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Internet marketing to children

YouTube Beauty Gurus Suck Money and Teen Confidence

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With more pressures at school and with friends, middle school can be awkward, scary, and lonely. Middle school is also when many tweens and teens onboard social media. Although social media is a fun way to keep up with friends and follow special interests, it has also been proven to increase insecurities and make kids feel left out and excluded. Cyberbullying is not uncommon and can lead to depression and anxiety. Insecure about their looks, teenagers are the perfect target for online beauty gurus and product marketing. Are beauty videos innocent instructional fun or high-tech marketing? Today’s GKIS article covers the beauty guru craze on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and how they trick us into buying expensive and unnecessary beauty products.

What is a beauty guru?

Beauty gurus are social media celebrities who create images and videos that offer makeup and hairstyling tutorials, skincare reviews, and fashion advice. They are popular on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995) and Generation Z (those born between 1996 and 2015) are the targeted populations for beauty gurus.

  • Tweens, teens, and young adults spend an average of 11.3 hours on YouTube each week.
  • 60% of them follow YouTube celebrities on social media.
  • Nearly a third of teens ages 13 to 17 prefer YouTube celebrities over movie or TV celebrities.
  • As of 2015, there were approximately 45.3 billion views on YouTube for beauty videos alone. [1]
  • Each month, 50 million people watch over 1.6 billion minutes of beauty guru content. [2]

Why are beauty gurus so popular?

Developmental changes during adolescence make teens perfect targets for beauty marketing. As kids develop and mature, they are getting used to maturing bodies and also switch attachment focus from parents to peers.

To attract their tribe, teens focus on their looks and often believe that others frequently watch and judge them. Child psychologist David Elkind coined this developmental phenomenon imaginary audience.

Is a judging audience imaginary? After all, the hundreds of social media selfies and YouTube videos teens view each day fuel the idea that everybody is watching, scrutinizing, and judging.

Teens are also attracted to the fame and influence of YouTube celebrities. Fifty-six percent of teen subscribers aspire to be a YouTube star. [3] Beauty gurus are particularly admired because they are often more relatable than polished celebrities like Kylie Jenner or Angeline Jolie. They’re “normal girls” just like everyone else, right? 

Videos Shot for Profit

High subscriber numbers mean high profits. Although beauty videos appear to be spontaneously self-produced, informal chats into the camera, they aren’t. Most teens would be surprised to learn that these videos are expertly produced with scripting, expensive cameras and sound equipment, professional lighting, digital filtering and enhancements, and extensive editing. Newly created video editing software offers filters that enhance the skin and hide imperfections.

Beauty Box Video is an example of a digital enhancement software product. “This early-generation video plugin automatically identifies skin tones and creates a mask that limits the smoothing effect to just the skin areas…[It’s] Powerful, Easy, Real-time skin retouching for video” (website product description). With retouching software and filters, beauty gurus lead their audience to believe that their flawless skin is the result of a skincare item or a makeup product available for purchase rather than photography, video, and editing tricks. [4]

Some beauty Youtubers are not even amateurs. They are professional makeup artists or stylists. Some Youtuber celebrities may have started innocently making videos, but when subscriber numbers rise, advertisers offer attractive incentives to better sell. For example, Youtuber Michelle Phan was initially endorsed by Lancôme and now has her own makeup line called EM Cosmetics. Her brand makes millions of dollars a year.

Fake Friends and Confidants

YouTube beauty gurus intentionally create a false sense of intimacy in their videos that appeal to a lonely generation of young people who are captive audiences to their screens. Intimate video titles such as “Get ready with me” or “Storytime” offer the viewer a false sense of friendship with the Youtuber. [5]

Although teens may feel entertained and satisfied with learning, hours of watching may also contribute to their dissatisfaction and loneliness. Despite the teen’s best efforts, they will never be able to attain the professionally produced look of the beautiful Youtuber. The most popular beauty gurus are very attractive to begin with. Youtubers with average looks rarely get views and endorsement deals. The prettier the Youtuber, the more brand deals they get, and the more discouraged teens get sold on expectations they can’t achieve.

