Class 1-5: Media and Well-Being

Overview

Today's Class Overview

In today's class, you will explore how our relationship with the media we experience informs, affects, and challenges our health and wellness.

Today's Class Objectives

By the end of today's class, you should be able to:

1. Define the Built Environment of Attention.
2. Explain the Casino Effect and how it encourages aimless media consumption.
3. Summarize the recent history of advertising and explain how attention is commodified (made into a currency).
4. Apply a knowledge of the extent to which images are manipulated in the media.
5. Recognize common forms of psuedoinformation.
6. Demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate content online and in the media.
7. Strategize about your personal relationship to forms of media.

Outline of Today's Class

• Materials
  1. Overview
  2. Review Last Class
  3. The Built Environment of Attention
  4. Altered Images and Unrealistic Expectations
  5. Echo Chambers
  6. Psuedoinformation
  7. Tools for Media Literacy
  8. Summary

Review

Reviewing 1-4: Barriers to Wellness

Last class, you learned about:

• The Built Environment
  • The physical surroundings humans have created, such as streets, buildings, parks, etc.
  • Researchers have found that the design of the built environment can encourage or discourage physical activity and other wellness behaviors.
• Social Determinants of Health
  • External conditions that influence the health of individuals.
  • Five categories and goals identified by The United States Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2030 initiative:
    • Economic Stability - Goal: Help people earn steady incomes that allow them to meet their health needs.
    • Education Access and Quality - Goal: Increase educational opportunities and help children and adolescents do well in school.
    • Health Care Access and Quality - Goal: Increase access to comprehensive, high-quality health care services.
    • Neighborhood and Built Environment - Goal: Create neighborhoods and environments that promote health and safety.
    • Social and Community Context - Goal: Increase social and community support.
• The Health Gradient
  • Imagine "health" as a hill that each person is climbing.
  • The barriers, hazards, and difficulties that limit health and wellness raise the angle or "slope" of the hill.
  • Decreasing social and environmental barriers makes the hill easier to climb and empowers individuals to maintain health and work toward wellness.
  • Food Deserts
    • Food deserts are one example of the barriers above.
    • Many areas in the United States have limited access to nutritious foods.
    • We will explore this complex issue further in the final portion of the course.
  • Community initiatives bring in health professionals, business interests, and community interests to lower barriers, increase opportunity, and support economic activity.
• Health Literacy
  • The degree to which information and services related to health are accessible and comprehensible to individuals.
  • Self-advocacy in healthcare means being knowledgeable and invested in your health, asking questions and collaborating with your medical professionals, and ensuring clarity in communication about your health.
• Mental Health
  • It is normal and healthy to experience anxiety, depression, boredom, unpleasant emotions, and intrusive thoughts.
    • Mental health professionals can assist with learning skills and tools to manage these normal experiences.
  • It can be difficult to tell "normal" mental health challenges from ones that may require more assistance.
    • A mental health professional can help you navigate and understand your mental health.
      • Some signs that professional help may be indicated include:
        • Marked changes in personality, eating or sleeping patterns
        • Feeling of disconnection or withdrawal from normal activities
        • Prolonged sadness, depression or apathy
        • Excessive anger, hostility or violent behavior
    • 24/7 helplines include the SAMHSA Treatment Referral Helpline, 1-877-SAMHSA7 (1-877-726-4727) and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or Live Online Chat

The Built Environment of Attention

The Casino Effect

Have you ever sat down to study for an exam, only to realize hours have passed and you’ve been scrolling through social media for most of them?

This experience of losing oneself in a series of swipes or clicks is commonly called the Casino Effect, after the way casinos are designed to encourage gamblers to keep playing for as long as possible.

As explained in this article from The Guardian back in 2018:

“Facebook, Twitter and other companies use methods similar to the gambling industry to keep users on their sites,” said Natasha Schüll, the author of Addiction by Design, which reported how slot machines and other systems are designed to lock users into a cycle of addiction. “In the online economy, revenue is a function of continuous consumer attention – which is measured in clicks and time spent.”

Whether it’s Snapchat streaks, Facebook photo-scrolling, or playing CandyCrush, Schüll explained, you get drawn into “ludic loops” or repeated cycles of uncertainty, anticipation and feedback — and the rewards are just enough to keep you going.

“If you disengage, you get peppered with little messages or bonus offers to get your attention and pull you back in,” said Schüll. “We have to start recognising the costs of time spent on social media. It’s not just a game – it affects us financially, physically and emotionally.”

When we open a social media app or website, we are spending a currency – attention – to be given some type of information or experience.

This might be access to our friends through messaging, updates on their lives through posts, or memes and other shared media.

We previously explored how sidewalks increase opportunities for safe physical activity, while streets designed without sidewalks discourage walking.

Last week, you learned about the "built environment" as the structures that create or limit opportunities for many wellness-related behaviors.

