As the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to adjust to virtual learning for more than a year, screen time and stress have skyrocketed among kids and teenagers.
Patricia Sweet, director of prevention programming at Tri-County Community Action Agency and director of the Southern Providence County Regional Prevention Coalition, is out to help those experiencing high levels of anxiety. Tri-County and the Coalition will host a free online screening of “Screenagers Next Chapter: Uncovering Skills for Stress Resilience” on Wednesday, April 28, at 7 p.m., with a question-and-answer session following the viewing with health center clinicians.
A promotional flyer for the event explains that the movie follows filmmaker and physician Dr. Delaney Ruston as “she discovers solutions for improved adolescent well-being in the digital age.” Those interested in registering can visit tinyurl.com/SPCscreenagers.
“We witness Delaney as she finds her way from ineffective parenting to much-improved strategies,” the release reads. “We follow other personal stories of families from an array of backgrounds with a spectrum of emotional challenges. We also observe approaches in schools that provide strategies relevant beyond the classroom setting. Interwoven into the stories are surprising insights from brain researchers, psychologists, and thought leaders that reveal evidence-based ways to support mental wellness among our youth.”
Sweet said, via the press release, that the film is “extremely beneficial for parents to help their teens as they struggle with their emotional well-being in our screen and stress-filled world.”
“COVID has really put a strain on families, not just the kids, everybody is pretty stressed out … ‘Screenagers’ has been around for a while and they did ‘Screenagers I,’ which really emphasized and concentrated on screen time, that the kids are behind the screen, which was OK when we were worried about screens,” Sweet said during an interview last week. “But with COVID going on, we can’t worry about screen time because these poor kids have no choice but to be behind the screen due to their virtual learning and every other thing.”
The first film to which Sweet alludes is “Screenagers: Growing up in the Digital Age,” which the release says was screened more than 8,000 times to 4 million people in 70 countries. The feature has also been mentioned in the New York Times, The Washington Post and on the Today Show and Good Morning America.
“So ‘Screenagers’ came up with one called, ‘Screenagers Chapter II,’ which deals more with a parent trying to work with their kid who is stressed out, between screens and life, and so much happening and going on,” Sweet said. “I contacted ‘Screenagers’ and set up to have a viewing … they work with you and help you out.”
Sweet said screen time has had a “major impact” on students across the region. Focusing on Chromebooks, laptops and tablets has been “extremely negative,” as kids’ social engagement plummets and stress continues to climb.
“These poor kids are just about at this point shutting down from having to be behind the screen so much with all the virtual learning,” Sweet said. “I just look at myself as an adult who’s aware, and I have meetings that have been on Zoom since March, and meeting after meeting on Zoom is just exhausting and extremely stressful. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a young teenager or a young adolescent and being told you have to sit behind a screen and do all your schoolwork with minimal interaction.”
Sweet said it has been “very difficult” for the coalition and Tri-County during the pandemic, as all meetings were moved to virtual platforms and she and her coworkers cope with limited face-to-face time.
She said the groups have adjusted and figured out new ways to reach the community, and those efforts have been “extremely successful.” “Screenagers” will be the latest in a long line of initiatives to reach local kids as they continue to struggle.
“I’m the kind of person who loves to see non-verbal cues. It helps for better engagement and better communication but it’s been really difficult,” Sweet said. “We all learned how to play the Zoom game, make things different so that my members don’t fall asleep while they’re at my meeting by engaging them with chat and trying to get information out to parents and to youth has been very challenging. Normally we’re in the school, we work with the school, we’re at events outside of the school to greet the community, and we have not had an opportunity to do that for over a year.”
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