Compare and Despair

Many teens look to beauty gurus as role models. Unfortunately, beauty gurus rarely encourage their audience to explore interests outside of beauty and fashion.

Instructional beauty videos reinforce gender stereotypes that our worth is based on beauty, which requires time, skill, and money to achieve and maintain. These stereotypes are reflected in filter features that reflect Western beauty biases. We covered an example of this in our GKIS article, Beauty Filters Don’t Embrace Brown Beauty: The Rise of Colorism.

Also disturbing is how many beauty gurus discuss their plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures on camera. Browse “I got injections,” and you will see dozens of videos produced by surgically enhanced influencers with millions of views each.

In Xiaxue’s video titled, “Plastic surgery questions answered!” she discusses her nose job and double eyelid surgery as if it’s an everyday, simple get. Surgical transformation is a dangerous proposal to a lonely, self-conscious teen who has spent hours mesmerized by enhanced marketers slowly grooming her desperation to be reinvented. Anxieties inspired by this type of content can lead to mental illnesses like body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders. [6]

Popular YouTube celebrities boast large followings, high influence, and big profits off of vulnerable teens. A top beauty influencer, Wayne Goss, blew the whistle on this misleading phenomenon in his video, “WARNING. YOU’RE BEING LIED TO.” In his illustration, Wayne shows his audience what his face looks like before and after using skin retouching software. But knowledge doesn’t always cut through compulsive video viewing habits. [7]

What you can do:

    • Recognize that worth is more than skin deep and emphasize this among friends and family. Provide opportunities for intellectual, spiritual, and character growth. Value substance.
    • Be a good role model. Makeup-free days and clean, natural living balance special, glitzy occasions.
    • Parents can filter streaming video content with screen safety management tools like those offered in our Screen Safety Toolkit. The more developed your child’s personality and self-concept, the more resilient they’ll be in the face of relentless marketing.
    • Educate kids about the risks and benefits of watching beauty guru videos. Make sure they understand that beauty videos are meticulously edited to make a profit from unsuspecting targets.
    • Help each other know that we don’t need to alter our appearance to be genuinely loved and accepted.
    • Monitor and limit how often you or the people you care about view beauty guru content. Take notice if you or those you care about are showing compulsive viewing habits or are negatively affected by the content they are consuming.
    • Teach balanced, healthy, and fun beauty activities like giving to others, gratefulness, kindness, a clean diet, and satisfying fitness. Beauty radiates from within, not from ten-minute ombré lips and $50 shimmer. Sometimes it’s important to dare to go bare.

Thank you to CSUCI Intern, Mara Pober for providing parents with information about the beauty gurus of Youtube. For more parenting support to dull the influence of high-earning, big-influence celebrities like Kim Kardashian, check out the GKIS article What Parents Need to Cover About Kim Kardashian’s Un-covering.

I’m the mom psychologist who helps you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe

Works Cited

[1] Beauty on youtube in 2015

[2] The Leading Role of Influencers in the YouTube Beauty Community

[3] DefyMedia Acument report

[4] Beauty Box Video

[5] Making Sense of Beauty Vlogging

[6] Plastic surgery questions answered!

[7] WARNING. YOU’RE BEING LIED TO.

Photo Credits

Decolored eye Pix from the Field, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

creative commons Sharon Wesilds, CC BY 2.0

Shélin Graziela, CC BY-SA 2.0

Astrology junction creative commons Sharon Wesilds, CC BY 2.0

Body Shame and the Average American Male

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When did men become as fussy about their looks as women? Since marketers have scoped in on us as a buying audience, that’s when. The multi-billion dollar health and fitness industry found our vulnerable spots, and they’ve targeted us expertly. Men buy in for costly gym memberships and nutrition formulas, we get our eyebrows “done,” and we even pay for cosmetic surgery. Don’t get me started about specially conditioned beards and man buns. Marketers have successfully sold us thru body shame.

