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The Working Title Is…The Swipe and Scroll Effect

Our children are growing up with, literally, the entire world at their fingertips. In a millisecond, technology offers more information than the human brain could ever fully process. Facts, data and details are routinely scanned with a swipe or a scroll.

A study released this week by the non-profit group Common Sense Media, found teenagers spend an average of nine hours a day engaged with electronic media including texting, posting, watching online video and listening to music. That means more than one-third of their days are spent scrolling through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, clicking Snapchat and swiping through countless other websites and apps.

They have so much information hurled at them…an amount impossible to absorb or contemplate or ever fully consider. So they swipe and they scroll through all they can; grasping some, ignoring most, but on some level, seeing all.

And that is why I worry that we are witnessing the desensitization of a generation.

I’m concerned that the barrage of what they see and hear has numbed them to a point where very little is shocking anymore. Very little horrifies them. So much on the surface is routinely dismissed, but the subtle ripple effect may be impacting an entire generation.

I promise I am not turning into a cranky old lady already. I love technology and all that it can offer me, but I think my pre-internet self allows me that balanced appreciation. In the past week, I counted three strikes against technology that reminded me to continue to foster that balance in my children.

Strike One: Home Sharing.

In a moment of truth and self-discovery, I acknowledged it was wrong for me to blame the lack of intensity of my workouts (or, more specifically, my plans to workout) on a boring playlist. Thanks to Home Sharing on our iTunes account, I had a whole host of songs ready to amp up my game.

As I am not that cranky old lady yet, I have a true appreciation for all forms of music.

Or at least I thought I did.

Picture me at the computer, dressed and ready for an epic workout, just as soon as I figure out how to pump up the jam on my workout playlist by replacing songs like Pump up the Jam.

“Hmmm,” I said to myself, “that’s what Macklemore looks like? Oooh, a song featuring Ziggy Stardust. How cool is that? And We Danced seems a nice name for a song.”   (Click. Song begins to play.) “Well, isn’t this a fun beat? I’ll add this…to…my…OH. MY. GOD. What did he just say? What? What the? No. No. No.”

Pure shock over the lyrics must have caused me to black out, and thirty minutes later I found myself on the floor in the fetal position somehow holding a string of rosary beads. And as I scrolled through many more tunes that seemed to have a fun beat, I realized Macklemore was tame in comparison.

I told my girls I had blood dripping from my ears over what Home Sharing had just presented for my listening pleasure.

They laughed, rolled their eyes and pointed out how old most of the songs I was referencing were. My God, the Project X soundtrack was from 2012. Ancient.

So clearly, I’ve failed in the parenting department on music oversight for years. But the point I was trying to make to my girls was that they should be horrified that these lyrics even exist.

“They’re just songs, Mom.”

But they’re not, and at the risk of going all Tipper Gore on you kids, (look it up) it is unacceptable for a man to talk about women in this way. Aren’t you disgusted? At least enough to not give them any money by buying this crap?

Certainly, you don’t approve of women being so objectified and demeaned by such obscene references. You would never be ok with women being diminished to a sexualized, one-dimensional view…. would you?

Strike Two: Halloween.

Well, apparently, you’re ok with that on Halloween.

Maybe I am that turning into that cranky old lady. Somewhere along the line when I was busy having babies and raising children, Halloween changed for the worst. And I don’t get it.  Since when is it a costume prerequisite to show so much skin? Why do you cave and sideline your creativity to look like a scene out of Pretty Woman (look it up) before Julia Roberts met Richard Gere?

Have you noticed, ladies, while you’ve been busy trying to scandalize everything from cats to mummies, it’s been a one-sided playing field? The boys aren’t dressing up as 1992 Marky Mark in just his Calvin Klein boxer briefs. No Michael Phelps costumes walking around only in Speedos with 18 gold medals around their necks.

You would be so grossed out if that became a trend. I know this because you are (a) disgusted anytime you see how short boys’ basketball shorts were when I was growing up, and (b) clearly uncomfortable at the ballet and suggested longer tunics be required for all men. So why the double standard?

The young women I know are beautiful, creative, smart, funny and filled with hope and promise. Their talents are many and multi-faceted. To choose a path that ignores the many dimensions of who you are and simply over-expose your physical self in such a way, well, it’s not your best look.

You should expect more from yourself. And you should demand more from the world around you. But do you?

Strike Three: The video from Spring Valley High School in South Carolina.

This widely circulated video shows an officer violently removing a student from her desk. There have been many questions about the officer and the student in the center of the controversy, but there is a third aspect that should be considered; the other students shown in the video. The students who stayed seated in their desks, who barely so much as turned their heads toward what was unfolding.

Why? Why no reaction? No telling the girl to be quiet? No reaction to the cop’s action? No imploring the teacher to intervene?

I really am not judging the action, or inaction, of students I don’t know in a video that shows mere seconds of a much bigger story. But I can call those few seconds to the attention of my children to say, “I hope you would have the courage to speak up…for whichever side of the situation you truly supported.”