Similarly, the design of websites and apps encourage different behaviors.

Your Attention is a Commodity

Watch this brief interview with Dr. Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants, to learn about the "built environment of attention" and the companies that want to collect and sell your time and awareness.

Altered Images and Unrealistic Expectations

Altered Images

One of the ways the built environment of attention affects us is by shifting our expectations in subtle ways.

While you may know logically that the images you see - such as actors in films and models on product labels - have been enhanced and polished, these images may still affect our expectations of normality subconsciously.

Recall the broad spectrum of cognitive biases and effects that our minds use to try to solve the three conundrums that Buster Benson identified. Specifically, consider the Familiarity Bias (where we like things because we see them frequently) and other cognitive distortions that demonstrate how our perception is influenced by what we see.

Before and After - Lighting and Photoshop

This brief video will demonstrate how professional photos in media are produced.

Physique Manipulation

Beyond the effects that lighting and retouching can have, smartphone apps allow anyone - including influencers - to subtly alter their bodies.

The image series below was excerpted from Youtube personality Kenny K.O.'s video "How "Instagram Models" Photoshop Pictures" under fair use.

Here is the before and after:

Would you have noticed the manipulation in the second photo if you hadn't seen how it was done?

The creator of the video points out the "warping" of the lockers behind him as a sign of the manipulation.

How would the manipulation be harder to spot if the person were standing in front of a solid color background?

Celebrities and Unrealistic Expectations

As you have seen, images can be heavily altered. Often, the alteration is so subtle that we may miss it.

While we might recognize the most extensively edited images, it can be hard to recognize when minor things - like skin clarity or apparent muscle size - have been edited in photos or video.

As a result, our conception of what is "realistic" can be influenced by what we see.

This is even more true of celebrities, actors, and professional athletes, who are able to complete "extreme body transformations" due to the teams of professionals, as well as time and money, available to them.

These "extreme body transformations" are generally unrealistic for most people due to the time and resources that are needed. As well, the 'screen-ready' looks are generally temporary and can have damaging effects on health. Later in the course we will explore what realistic fitness goals look like and how to go about making lasting changes to health and fitness behavior.

Comedian and writer Rob Mcelhenney gained and lost 60 pounds for a television show as a commentary on body image and media.

On Twitter, he sarcastically summarized the experience of achieving a "Hollywood" physique, pointing out that the celebrities we see throughout media have teams of personal trainers, nutritionists, chefs, assistants, and other resources that allow them to push their bodies beyond what is normally achievable, and not sustainable long-term.

Look, it’s not that hard. All you need to do is lift weights six days a week, stop drinking alcohol, don’t eat anything after 7pm, don’t eat any carbs or sugar at all, in fact just don’t eat anything you like, get the personal trainer from Magic Mike, sleep nine hours a night, run three miles a day, and have a studio pay for the whole thing over a six to seven month span. I don’t know why everyone’s not doing this. It’s a super realistic lifestyle and an appropriate body image to compare oneself to. #hollywood

What do you think Rob McElhenney is saying with this tweet?

Echo Chambers

Echo Chambers

You may have heard this term "echo chambers" before, but what are they and how do they harm our ability to be well?

Watch this brief (2 minute) video from the Goodwill Institute on echo chambers to find out.

Psuedoinformation

Knowing What Information to Trust

It can be hard to know what information is reliable on the internet, especially with regard to health.

Often, individuals share information that is incorrect (remember how cognitive distortions can convince us our existing beliefs are correct despite better evidence) or is intentionally misleading, whether for financial, personal, or political gain.

Read through the following sections to learn how to differentiate between valid information and three types of psuedoinformation.

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN EXCERPTED AND ADAPTED FROM THE JOHNS HOPKINS SHERIDAN LIBRARIES' "EVALUATING INFORMATION" PAGE UNDER FAIR USE:

Information vs. Psuedoinformation

Information is probably what you're looking for when you use the Internet for academic purposes. Information, at its most basic, is data set in a context for relevance. In other words, information tells us something that is understandable and has the potential to become knowledge for us when we view it critically and add it to what we already know.

For example, "8,000,000" and "9%" are not information; they are bits of data. However, "The population of New York City in 2000 was reported to top 8,000,000 persons, a growth of 9% since 1990" is indeed information. Adding that information to other information and data on the funding and expansion of public healthcare services in New York City would help city officials to develop knowledge of the stresses related to delivering healthcare services.

INFORMATION (noun): "Knowledge communicated concerning some particular fact, subject, or event; that of which one is apprised or told; intelligence, news. spec. contrasted with data." (Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989)

Information should always be accurate, and either free of bias or making note of its own bias. To have value, information also needs to be useful for a given purpose.