As much as the focus on body image marketing centers on teen girls, boys are increasingly effected. Dr. Bennett’s How to Spot Marketing: Red Flags Supplement is designed for parents of any child to recognize the signs of dangerous marketing. In media we often see images that insinuate how men should look and what products we need to buy in order to get the job, the fortune, or the girl. Every man wants to be a stallion. When other men threaten our image, we want to improve. How is the 2016 man affected by shame?

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Six-Packs Everywhere

We are in the era of the six-pack. Abdominal bulging is everywhere; in supplement commercials, movies, toys, and advertisements. Consider the multi million-dollar movie, Twilight. Millions flocked to theaters to gawk at Taylor Lautner’s stellar abs (#TeamJacob). Let’s face it, it wasn’t his intellect or dazzling wolf battle strategies that made the ladies swoon. And I’m embarrassed to say that when I saw the movie, I felt extremely self-conscious about my baby belly.

I’m not alone. Research has demonstrated that muscular male figures in the media cause body dissatisfaction in men (Leit, 2002). The hundreds of images we see on our screens everyday of six-packed actors and models make us feel inferior. Despite the realization that those types of bodies are only attainable with digital enhancement, dietary supplements, or extraordinary fitness programs, we aspire to it and feel disheartened when we fail to measure up.

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“Do You Even Lift Bro?”

Sorry to break it to you ladies, men are not becoming sexier to impress you. It is often about, “Do you even lift Bro?” We are constantly competing with each other. No guy has ever said, “I am going to do an extra squat, because the ladies are digging tight butts.” It is all about the pressure to lift more than the guy next to you. And frankly, it doesn’t hurt that the ladies are attracted to the dominant male in the room. The best compliment is a beautiful woman purring about how strong we look.

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You Too Can Look Like This

Unfortunately, our quest for strength and fitness does not always lead us to healthy choices. Many men use expensive and untested fitness supplements to speed up the muscle-building process. Some powder proteins already have enough ingredients that are bad for your body, and some men are using it in combination with steroids. When I go to the gym, I often see these steroid using pretty boys. I myself have used protein and been tempted to use steroids to gain faster results. Luckily I never have and never will, but the pressure is always there.

Increasing numbers of men are so concerned about their appearance that they develop a psychological condition called muscle dysmorphia (Mosley, 2009). This is when a man sees himself thinner and weaker than he actually is. He begins to hit the gym and use substances to gain more mass, but he will never get there because he sees a delusional result in the mirror. He focuses so much on attaining his ideal image that he begins to put everything aside to hit the gym. This disorder is fairly new and there are no clear estimates of how many men are affected (Choi, Pope, & Olivardia, 2002).

BLOG79bodybullyingMy Classmates Changed Me

Body shaming can start young but peaks during the vulnerable developmental period of adolescence. According to researchers Aslund, Starrin, Leppert, & Nilsson (2009), both males and females engage in body shaming, but they tend to do it differently. Males tend to be more directly aggressive, while females shame through passive aggressive means like gossip.

When I was in high school, I remember feeling shame because of the way I dressed and my physical appearance. I was smurf’s size and wore clothes out of fashion. Students would often attack me with bad remarks. In my senior year, I changed my appearance and grew a little more to become a larger smurf. People started to notice me and praise my better looks, and I even started to date girls. This made me care more about my appearance, because I did not want to be shamed again. My point is that shame can really change a man. Even though men want to appear tough, we are sensitive teddy bears on the inside.

How can we protect our sons from body shame?

 

  • Teach them to understand that we all have different body types. Obtaining a body that looks exactly like somebody else’s is impossible.

  • It is a good thing to want to be the best, but make sure that you are doing it for yourself and not for others.

  • Eating healthy and getting plenty of restorative sleep will earn the fastest and healthiest fitness results.

  • Before considering supplements, research their ingredients. Nothing beats a healthy diet and hard work.

  • Ensure you have a realistic understanding of what a “healthy” body actually looks like. That means a keen awareness that most images have been digitally enhanced.