Don’t lose what it really means to live life with #nofilter. You should soak in the experiences around you and be shocked and surprised, horrified and inspired, disgusted and encouraged. What you experience should lift your spirit, warm your heart, inspire you to act and empower you to make change.

Living life through your iPhone screen has the potential to turn you into a narcissist, and lull you into complacency over all the good and all the bad that surrounds you.

End the quest for perfection. Surround yourself with goodness. Project the best, most complete version of yourself. And demand the same from the world around you.

How about you consider those as your #squadgoals?

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The Working Title Is…When Worlds Collide

I watch a lot of television. Always have.

In fact, on some level of my subconscious, the mere mention of Tuesday night forever translates to Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.

At overlapping times in my life, I have been deeply in love with both Hardy Boys, Johnny Gage, Tommy Bradford, Chachi, Salami, James at 15 and James at 16.

I can trace my slow path toward maturity by Friday nights with Wonder Woman, Donny and Marie, Bo and Luke Duke, Quincy and, eventually, JR Ewing. You don’t have to be Columbo to deduce that I didn’t get out much.

Now, with the advent of DVR and Netflix and all the amazing shows on TV, it’s astounding that I leave the couch at all. To be honest, on more than one occasion, the lines have blurred between my real life and the lives of my television friends.

I was once in an event cocktail hour conversation with a person who shared news of a somewhat unusual medical diagnosis given to a family member. In the course of the conversation, I asked about a specific treatment option and a barrage of questions met my inquiry. How did I know about that? Did I know someone who had this diagnosis? Did they take that course of treatment despite the documented risks?

I stammered trying to remember how I even knew of this disease. Who has it? Did I just read about it somewhere? My cheeks began to redden as I slowly came to realize…it was in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.   Using a shrewdness characteristic of LA Law’s Arnie Becker, I quickly extricated myself from that conversation, and our paths have never crossed again.

I am not proud of that story. Even more so, I wish it were the only one of its kind I could tell.

This week, however, I find myself the victim of the collision of my real world and my television world. And it has left me feeling ever more desperate yet strangely comforted.

In the huge inventory of good television, Blue Bloods is consistently at the top of my list.   Believable characters intertwine through thrilling storylines. It honors a life of public service but doesn’t shy away from addressing professional failure and weakness. The same balance is offered in the way the Catholic Church is presented. While some may consider it cheesy, the concept of family is held in highest regard with Sunday dinner being a part of every episode.

The Reagan family likes their coffee, their red wine, their beer and their scotch. And I like them. The only conflicting thing about the show is that I find the dad and both brothers equally attractive. The minute the grandpa or the little boys start looking good, I’ll change the channel.

One storyline in Friday’s episode involved Officer Jamie Reagan crossing paths with a delusional woman diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Her loving father shared the girl’s life story that included the death of her mother and his attempt, as caregiver, to find the help she needed. As the hour unfolded, viewers were witness to an overworked and ill-equipped Department of Mental Health and learned of the exorbitant and cost-prohibitive expense of care in a private hospital. Jamie asked his Dad, the police commissioner, to consider setting up an advisory committee of leaders from the John Jay Institute, Paine Whitney, the Department of Health and Human Services and those on the front lines to study how we can do a better job in dealing with the mentally ill.

This episode hit home.

My brother faces each day with mental illness. He successfully maintained a job for much of his life, but as he’s grown older, the approach to his care has shifted sails with each emotional trauma he faced. In the last five years, he’s received four different diagnoses, one of which was the umbrella of schizoaffective disorder. He’s had five hospitalizations and six different psychiatrists. He’s been in support groups twice a week. He’s received care in both the expensive private pay hospitals and those covered by insurance.

I’ve been witness to it all. And I can say, beyond a shadow of doubt, the mental health care system is broken.

Hospitals put up hurdle after hurdle while standing on their HIPAA soapbox, yet don’t hesitate to take detailed patient histories in crowded hallways. The family is rarely considered the unit of care, leaving providers to rely on a patient’s self-reporting of a problem and loved ones feeling helpless and out of the loop. Inpatient psychiatric units exude the aura of prison, and the reflection on the patient feels punitive rather than restorative. In the world of mental health care, providers would often rather refer than treat, and there is no question that in this world, pharmacology is creator, redeemer and king.

The front-page article of Sunday’s New York Times tells the story of a man named George Bell who died alone in a setting that left no question of his battle with mental illness. Some may wonder, “How could this ever happen?” I, sadly, read the story easily visualizing the path George Bell traveled. And for a split second, I found myself actually thinking, “New York needs Jamie Reagan’s Advisory Committee now more than ever.”

Rather than being disheartened by the collision of my real and pretend worlds, I chose to be encouraged that a story so prominently discussing mental illness was not just placed above the fold of the front page of the Sunday New York Times, but filled almost five complete pages of copy.

Step one. Erase the stigma of mental illness by bringing it into the forefront of our conversation.

Step two. Fix the system.

Unfortunately, we can’t count on a TV character to do that for us. Even if his Dad used to be Magnum P.I.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the strength to take on writing that book; but if someday I do, I just pray it has a happy ending.

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