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Media Mindfulness

Northeast Media Literacy Conference

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Jamie Chatel

MBA Student - University of Rhode Island

Happiness Coach - Arrow Tarot

Data Visualization Specialist - MetLife

Lean In Circle Leader - Women in Business

Dance Teacher - Distinctive Dance, Etc.

Donna Nelson-Schneider

News & Media Literacy Advocate & Educator

Journalist - NBC News & CBS News

Mom of 15-year-old twin girls

Lives outside of Washington, DC - Fairfax County, VA

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Agenda

Mindfulness in the classroom
Science of Mindfulness practice
Impact of how we consume media
How to take an active role
Tools to verify information

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What is mindfulness?

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What is mindfulness?

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”

By Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk

Play music

Sit up tall with your feet flat on the floor. If you are comfortable doing so, close your eyes… Relax your arms and legs completely, allowing your body to feel heavy. Breathe in slowly through your nose… Then breathe out slowly through your nose… Continue to breathe deeply, inhaling and exhaling completely. As you breathe, thoughts will come into your head, taking your attention somewhere else… Use your breath as your anchor, pulling your attention back to this moment. (30–60 seconds) Your mind may be drifting to things that you’re excited about or worried about… Return to your anchoring breath, inhaling and exhaling fully, reminding yourself that you are here in this room and nowhere else. (30–60 seconds) Now take 5 more anchoring breaths, pausing after each exhale to feel the calm before the next inhale… When you’re ready, open your eyes.

In the chat: how did that make you feel? Do you feel any different?

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Mindfulness can be used proactively in the classroom to:

Capture attention
Improve focus
Increase information retention
Foster social relationships
Boost overall happiness
Lift GPA and attendance

For developing brains, meditation has as much as or perhaps even more promise than it has for adults. There’s been increasing interest from educators and researchers in bringing meditation and yoga to school kids, who are dealing with the usual stressors inside school, and oftentimes additional stress and trauma outside school. Some schools have starting implementing meditation into their daily schedules, and with good effect: One district in San Francisco started a twice daily meditation program in some of its high-risk schools – and saw suspensions decrease, and GPAs and attendance increase. Studies have confirmed the cognitive and emotional benefits of meditation for schoolchildren, but more work will probably need to be done before it gains more widespread acceptance.

One of the most interesting studies in the last few years, carried out at Yale University, found that mindfulness meditation decreases activity in the default mode network (DMN), the brain network responsible for mind-wandering and self-referential thoughts – a.k.a., “monkey mind.” The DMN is “on” or active when we’re not thinking about anything in particular, when our minds are just wandering from thought to thought. Since mind-wandering is typically associated with being less happy, ruminating, and worrying about the past and future, it’s the goal for many people to dial it down.

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State of Flow

LOW

HIGH

SKILL

DIFFICULTY

Boredom

Anxiety

FLOW

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Benefits of mindfulness practice

Happiness
Emotional well being
Better mental and physical resilience
Improved memory and concentration
More valuable peer relationships

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SERP Institute Focus 5

Headspace for kids

Meditation

Breathe deep
Let it go
Mind in motion
Gratitude
Anchor of air
Train of thought
Tight and loose

Calm
Focus
Kindness
Sleep
Wake up

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The Science of Mindfulness

Dopamine: Quick Reward

Oxytocin: Love Hormone

Serotonin: Soothe Mood

Endorphins: Pain/Pleasure

Completing a task

Self-care

Eating food

Little wins

Meditation

Exercise

Sleep

Time in nature

Acts of kindness

Physical touch

Time with friends

Playing with a baby or a pet

Meditation

Exercise

Laughter, smiling

Treating the senses

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Happiness Misconceptions

Miswanting
Hedonic adaptation
Overestimating future negative
Relative reference points
G.I. Joe Fallacy

Time

Happiness

Set level of happiness

Good stuff happens

Bad stuff happens

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How social media plays into misconceptions

All the things and the stuff
Raises our reference point
No FOMO - fear of missing out
Distractibility
It’s personalized

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Algorithms = Personalized Content

Good: Targets your searches

Bad: Keeps you scrolling on social media
Bad: Filter Bubble

So a bit more about what’s behind that personalization - Jamie was talking about.

Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok - generate that Personalize Content for you, using Algorithms.

An algorithm provides a computer with step-by-step instructions to solve a problem or perform a task.