  • Be vigilant not to body shame others with critical or hurtful comments.

  • Protect kids from frequent exposure to inappropriate images designed to sell products.

  • Set a healthy example of what is healthy and cool.

Remember, “SHAME IS LAME.” Because you are an extraordinary parent, you won’t want to miss, The Secrets to Happiness and the Creation of GetKidsInternetSafe, It’s an awesome personal blog written by Dr. Tracy Bennet. She is an extraordinary person willing to help those in need.

IMG_2923Congratulations and thank you to Cristian Garcia, CSUCI intern, for authoring this awesome GKIS article!

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Photo Credit

Angel by Samuele Cavadini, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Hulk by Claudio Montes, CC BY-NC 2.0

Ziggy Chima by Brett Jordan, CC BY 2.0

Self portrait- Got juice? By Mattys Flicks, CC BY 2.0

High school lockers by Daniel Scally, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

References

Aslund, C. , Starrin, B. , Leppert, J. , & Nilsson, K. (2009). Social status and shaming experiences related to adolescent overt aggression at school. Aggressive Behavior, 35(1), 1-13.

Mosley, P. (2009). Bigorexia: Bodybuilding and muscle dysmorphia. European Eating Disorders Review : The Journal of the Eating Disorders Association, 17(3), 191-198.

Leit, R. , Gray, J. , & Pope, H. (2002). The media’s representation of the ideal male body: A cause for muscle dysmorphia?. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 31(3), 334-338.

Choi, P. , Pope, Jr, H. , & Olivardia, R. (2002). Muscle dysmorphia: A new syndrome in weightlifters. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(5), 375-377.

Here Little Girl Have Some Candy…Facial Recognition Technology and the Threat to Your Family

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Article originally published by The Good Men Project

I adore my kids, and I heart Facebook. As a result, these two passions met long ago and often! Posting images of my kids and their happenings was ancient history and still a current reality when I launched GetKidsInternetSafe. Do I feel uneasy after learning about rampant online victimizations and BigData capture? Well imagine this:

<Old Witch Voice> “Here little girl, would you like some candy?”

Scene change:

<Voice modulated to resemble her own grandmother (who’s on Facebook)>“Here Jenny, would you like a Butterfinger (your fav)/wrapped in sparkles (in your preferred colors)/handed to you by this Maltipoo puppy (the one from your last birthday party)/held by your favorite cartoon character (whom you watched just this morning)/to your favorite song (that’s been on repeat all week)?”

I mean OMG and shiver right? How can we possibly protect them enough? And it’s not just pedophiles that may creep on them, it’s big business! And governments too! Yes I meant that to be plural. Whether you believe identity tracking is a terrifying intrusion on your privacy or you are reassured to have these tools in place for your security, please turn off your social media notifications and read this article so you can be even more informed about important decisions about your family.

What do you think about face recognition technology? Are you concerned, comforted, or somewhere in between? Rate your opinion really quick:

(No concern) 0 to 10 (Extremely concerned)

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WHAT IS FACE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY?

Face recognition technology is a computer application that collects data from an image of a face and compares it to a larger database, ultimately identifying the person. Older algorithms used data about distinctive facial features to make matches. The newer three-dimensional technology is modeled after the neural networking of the human brain and adds data about face shape and surface contours. As a result of these recent advances, accuracy has greatly increased with identification possible from even side-profiled pictures and even with different lighting. Some 3-D systems boast identification ability as good as a human’s at 97% accuracy!

WHO HAS IT?

Most big technology companies and law enforcement currently use face recognition. Examples include Apple’s iPhoto, Adobe System’s Photoshop, Google’s Picasa, and Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery.

The FBI database has been estimated to have private data on 4.3 million Americans who have not even been accused of a crime; data that can be pulled up immediately on handheld scanners, paired with other private information, and potentially shared with third parties.

What are you thinking now? Has your 0-10 rating changed at all? Rate again and then read on…

HOW IS FACE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY BEING USED?

