Medical Cyber Specialties
Social Media, Mental Health Enhancer and Detractor – Public Campaign Concept
Davey (David) Smith, MBA
Department of Public Health, George Mason University
Course number: GCH 500 Foundations of Public Health
Sarah L. Kuril, Ph. D., MPH, RRT
10/11/2023
Social Media, Public Health Enhancer and Detractor – Public Campaign
Social media can be a mental health enhancer or a detractor depending upon its application and use. Understanding how it can help and hinder someone’s mental health can help people understand how to set good boundaries to avoid issues it might create for them or for their community. The audience I would like to focus on are pre-teen to teenage minors. This is a critical and important group as they represent the soon to be future of growing and developing workers, business owners and consumers. As social media is highly prevalent and acceptable, helping them understand the benefits and drawbacks to their social health could help them make better decisions as they develop and grow. I am analysing this from a socio ecological model perspective resulting in the following model.
Figure 1
Social Media, Public Mental Health Enhancer and Detractor Socioecological Model
Note: this social ecological model describes social media effects of mental health among pre-teens and teens.
Intrapersonal Factors
The first level identifies intrapersonal factors that might increase or decrease the mental health of an individual depending up on the ability of social media having an affect on an individual. This would include age, education, household income, internet availability, content availability and monitoring. This will differ depending on those factors. Parents of children in their teenage years will typically be in their early thirties to late forties. They would most likely be employed, working 30 - 40 hours a week and will likely have more than one child. They would likely have internet at home, cable and would likely not have strict controls on their internet. Getting into the teenage mind can be difficult if you haven’t been of that age recently. Getting familiar with what is popular and familiar would be critical. As part of this effort in recommending communication solutions, I’ve also recommending running tests to compare different solutions to get the best engagement possible, recognizing potential unknown variables.
Solutions
Solutions to the issues reviewed could include establishing or ensuring controls were made available by parents or self-imposed by teens (hey it could happen). Education could also be provided to identify planning/opportunities for growth by avoiding the pitfalls of social media on mental health in health or wellness classes for teens.
Interpersonal Factors
The second level of interpersonal factors would include people, connectors to their immediate and primary engagers including parents, teachers, coaches, counsellors, and possibly their personal physician or paediatrician and last but not least, their peers who become an incredibly strong influencer at this level. Parents help monitor their children’s activities and provide direction. “Negative peer pressure can lead teens in bad directions. It could lead them to try alcohol or drugs, skip school or engage in other poor behaviours that could put their health at risk.” Scripps.org (2019)
Teachers, coaches and counsellors are definitely a part of a child’s interpersonal engagement, but caution should be encouraged when youth engage with professionals. Especially over social media as the lines can get blurry and confused. According to Terri Miller, ““Communication technology has perpetuated blurred boundaries and sexual misconduct,” says Miller. “Adults are saying things to children online and via text that they wouldn’t say face to face. They forget who they’re talking to. This can be a prelude to sexual contact.”” Today.org (2014)
Personal physicians, conversely, could have a positive affect at diagnosing mental health issues resulting from social media and could possibly represent or suggest solutions. According to the surgeon general “The most common question parents ask me is, ‘is social media safe for my kids’. The answer is that we don't have enough evidence to say it's safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health.” HHS.GOV (2023)
Solutions
Solutions for teens would include education for parents to be shared through health and wellness programs through health insurance offerings through employers and through public health insurance options such as Medicaid or Medicare. Education could also be shared with coaches, counsellors, and teachers to help them set proper boundaries. Personal physicians could also receive education on the topic of social media and could be trained to identify issues that might result from negative influences of social media.
Community Factors
From a community perspective, social media companies may present as a resource and/or detractor from mental health. Connected online communities which can span, separately from geographical communities, gaming communities, topical communities and interest communities as well as geo-referenced groups may present new types of communities from which youth may benefit or that may discourage youth. Dangers in community include risks associated with sexual and mental health which could result in depression and/or increased anxiety.
