Book Review: Media and the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents, edited by Amy B. Jordan and Daniel Romer

Abstract

Media and the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents. Amy B. Jordan and Daniel Romer, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 304 pp. $49.95 pbk.The most compelling aspect of Jordan and Romer's scientifically rigorous and timely volume on youth media use is its commitment to the idea that media exposure and effects occur within-and are altered by-interrelated social systems. Placed in this theoretical framework, media use among children and adolescents is not simply a in, effects out process; rather, Jordan and colleagues explain youth media use as a complex behavioral phenomenon that operates in social environments at both the macro (culture) and micro (family, peers) levels. The book's contributors routinely present persuasive cases for youth media use and effects being as influenced by mom and dad's media choices and household rules, for example, as the content itself.Take Chapter 1, which presents nationally representative survey data on parent and youth media use collected by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Media Environment Study (AMES). The chapter's authors (Amy Bleakley, Sarah Vaala, Amy Jordan, and Daniel Romer), all University of Pennsylvania researchers, show that the percentage of children with media technologies in their bedroom-especially television sets and Internet-enabled devices-increases dramatically as kids age from early childhood to seventeen years, presumably as parents relax rules on bedroom media behavior. This is a significant way parents shape their kids' media environment and is linked to serious consequences; specifically, independent and often-unsupervised access to media in the child or adolescent bedroom is associated with heavier television use, less physical activity, poor dietary habits, and poor school performance.In Chapter 5, Victor Strasburger presents secondary data on social and media influences on youth substance abuse. One of the most striking findings presented in this chapter is the independent effect of exposure to scenes of drinking in Hollywood films and frequency of youth alcohol consumption; however, this effect is relatively weaker than the influence of peer alcohol use and age. While R-rated films such as The Hangover increasingly feature alcohol consumption that can skew how young viewers perceive the behavior, Strasburger's chapter indicates that peer influence exerts a stronger overall effect on alcohol consumption among children and adolescents.Social conditions at the macro level, such as war or natural disaster, also modify how kids use media, according to Chapter 10 contributor Dafna Lemish. In such situations, children and adolescents may use media in combination with parents and peers to cope with and make sense of prevailing circumstances. Children and adolescents may also produce their own media-from blog posts to online video narratives-about their personal experiences with war and crisis. …