We can’t be totally sure, as much of its use is confidential. Right Homeland Security? But we do know it’s commonly used in many applications, including photo apps for better focusing and photo organizing and on social media (e.g., tagging), mobile apps that require a selfie for login (e.g., computer access, ATMs, online test taking), or employer systems to track a worker’s computer face-time. Private companies also use it for security purposes, such as casinos in order to identify blacklisted customers.

Governments currently use this data to identify suspects (e.g., at public events or to monitor voter fraud), streamline border crossings (the US will roll it out this summer), and for visa processing and airport surveillance.

An important element to keep in mind is that, unlike with fingerprints and iris scans, this technology does not require the cooperation of the user. Therefore subjects may be unaware they are being identified.

 

HOW WILL IT BE USED IN THE FUTURE?

So far Facebook and Google are reticent to blatantly apply sophisticated 3-D face recognition software due to a fearful and vocal public. However, recent news reports suggest that Facebook will be utilizing their version of 3-D face recognition technology (DeepFace) on newly posted images in order to notify users their image was just posted. This allows that user the option of blurring their face on the image to preserve privacy. Some European governments have already forced Facebook to delete its face recognition data.

Google (with their social media platform Google +) is not far behind. However, they currently have refused to use facial recognition software for Google Glass or approve third party apps that use it. It has been speculated that Facebook and Google are waiting to apply the advanced technology until the public gets used to computers using face recognition for login. Wait for it…

The courts already obtain warrants to seize Facebook data about specific users, including images, posts, messages, locations, and activities. Facebook has argued that broad use of databases by the government is a violation of the Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches by the government. That battle continues.

OTHER RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

Big Data is also invested in analyzing text and posts to decipher mood and context as well as facial expression analysis technology. After all, logging viewer engagement and emotional response real-time allows the marketer to lead the potential buyer into a split-second purchase click, without the buyer even knowing he was neuro-marketed. Quick and profitable indeed!

Just this week news reports that Samsung’s SmartTV instructions read, “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” Yes, your SmartTV listens in to adapt to the spoken content of your private living room. You know this because a little microphone icon appears in the right hand corner. Right? And you can always turn it off, of course, but it will disable the voice command feature. I wonder what third parties think about the fight my husband and I had last night…

Perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s no coincidence that the very lamp you were shopping online yesterday shows up on your social media feed today. Your buying and browsing habits are already being collected and analyzed so advertisers can market directly to your interests. So generous of them and convenient! To thicken the plot further, consider that it’s not only you that marketers are targeting and tracking. Go to any popular children’s website and you’ll see that products are being blatantly and sophisticatedly pitched to your children. With this technology, that pitch will morph to be designed specifically for your individual child, her likes, her dislikes, all of it.

How is your rating faring now? 0 to 10

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 WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING TO ENSURE OUR PRIVACY?

This is where the controversy comes in. It seems people have settled into two camps, like the partygoers I mentioned earlier. One camp feels that people should not post anything; stay off social media and keep it old school. Others feel the ship has sailed. They’ve already got a digital footprint, the disappearance of privacy is the wave of the future. Accept it and don’t bother to swim against the current.

I don’t have a crystal ball that gives me enough information to offer you a concrete call-to-action. Maybe its no big deal that Google knows so much about us, starting at our image. And maybe it’s the beginning of something truly frightening for us. Because I use my image online for branding, my goose is surely cooked as far as face recognition technology goes. But I still have decisions to make about what to allow my kids to post online. There is data protection software out there, but I assure you it isn’t getting many buyers as most of us eat up the opportunity to exchange our private information for fun, free online content (thanks Facebook! Num-num-num). The Japanese recently developed privacy visors with infrared lights to protect facial recognition in public spaces…so there’s that.

I suppose if pressed I would encourage people to stay aware, educated, screen smart, and cautious. And teach your kids to do the same. Hold to strict age guidelines and monitor to prevent oversharing. My GetKidsInternetSafe 30 Days to Internet Safety online parenting course provides detailed suggestions of just how to do that in the most efficient ways possible, along with other ideas that fill Internet risk gaps. Ultimately, we must ask ourselves at many points along the way if the costs outweigh the benefits.