“Because of teens' impulsive natures, experts suggest that teens who post content on social media are at risk of sharing intimate photos or highly personal stories. This can result in teens being bullied, harassed, or even blackmailed. Teens often create posts without considering these consequences or privacy concerns.” Mayoclinic.org (2023)
Solutions
Geographical communities could work on establishing solutions to help attract students through other means other than social media. Social media companies could also work to develop self-regulating tools to help social media communities within their platforms to establish health engagement.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors would include state and federal government, internet self-regulation, IEEE standards, and International Standards. Internet self-regulation has by and large has not been successful as it could be. Prior electronic and media industries have self-regulated with some measure of success (including the motion picture association and video game industry with rating systems). The IEEE society (the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) is one of the largest professional organizations in the world and has established a form and standards for protecting children called the IEEE 2089-2021. The standard issues 5 standards for implementing electronic media in a safe environment.
Solutions
The social media industry needs to self-regulate for mental health. Shared in an article by the Harvard Business Review “Before the internet era, several industries, such as movies, video games, broadcasting content, television advertising, and computerized airline reservation systems, faced similar issues and managed to self-regulate with some success. At the same time, these historical examples suggest that self-regulation worked best when there were credible threats of government regulation. The bottom line: Self-regulation may be the key to avoiding a potential tragedy of the commons scenario for digital platforms.” Cusumano, M; Gawer, A, Yoffie, D (2021) I believe this could also help so long as they self regulate with an eye to mental health for all including minors.
Communication Strategy
I recall one of the most memorable ads regarding drugs use and one that was effective on me. It was the add that started with “This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs, any questions?” Its efficacy has been debated, but I know it is also one of the most memorable. In terms of story telling it effectively uses drugs (incidentally) or rather hormones including Cortisol, Dopamine and Oxytocin to tell the story. I would like to develop a similar communication strategy to help teens and to popularize the notion of setting boundaries and emphasizing the rewards of doing so. I’d like to generally refer to this model as the CDO model for delivering a message, it has precedence in terms of the model, but hasn’t been promoted extensively.
2 possibilities – directed to intrapersonal and interpersonal levels
The first two examples would be created simultaneously evaluated for their effectiveness among multiple audiences as a test for further distribution. The first two examples are films/media examples and would be made on the cheap using common video editing tools with a creative slant. I’ve opted to use scripts as opposed to full film examples as producing these would require between 100 – 200 hours to produce minimum.
First
This media example would be video or multimedia and applicable to youth in the preteen to teenage group. I would recommend this be animated. One expense would have to be to address royalties, or to develop a similar model using other cartoon characters. I’ve developed this short script/example for my example.
Cortisol – This is your brain – Sponge character appears.
Dopamine – This is your brain on social media with no boundaries – Sponge character sitting alone in a house staring at computer with no one to talk to. Sponge character gets sucked into his computer. With picture of all his friends wondering where sponge character is.
Oxytocin – Any Questions? (picture of village with no fun sponge character anywhere including car wash where kids cannot wash cars for football money because no sponges exist).
Second
This media example would be video or multimedia and applicable to youth in the preteen to teenage group. I would recommend this use live actors. Actors could be expensive along with a camera crew. Youtube could be used to promote or it could also be put into a local theatre before a popular preteen movie. Ad space could be expensive.
Cortisol – Picture of a lonely teen surfing social media. Hearing negative criticism of him and his family.
Dopamine – teen remembering activities (chess club, bike riding, getting third place in his first swim race. Teen then thanks his friends for social media engagement and closes account, “maybe another time.”
Oxytocin – Next cut to teen getting out and walking trails of a nearby forest and watching a sunrise. Forest Service. (2015).
Additional Examples
Third
Develop video to demonstrate and help users of social media (teens) to identify the warning signs of potential liars or detractors from social media through common message types. Create assembly with focus on getting out, finding alternatives to social media. Additional information on the effectiveness of this type of storytelling follows. Another reference to the use of storytelling. “Scientists are discovering that chemicals like cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin are released in the brain when we’re told a story. Why does that matter? If we are trying to make a point stick, cortisol assists with our formulating memories. Dopamine, which helps regulate our emotional responses, keeps us engaged. When it comes to creating deeper connections with others, oxytocin is associated with empathy, an important element in building, deepening or maintaining good relationships.” (Peterson, L. https://www.harvardbusiness.org/). An example of a social media video with these properties can be found on YouTube from the U. S. Forest Service.
