The doctor I interviewed last month has generously offered to consult on the “Experiment for Children” for the next six months. He said that he felt that he had given too general answers in the last interview, and since then, he has given more thought to the impact of media on children’s mental health. Here’s a translated version of part of the last interview.
Interview with Dr Young Jin Kim, a specialist in adolescent depression and addictive behaviour
- Your personal opinions and views on the current media landscape as a psychiatrist.
The current media environment is so complex and diverse that we are bombarded with media. As a medium for conveying information, the media has become so diverse and complex.
This is likely due to the democratisation of digital media. Digital democratisation has made it easier for us to get information through easily accessible media.
This seems to have been brought closer to us by COVID-19, which has made it easier for us to think deeply, with the advantage of gaining a wider range of knowledge at our convenience.
It seems that the ability to think deeply, think creatively, and remember things is becoming less and less important.
This trade-off is likely to intensify in the future. - What is the ideal media environment for children (9–12 years old)?
It is difficult for children under the age of 13 to establish the right values. Currently, media is accessible to everyone during digital media popularisation.
It can also deliver peripheral and sensationalised information, exposing them to risks.
However, for the current information delivery media to develop further in the future, we believe that children should be able to learn and interact with these digital media.
Therefore, it would be better to give them the opportunity to be exposed to the right media and educate them.
3. What is a good approach to teaching children multimodal literacy in the age of images?
: The ability to understand various information includes seeing, hearing, and feeling, and we know that literacy is mainly about understanding things in written form.
Conveying various information through images seems easier to approach by first conveying the same information and easy things.
- I’m seeking specific ways to help kids understand and empower visual culture. But will 9–12-year-olds be able to understand this, and is this something desirable for them? Communication through images is possible from infancy to adulthood to the elderly. I think the understanding of this is related to their interests.
For children under 13, it seems that their interests can be understood through various images.
- And how will this affect the mental health of teenagers later in life?
Children in their teens are now getting a lot of their information through visual culture, which can impact them as adults.
It can also affect their value system.
However, in terms of future cognition, increasing thought density can also help prevent dementia, so it’s important to expose them to various healthy media to help them think deeply and use good language. To think deeply and use good language.