Does the risk of inaccurate face identification put us at high risk? What if other countries that don’t have our human rights protections get ahold of our data? Under what conditions is it acceptable and legal for private and governmental agencies to collect information about us without our knowledge? Furthermore, how is it that they are able to offer opportunities to some but not others based on that knowledge? Has there ever been a time in history where a government secretly collected private information about its citizens? And then treated those citizens differently because of that private information? Anybody? Ever?

Have you heard the allegory that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he’ll jump out, but if you put him in while the water’s still cold he’s certainly dinner?

Well I don’t know about you, but it’s feeling a little tepid in here…“Ribbit!”

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Admittedly, it’s a bit of a leap from face recognition technology to covert data collection to hacking, behavioral manipulation, and discrimination or coercion. But being a frog myself (and a mom who worries about what kind of world we are handing to our kids), the evidence holds together tight enough for me to be worried.

What’s your 0-10 rating now?

 

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

 

Photo Credits:

Fraunhofer Face Finder by Steve Jurvetson, CC by 2.0
Frog in a Pot 5 by James Lee, CC by 2.0

 

What will a future without secrets look like?

“New” Pot and Why It’s Dangerous for Teens

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Teenager Offering Pot to Smoke Originally published by The Good Men Project

Is your child smoking pot? I hope not, but parents are the last to know. Within the last five years, kids are smoking pot sooner and at higher rates. As marijuana becomes increasingly available (and legal), kids perceive the drug to be less risky. With the increasing potency of this addictive drug, marijuana poses a significant risk to the developing brain. Educate your kids now before they try their first pot brownie. That means a heart-to-heart talk with the facts BEFORE middle school!

Marijuana use is UP and smokers are starting younger.

Just as I’m hearing in my suburban psychology practice, five-year trends reflect increasing marijuana use among tenth through twelfth graders, with kids starting to smoke at younger ages than ever before. We haven’t reached the peak use rates of the 1970s, but we may be getting there.

However, there is hope! Teaching kids the facts may hold off experimentation. For instance, when popular media covered the adverse effects of synthetic marijuana (spice, K2, or wax), use rates went down. Educating your kids about the easily available marijuana their friends are smoking optimizes the chance they’ll use good judgment. Here are the facts parents need to know!

Today’s pot is far more potent than pot from the 1970s-1980s.

The average marijuana today contains 20-30% THC versus 1980’s pot which averaged 4% THC. That means that old research conclusions barely apply to today’s pot. Furthermore, as THC potency increases the number of cannabinoids decrease. Cannabinoids are the chemical compounds in marijuana that is responsible for proposed medical benefits.

Cat Sitting Next to Pot Plant

Marijuana is physiologically and psychologically addicting.

Cannabinoids increase dopamine in the pleasure center of the brain. This is the same process that underlies the reinforcing effects of ALL addictive drugs. Because there is a high concentration of cannabinoid brain receptors in many different areas of the brain, marijuana has many effects on the user. This is why marijuana is in a drug class of its own with effects that qualify it as a hallucinogenic, sedative, or analgesic.

Similar to all drugs of abuse, there is clear and consistent evidence of tolerance, withdrawal, and craving resulting from marijuana use. For the benefit of three hours of a high, you have the cost of up to fourteen days of withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms include irritability, stomach pain, anxiety, loss of appetite, and insomnia.

Starting young and smoking often makes you dumber.

Chronic marijuana smokers younger than 18 years old demonstrate an average IQ decline of eight points and other signs of impaired mental functioning by age 38 years.

Medical Marijuana Sign

Marijuana has legitimate applications for some medical conditions.

The marijuana effects of increased hunger and happiness have been found to be helpful for the nausea, anorexia, and wasting experienced by people with HIV (Bedi et al. 2005; Haney et al. 2007; Lutge et. al. 2013) and chronic neuropathic pain related to HIV, multiple sclerosis, and peripheral neuropathy (Lynch et al. 2011; Ware et al 2010). However, marijuana is rarely recommended as first-line treatment due to side effects. Most studies evaluate the oral forms of marijuana rather than smokable forms.

