This information is according to the documentary film, "Screenagers," which was shown in a viewing for parents of students in both SAU 50 and SAU 52 at an event put on by the Clipper Foundation at the Portsmouth Middle School on Wednesday night. The event was sponsored by Portsmouth Middle School parent-teacher organizations from Portsmouth, Greenland, Rye, New Castle and Newington, the law firm Coughlin, Rainboth, Murphy and Lown, and JPT Physical Therapy.
"We want to thank the Clipper Foundation for making this happen in partnership with the schools, parent-teacher organizations, New Heights, and corporate sponsors," said Stephen Zadravec, superintendent of Portsmouth schools. "This is a timely film and important discussion. I think it will be an opportunity for parents to open up a dialogue with their children."
Following the screening, a panel discussion was led by New Heights Executive Director Tracey Tucker, Portsmouth Middle School Principal Phil Davis, Portsmouth High School Assistant Principal Shawn Donovan and PHS sophomores Isabelle Telford and Jared Hett.
The film explored various topics such as video game addiction, social media obsession, and how too much screen time affects behavioral, social and cognitive development and their effects on adolescents.
"As one of the researchers in the movie stated, there's a clear correlation, you can have a ton of internet or phone use and go do a five-day camp without any internet or phone use and you really can sort of recalibrate your brain," said Tucker. "You're talking about the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, you're talking about the dopamine receptors sites; all of those places in the adolescent brain are growing astronomically. If we do disengage and have our kids disengage from the phone, they can recalibrate their brain."
The film raised the concern that social media can affect relationships inhibiting empathy and creating competition and conflict among teens. According to the film, the human brain releases dopamine when stimulated by new things, this becomes a problem with smartphones in 68 percent of high school students' pockets.
"I don't know many students who aren't on their phone more often than not, including myself," said Telford. "We don't necessarily notice it until we get a report of grades and that might affect our sports and realize how much being on your phone takes over your life."
This instant gratification from digital interaction causes a dopamine reaction in the brain that can become "addictive" and preferable to interacting with humans outside of the "digital world," impeding children's developing social and communications skills, according to the film.
The film discussed ways in which parents can intervene and better monitor their child's digital device usage. This starts by having a constructive dialogue about the negative impacts of overuse of digital technology from both a physical and mental health perspective, because adolescents and pre-adolescents will want to push and question a rule they do not believe makes sense on the surface, according to the film.
However, if parents set a good example with respect to their own technology use, so it is not interfering with family interactions, and they give substantive answers with respect to the damages overuse can have, their children are more amenable to a compromise, according to the film.
"If the child is old enough to formulate the question, they're probably old enough for an honest answer," said Donovan. "So it's really explaining it, explaining the addictive process, then you can talk to them about how the addictive process starts."
©2017 Portsmouth Herald, N.H. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