Psuedoinformation Type 1: Propaganda

Propaganda is a commonly misused term. Because of its historical use, such as in the name of the infamous "National Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" run by Joseph Goebbels for the Nazi government of Germany, many people associate propaganda with inflammatory speech or writing that has no basis is fact. In reality, propaganda may easily be based in fact, but facts represented in such a way as to provoke a desired response.

"Propaganda" is defined as the "systematic propagation of information or ideas by an interested party, esp. in a tendentious [promoting a particular point of view] way in order to encourage or instil a particular attitude or response. Also, the ideas, doctrines, etc., disseminated thus; the vehicle of such propagation."

(Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989)

Political campaign speeches and party political statements are often, in reality, a form of propaganda. They fit this definition when they present the opposing point of view in an unfavorable light. All political organizations do this on a variety of issues.

When you read documents or listen to audio or video files that characterize opinions or positions in terms of their integrity or moral content, you may well be in the presence of propaganda. Remember, the purpose of propaganda is to instill a particular attitude: to encourage you to think a particular way. Think for yourself: base your opinion on the facts, not the hype.

Psuedoinformation Type 2: Misinformation

"Misinformation" is defined as the action of misinforming or the condition of being misinformed; or erroneous or incorrect information. Misinformation differs from propaganda in that it always refers to something which is not true. It differs from disinformation in that it is "intention neutral"; that is, misinformation is not deliberate, just wrong or mistaken.

One of the most popular forms of misinformation on the Internet is the passing along of "urban legends." Urban legends are fabricated or untrue stories that are passed along by sincere people who believe them, and then "inform" others.

Misinformation is perhaps the most difficult information lookalike to diagnose. Why? What strategies could you develop to determine whether what you are reading constitutes information or misinformation?

Urban legends sometimes begin in malice, but then become misinformation when they are repeated by sincerely misguided people. Everybody makes mistakes...check the validity of everything you read before you put your belief in it and use it.

Psuedoinformation Type 3: Disinformation

"Disinformation" refers to disseminating deliberately false information, especially when supplied by a government or its agent to a foreign power or on the media with the intention of influencing policies of those who receive it.

One of the most notorious uses of disinformation was the dissemination of anti-Semitic speeches and writing by the Nazi party in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. Unfortunately, disinformation didn't end with World War II. In fact, the Internet is an excellent vehicle for disinformation.

One good starting point in determining whether or not a document may constitute disinformation is to find out who owns the document or domain and then find out what that individual or group's mission or beliefs are.

• Ask yourself what the document owner has to gain by circulating the document
• Always validate or confirm information on individuals, institutions or groups, and countries that you find on the Internet
• If you don't know who wrote what you read or why they wrote it, you don't know if it's trustworthy

Tools for Media Literacy

Telling Information from Psuedoinformation

Even with the definitions from the previous page, it can be very difficult to tell recognize psuedoinformation.

In fact, psuedoinformation seems to spread more quickly than reliable information, as the Associated Press reported in 2020:

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed more than 126,000 stories, some true and some false, that were tweeted millions of times from 2006 through the end of 2016. They found that misleading or incorrect stories traveled six times faster — and reached more people.

Online misinformation has been blamed for deepening America’s political polarization and contributing to distrust in government. The risks were highlighted in 2016 when Russian trolls created fake accounts to spread and amplify social media posts about controversial issues.

Often, psuedoinformation is disguised by rhetorical devices (communication techniques) that can make it hard to identify or clarify, such as trolling and sealioning.

As well, psuedoinformation often plays on the internal cognitive biases explored earlier in the course, simultaneously using emotionally manipulative or sensationalist language and imagery to encourage strong reactions to the content.

This brief video (3 minutes) from Factcheck.org explains how to recognize when false or misleading information is being presented as news:

How to Spot Fake News - FactCheck.org

Below, you'll find some additional resources that can help you evaluate information online and better understand media literacy.

Six questions that will tell you what media to trust

The following has been excerpted and adapted from The American Press Institute under fair use:

The American Press Institute presents six easy questions that you can use to evaluate media you see.

1. Type: What kind of content is this?

Recognize first what kind of content you’re looking at.

Is it a news story? Or is it an opinion piece? Is it an ad or what some people call native advertising produced by a company? Is it a reaction to someone else’s content?

2. Source: Who and what are the sources cited and why should I believe them?

News content usually cites sources for the information provided. These are the people quoted, or the documents or reports or data being referred to.

As you read, listen or watch a piece of content, note who is being cited. If it’s text, print it out and circle the sources. Is it a police official? A politician? What party? If it’s research, what organization produced it and what background if any is offered about them?

3. Evidence: What’s the evidence and how was it vetted?

Evidence is closely related to but slightly different than source.

Evidence is the proof that the sources offer for what they know. It overlaps with how close someone is to an event. But even highly credentialed sources may begin to speculate sometimes. They may be guessing.