They’re good because they sift through all the information online to help you find what you are looking for - faster.

But in this case, especially on social media platforms - the algorithms take your past choices - what you’ve clicked on and liked and a number of other bits of data about you. It’s in the platform’s interest to show you what they think you want to see. That’s what they’re selling to advertisers. And that’s what will keep you on their platform longer - keep you scrolling - because you’re seeing content that interests you. And less of what you haven’t clicked on.

And if you continue to click based on those patterns, what you see becomes more narrow, and you’ll find yourself in a Filter Bubble.

I’ve been working with the teachers at Woodson High School to develop news and media literacy lessons as part of the Digital Citizenship program. Our first two lessons talk about what is a Filter Bubble and then Algorithms and their effects.

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Living in a Bubble

The Filter Bubble - When your social media feed and what you seen online only aligns with your existing beliefs and experiences.

Now that’s a different kind of FOMO -- Fear of Missing Other Points of View.

Remember, these companies are in the attention business. They aren’t in the business of providing you the information you need to know.

And we don’t know a lot about these algorithms and what data they’re using about us.

Platform companies keep them tightly held. It’s kind of like their secret sauce.

As the tech guru, who coined the term Filter Bubbles, warns importantly, we don’t see what gets edited out of our feeds.

A cool tool - we provide in our list of resources and I’d encourage you to take a look at - called TheirTube - it shows you how different social media feeds can look!

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Meet students where they are. Where do they get information from?

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Young Adults & News

Majority “bump into” news, rather than seek it out.
Social Media is primary source of news.
Just over ¼ check social media several times/hour.

Knight Foundation

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The Misinformation Problem

4 in 5 Americans: spread of misinformation “major problem”.
More Americans say it’s harder, not easier to be well-informed.
BECAUSE all of the sources.
Mix of news interspersed with non-news.

Gallup/Knight Foundation

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What makes information reliable?

3 Questions to Ask

Who’s Behind the Information?
What’s the Evidence?
What are Other Sources Saying?

Stanford History Education Group

How do you evaluate it?

Without those gatekeepers, it’s now on us -- the news consumer to do the work. Evaluate the information and determine if it’s reliable. News literacy skills are important to teach to students -- but all of us can benefit from them.

I think a great place to start when evaluating information -- are these 3 Questions -- developed by the Stanford History Education Group.

Who’s Behind the Information?
What’s the Evidence?
What are Other Sources Saying?

But we play a role too - Choices you make about what you click on can impact what you see

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Lateral Reading

Remember the 3 Questions:

Who’s the source of the information?

What’s the evidence?

(Find the original source)

What do other trusted sources say?

CIVIX / Stanford History Education Group

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5 Pillars of Verification

Is this the Original?
What’s the Source?
What’s the Date?
What’s the Location?
Can you determine the Poster’s Motivation?

First Draft

Sometimes you may need to take your research and your fact check further.

These 5 questions -- the 5 Pillars of Verification -- from First Draft, a non-profit that provides journalists and the public with techniques and tools to verify information from the social web. These questions are important to answer when you’re evaluating content that was posted by an individual - and not a traditional news source.

During this election season, photos being shared out of context -- either deliberately or inadvertently -- has become more of a problem and something to watch out for. So remember it’s always important to check for yourself and ask these questions -- and especially if it’s something you think is worth sharing.

Is this the Original?
What’s the Source?
What’s the Date?
What’s the Location?
What’s the Poster’s Motivation?

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This picture of video that was shared thousands of times on social media -- and out of context -- saying it’s showing one event when it’s actually from something else entirely.

This is one of the posts -- tweeted by a Trump campaign official -- says “Wow! Check out this huge group of bikers fathered to pray for President Trump and the First Lady.” This tweet was retweeted more than 25,000 times with more than 90,000 likes.

The captions for the video included, “Washington D.C – Bikers show up to The Walter Reed Hospital to pray for President Trump”, and “Bikers praying at Walter Reed hospital for President Trump.”

This while the President was being treated for COVID at Walter Reed. Fact checkers geolocated the video to Pretoria, South Africa, and actually shows bikers at a protest against farm murders on Aug. 29, 2020.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-covid-bikers-idUSKBN26Q2B0

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Reverse Image Search Tools

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Reflections & Discussion

How does this resonate with you?
What are your key takeaways?
Do you know of any cool tools?
Anything to add?

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Thank you!

Let’s stay in touch