Fourth
Develop standards organization for social media rating system that adhere to the IEEE standard. Develop adherence model/reference to show how well a group adheres to the standard. Get government grants to issue the standard and manage it. Advertise and develop model to demonstrate safety mechanisms on social media site. Example (IE Cubed approved for Kids)
Establish rating system (similar to the following using a Likert scale or other scale to measure efficacy of the platform). This is an example and not indicative of actual results. However this could be a model for developing a rating system for social media for children. I took the questions from the right and based them off of the IEEE 2089 standard. The resulting rating system could have a stars indicator or some other method to indicate the appropriateness of the tool for children and preteens. It would likely be very costly to develop and maintain such a rating system but could benefit both consumers and companies who choose to target or advertise to children or preteens.
Table 1
|
Establish 4 rating systems |
|
|
Youtube |
|
Recognizes child users and meeting their needs and diversity |
2 |
3 |
3 |
|
Upholds children’s rights |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
Child-centered approach in data use |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Moderation and redress |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Age appropriate formats |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Such a tool as this could be made to be available for policy introduction by building on an industry-developed solution for self-regulation and for use in developing policy and law around engagement of social media platforms.
Materials
Now, obviously, there’s a bit of a quandary here. To use social media or not to use social media to establish a topic on mental health and social media for teens with teens as my primary audience. I also recommended using a storyline system that intentionally alerts hormones in the brain to create a memorable and possibly addictive source of entertainment for educational purposes. As with any prior new media form, it often starts out not quite being right for the kids. This was the case with the westward expansion into the United States. It was also the case with television, video games, the internet, and now social media. With standards developed it can be a safer place for teens and their mental health. Social media should be used to deliver this content and messages. Additionally, the political environment should be engaged to establish self-regulating bodies through the IEEE and/or perhaps through a new ratings system for electronic social media.
I would also utilize the rating system and establish some kind of marker/logo to identify the brand or social media platforms adherence and/or score to that standard. This could be a mark of safety which would include indicators for mental health. The materials could be provided in multiple languages and in multiple dialects with understandable language (standard colloquial linguistic models).
Summary
As I get more into this topic, I am finding that promotion of public health could itself lead to use of methods which may be debated themselves for promotional purposes. However
I do not have enough time and space to discuss those disadvantages. I’ve heard that today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems. We cannot know the future, but we can predict it. Developing strong messaging for the purpose of protecting public health and in this case developing strong messaging to protect mental health for preteens and teens using social media is an immediate concern. Consequently, I believe it is in our best interest to promote and use models to encourage effective engagement to establish better processes for achieving mental health and forging a way for teens to develop well.
References
Scripps.org (2021, September 10). How Does Peer Pressure Affect a Teen’s Social Development?. Website. https://www.scripps.org/news_items/4648-how-does-peer-pressure-affect-a-teen-s-social-development#:~:text=Negative%20peer%20pressure%20can%20lead,at%20Scripps%20Clinic%20Rancho%20Bernardo.
Today.org (2014, September 18) Social media boundaries: Should teachers and students be 'friends'? Website. https://www.today.com/parents/social-media-boundaries-should-teachers-students-be-friends-1D80156546
HHS.gov (2023, April 23) Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health Website. Https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/23/surgeon-general-issues-new-advisory-about-effects-social-media-use-has-youth-mental-health.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20most%20common%20question%20parents,Vivek%20Murthy.
Mayoclinic.org (2023) Tween and teen health Website. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/tween-and-teen-health/in-depth/teens-and-social-media-use/art-20474437
Cusumano M.; Gawer, A.; Yoffie D. (2021, January 15) Social Media Companies Should Self-Regulate. Now. Harvard Business Review Website. https://hbr.org/2021/01/social-media-companies-should-self-regulate-now
IEEE.org (2021) IEEEA Standards Association Website. IEEE-2089 https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/2089/7633/
Peterson, L (2017, November 14) The Science Behind The Art Of Storytelling Website. https://www.harvardbusiness.org/the-science-behind-the-art-of-storytelling/
Forest Service. (2015, August 12). Let’s Go Outside! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyL-l4szz7Q