So, first, identify the evidence that any source is offering. Circle it. Write it down. Do it as an exercise a couple times. It becomes easy to recognize.

Is the evidence a document? Was it something the source saw as an eyewitness? Is it hearsay, or second-hand? Or are they speculating about someone’s motives or what they might have done?

Next, what if anything did the author do to verify this evidence? Did they check with a lot of sources? Do these sources disagree? Can you see how they vetted the evidence?

4. Interpretation: Is the main point of the piece proven by the evidence?

Most media content offers a thesis, or main point, of some kind.

The one exception might be a straightforward account of a breaking news event. Most other stories, however, are built around an idea, a trend, or even some angle on a news event. Even content that isn’t narrative usually has a thesis or a point. For instance, most charts point you to a conclusion — like the number of people with jobs in America is going down or baseball salaries are going up.

So the fourth step in knowing whether something is reliable is to ask whether this main point makes sense, and whether the conclusions are supported by the evidence offered.

In other words, think about what conclusions are being drawn. Do they follow logically from what has been cited? Sometimes this is a matter of some conclusions making sense but others going too far. Are too many conclusions being drawn from evidence that doesn’t support all of them?

5. Completeness: What’s missing?

Most content should lead to more questions. An important step in being a critical, questioning consumer is to ask yourself what you don’t understand about a subject. Look back at the piece. Did you miss something? Or was it not there?

If there was important information missing from the story, that is a problem. If something was explained so poorly that it wasn’t clear, that’s also a problem.

If something was missing and the story explained why—this couldn’t be answered yet—that is a good thing.

The point of any news content is not just to tell you something. It should be to create understanding and also to help you to react or take action. So sometimes what might be missing from a story or segment or piece of content is what you can do about it.

6. Knowledge: Am I learning every day what I need?

This last, sixth question is less about checking one story than checking yourself to see if you are spending your media time well. It’s almost like calorie counting.

Think about what media you consumed yesterday. What did you learn about? What did you read about? It can be hard to remember. But try. Jot down what you consumed for a couple days. You might be surprised. It also might not have been done in a conventional way. Maybe it came through social media. Or conversation. It’s still consuming news.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see if you are learning what you think you should

• What are some things you hear people talking about that you wished you understood better? Where could you go to learn?
• Could I explain this situation to someone?
• Look at top stories on a website or a newspaper front page? How many of them are you familiar with? Do you think you should understand them?

This process of critical thinking about media is something we all do. When you decide what to click on, what to read, and when you lose interest and stop reading, you are making critical decisions about what matters and what you trust or what you don’t understand. These six questions are the same ones that editors and producers in the media world use to edit stories and make up web pages.

In the age when we are all both editors and consumers, we all need to know them.

Resources

No single resource should be considered infallible, but the websites below may be helpful in understanding issues related to online content and in evaluating media content you encounter.

• The National Association for Media Literacy Education works to further media literacy in the United States.
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization offers an extensive resource on identifying false information online.
• Started in the 1990s as a resource for evaluating urban legends, Snopes.com attempts to investigate and clarify forms of psuedoinformation online.
• The Allsides.com website attempts to represent news events by exploring how different sources report the information.
• Ballotpedia.org attempts to encourage access and participation in the democratic process by providing concrete details (i.e., how the process works, the names of those running, etc.). while avoiding sensationalism. For example, the website provides ballots for upcoming elections and introductory candidate biographies using direct references to original sources for each statement about the candidate.

Summary

Major Points

During today's class, you have learned:

• The Built Environment of Attention
  • The "built environment" that directs our attention in the same way that streets and buildings direct our physical movement.
• The Casino Effect
  • The tendency to "lose track" of one's time and attention online.
  • Dr. Wu suggests this is the result of design elements like infinite scroll and complex algorithms.
• Attention Merchants
  • Companies like social media platforms who collect and resell attention to advertisers.
• Altered Images and Unrealistic Expectations
  • Images in media often lack explicit indications that they have been edited, leading to a false idea of what looks "normal."
  • Actors, models, influencers, and athletes often have teams of professionals behind the scenes, without whom their physiques would not be achievable or sustainable.
• Echo Chambers
  • Social groups, websites, or other situations where conflicting information or perspectives are not considered.
• Psuedoinformation
  • Propaganda - Information (factual or not) intended to create a particular response or attitude or reinforce a specific point of view.
  • Misinformation - Incorrect information, not necessarily intentional (urban legends).
  • Disinformation - Intentionally false information distributed for an individual or a group's gain.
• Six Questions to Ask
  • Type: What kind of content is this?
  • Source: Who and what are the sources cited and why should I believe them?
  • Evidence: What’s the evidence and how was it vetted?
  • Interpretation: Is the main point of the piece proven by the evidence?
  • Completeness: What’s missing?
  • Knowledge: Am I learning every day what I need?