How Sexting, Texting And Social Media Shape Teen Mental Health

Part of the child and adolescent until health conference taking place in San Diego this week and will focus on problems most adult did not even have to said it does consider in their use -- youth. One is on team communications like 16 texting and social media. The impact that it can have a young person's mental health is a new area being explored by marriage and family psychologist. Joining me is Doctor Janet Rosenzweig national Child health safety and welfare expert author of the book the sex wise.. She will be speaking at the conference. Welcome to the program. Thank you my pleasure. A teenagers social life is often interpreted -- interspersed with high drama and changing affections. How to social media bring that private angst into a social media space? Spirit just by virtue of the name social media tells you what is taking place in a very social space and even sometimes when young folks think they have built an electronic wall around themselves with the group chat or a group membership anything they do is still possible to be shared by any member of that group of people as far away as you can imagine. How can the use of text messages, Instagram, social media -- how can you go wrong for a young person? Normal adolescent development we know that kids do not have the parts of the brain completely developed that are responsible for good decision-making. Anybody you know can think back to something that you did at 14 or 15 point 16 or 17 and you still don't know what me to do that and what made you do that was the capacity. Judgment was not done yet. The couple the lack of capacity for good judgment with another normal developmental task of adolescence which is to figure out what to do with all these hormones that are circulating through your body and causing you to have these feelings and urges that you don't quite know what they are particularly if you are a girl where the physical signs are not quite as obvious and that can be a toxic combination. What used to be something that was more private between two people can easily becomes shared with the whole world if the privacy initially but kids do it in an electronic medium. And the clients -- kinds of impact that these mistakes can have on a teenagers mental health is one of the things that you and the people of this conference will be exploring. There are at least two different ways to look at that first we want to get a sense of what the teenager will feel in the moment of being betrayed. You know whatever it was that have the personal photo probably was somebody that they felt close with and that person betrayed them or it could have been something like the stereotypical nasty little brother stole big brothers from and display the pictures of the girlfriend with to reach you to help change the social norms so that the shame that the child experiences when naked photos of him or her may be circulated that the shaming does not have to be like the Scarlet letter. As we realize how prevalent make it -- naked pictures are teens and young adults maybe it is time for the social norms to change not to condone it, not to condone the person that showed a picture without summons commission we stop the flood shaming for lack of a better word. It's very interesting tech to take that parents feel incapable of changing the social norm because they don't understand what is happening in that world. Hopefully that's what this conference will do. Professionally writing books -- national studies tell us that they continue to estimate the impact that they have in their kids decisions about sexual health and safety. When you ask kids how they rank their sources of cash the importance of their sources of sex information and values parents and clergy rank right up there as with friends with 12 and three. When you asked parents how important you think your opinions are your kids put themselves at the bottom of the list like 10 or 11. If we can just help parents understand that even if it does not look at test like it they still have the child's ear even if they have to talk to the rearview mirror when they are driving them someplace or the back of her head while the kid is bent over in an electronic device kids are listening and parents -- I am really hoping she'll empower the people who work with parents to give them the tools. I've been speaking with Janet Rosenzweig. She will be speaking at the critical issues and child and adolescent mental health conference that is taking place Saturday in San Diego. Thank you very much. Very interesting. My pleasure.