)

I'm speaking with Tamara Sobel from Media Literacy Now, she not only holds a JD, but is also a Certified Health and Sexuality Educator. Tamara, we've done a lot of talking about, um, young women and the kind of the data that we have surrounding social media with young women and body image, et cetera. Is there anything you can speak to, um, young men, how young men are being affected by media?

Tamara Sobel: (32:56)

Sure, sure. Um, statistics still show that girls and women do suffer from poor body image at a higher rate than men. But it's, it's actually starting ev going in the direction of evening out a bit. Um, there are, I dunno if you've seen lately, but some celebrities have, have gotten up to the mic and talked about their struggles with eating disorders. Um, Ed Sheeran, I know has talked about that it's affected him personally. I know before that, I think Sam Smith had, uh, opened up and talked about that. So, you know, unfortunately, men are, uh, being inundated with more and more images themselves. Boys and men are being inundated with more and more images that show perfect male bodies. Um, and they are feeling the same insecurities. And, uh, it's, it's not just a female problem. So I think that, um, there's also the, it's not for men and boys, it's not always just about being thin. It can be about being, uh, more muscular and I think they call it big-arexia . Yeah. Kind of a funny word. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (34:02)

I've heard that as well.

Tamara Sobel: (34:03)

Yeah. So I think this is all about, both boys and girls really benefit from looking at the media images they see and talking about how they influence them, talking about the sheer number of images and, and frequency with which they see these images and how it affects 'em. And again, as I said earlier, the more you talk about something, the easier it is to figure out how to deal with it.

Hillary Wilkinson: (34:29)

I agree.

Tamara Sobel: (34:30)

Again, we think that the health education classroom is really the right place, especially when it comes to, you know, body image and potential eating disorder prevention, uh, with boys, you know, if they can't get a handle on their issues, you know, they will be taking, possibly taking steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. So these are health issues. These are the health issues of our times, and that's why we really need to, to update, uh, what we teach in the health education classroom.

Hillary Wilkinson: (34:57)

Right. On every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask each guest for a healthy screen habit. And this is gonna be a tip or takeaway that our listeners can put into practice in their own home. 

Tamara Sobel: (35:16)

Well, let's see. I have many. I like to think I stay pretty, um, true to them. Um, I do find that, um, I try and check my posture quite a bit because I think that that's one thing that over the years of all this tech we're using, we're gonna see a lot of bad posture . Um, so, and posture affects your breathing and breathing affects your mental health. So I do breathing exercises. I set a timer , sometimes I push the timer off, but, um, I make sure I change my posture. I walk around, I do some breathing, and it just changes the way I approach my next session on my screen. So I think that, as I said, that there are mental health effects that can, that can be part of, uh, our digital lives and they're also physical health effects. I also do eye exercises to, uh, undo the strain from my screen. So I think we have to pay attention not only to the mental health and emotional issues surrounding our media use, but the physical health, um, issues as well.

Hillary Wilkinson: (36:22)

I love that. So, as always, you can find a complete transcript of this show and a link to any resources discussed by visiting the show notes for this episode. Do this by going to healthyscreenhabits.org., click the podcast button and scroll to find this episode. Tamara, thank you so much for all that you've shared today and all that you continue to do in furthering the path for really public education and public digital wellness. Cause like, as you said, I really do think that these are the health challenges of our time.

Tamara Sobel: (36:57)

Exactly. Thank you for this opportunity. Uh, I was glad to be here.