Marijuana obscures psychiatric presentation and generally makes mental illnesses worse rather than better.

  • Anxiety Disorders: Self-medicating with pot leads to cyclic withdrawal and heightened anxiety that is harder to treat with traditional therapies. Marijuana lowers GABA, natures calming neurotransmitter.
  • Mood Disorders & ADHD: Marijuana dysregulates serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, the neurotransmitters related to mood and attention disorders. In other words, pot makes mood and ADHD symptoms worse.
  • Schizophrenia: Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and a lack of initiative. It is typically incurable and progressive, often seen among our homeless population.

Here is the most disturbing research outcome I have read in my twenty-year career. The use of marijuana increases the chances of developing schizophrenia by 600% for heavy smokers, 400% for regular smokers, and 200% for any smoking (Andréasson et al. 1987; Stefanis et al. 2013)! This does not mean marijuana causes schizophrenia, but it certainly increases the chances that it will occur. I caution my patients often, why take that kind of risk with your life and brain health just to get high?

Hello Marijuana, Good-bye Prozac button

You can’t be sure all you’re smoking is marijuana.

Marijuana is often laced with more addictive drugs like cocaine, heroin, or PCP to keep buyers buying. Although adulteration if far less of a risk for marijuana than other drugs, the heavier the drug the higher its price. As a result, adulterants like lead, silicone, Mountain dew, and Windex have been commonly discovered in pot samples. Marijuana is also often treated with pesticides to optimize profitable quantities. So much for organic.

Chronic marijuana use is particularly harmful to the developing brain, because it decreases Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF).

BDNF is a chemical that regulates the birth, survival, and repair of the cells that make up the brain. BDNF is responsible for what scientists call neuroplasticity, the adaptive processes underlying learning and memory.

Pot lowers BDNF levels. So if an adolescent’s brain is not developing normally, pot may make it worse (D’Souza et al. 2009; Zammit 2003). Clinically we have found that if we can get our client clean from marijuana after their first psychotic symptoms, they have a far better chance of recovery rather than suffering a progressive course.

Teen Smoking Pot from Glass Pipe

Chronic marijuana use has been found to have various negative health effects, including:

  • a suppressant effect on immune system (long-term unknown);
  • an adverse effect on the reproductive systems of men and women (lower testosterone and lower sperm count in males and lower LH secretion in females), but there is no evidence of a change in fertility;
  • no identified increase in birth defects, but may contribute to low birth rate and less maternal milk production;
  • problematic behavioral syndromes including lower GPA, more truancy, higher drop out rate, and more delinquency.
    Money and Drugs on Table

  • Marijuana has become BIG BUSINESS.

    Big tobacco money is investing in the marijuana industry. As a result, I anticipate the “mom and pop” head shops will be going bankrupt while even more slick marketing comes on the scene. There’s big money to be made at the expense of the public’s health…again (remember tobacco?).

    As marijuana gets more addictive and capable of generating profit, we are seeing a more diverse product line of smokables and edibles, some of which are packaged to be attractive to children. Although there are no reported cases of death by marijuana overdose, there are increasing numbers of emergency room visits due to marijuana use. Safety groups are advocating for potency limits, better labeling, bans of products packaged to appeal to children, and a regulatory structure for marijuana similar to those that exist with tobacco and alcohol.

    Regardless of your opinions about adult use of marijuana, I think we can all agree that marijuana is harmful for children and teens. I hope these facts inspire you to have a factual discussion with your kids. Although education isn’t all kids need to stay safe from drugs, I am frequently pleased to see my clients alter their course after a factual and reasonable discussion about the risks of marijuana on the developing brain.

    I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.

    Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

    Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
    Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
    GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Works Cited

Andréasson, Sven, Ann Engström, Peter Allebeck, and Ulf Rydberg. “CANNABIS AND SCHIZOPHRENIA A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Conscripts.” The Lancet 330.8574 (1987): 1483-486. Web.

Bedi, Gillinder, Richard W. Foltin, Erik W. Gunderson, Judith Rabkin, Carl L. Hart, Sandra D. Comer, Suzanne K. Vosburg, and Margaret Haney. “Efficacy and Tolerability of High-dose Dronabinol Maintenance in HIV-positive Marijuana Smokers: A Controlled Laboratory Study.” Psychopharmacology 212.4 (2010): 675-86. Web.

D’Souza, Deepak Cyril, Brian Pittman, Edward Perry, and Arthur Simen. “Preliminary Evidence of Cannabinoid Effects on Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) Levels in Humans.” Psychopharmacology 202.4 (2009): 569-78. Web.

Haney M, Gunderson EW, Rabkin J, Hart CL, Vosburg SK, Comer SD, Foltin RW. “Dronabinol and Marijuana in HIV-Positive Marijuana Smokers: Caloric Intake, Mood and Sleep.” JAIDS 45 (2007): 545–554. [PubMed]

Lutge, Elizabeth E, Andy Gray, and Nandi Siegfied. “The Medical Use of Cannabis For Reducing Morbidity and Mortality in Patients With HIV/AIDS.” Database of Systematic Reviews (2013):4. Web. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD005175.pub3/abstract

Lynch, Mary E., and Fiona Campbell. “Cannabinoids for Treatment of Chronic Non-cancer Pain; a Systematic Review of Randomized Trials.” British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 72.5 (2011): 735-44. Web.

“Marijuana.” Marijuana. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Jan. 2015.

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Photo credits

Paff, paff, pass it! By Jon Richter, CC by-NC-SA 2.0

So Young. By Will Bryson, CC by-NC-SA 2.0

Medical Marijuana. By Chuck Coker, CC by-ND 2.0

Prozac Makes Better Christians But Marijuana Makes Better Brownies. By wackystuff, CC by-SA 2.0)

Denver 4/20 Marijuana Rally 2013. By Jonathan Piccolo, CC by-NC-SA 2.0

Money Money Money. By Filipe Garcia, CC by-NC-ND 2.0

Did You Know the Internet is Programmed Like a Slot Machine? 6 Ways Internet Marketers Are Grooming Our Kids to Be Paying Customers

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When we are online, we often view content designed to get us to buy something. Companies and people who make money this way are called online marketers. The more customers these marketers attract, the more money they make. Today’s GKIS article teaches you how to recognize the tricks marketers use to earn money. If you are able to recognize these tricks, you will be more likely to avoid buying things you don’t need or want.

6 Tricks Marketers Use to Encourage You to Buy

Neuromarketing Strategies 

Neuromarketing strategies refer to the tricks created from research that studies customer motivations, preferences, and buying behaviors. With customer data collected from brain scans (which areas of the brain engage with certain ad content), eye movement tracking, and customer reports, marketers design their products and advertisements for the best appeal. This means that advertisers know what we respond to and how we respond better than we even know! 

Illusion of Scarcity

The illusion of scarcity refers to the technique of only offering a product or a discount for a limited time. By using terms like BUY NOW or LIMITED-TIME OFFER, marketers make us anxious to click the buy button quickly without thinking it through. Adults are better at taking their time before buying than kids are. Not only have adults had more experience and practice, but their brains are more developed to control buying impulses. Most people believe that using these tricks on kids is unfair and unreasonable.

Pester Power

Once a child wants something, they will pester and beg their parents to buy it for them. Parents then buy the item to make their kids happy, sometimes without thinking enough about it. Pester power leads to more family stress and unnecessary purchases. 

Packaging Tricks

We buy things if they look great and if we think they would be fun or good for us. That is why marketers spend a lot of money on design and use certain words and images that suggest the product is healthy even if it isn’t, like calling sugary flavors “fruit flavors.” 

Using Slot Machine Reward Schedules

We will keep doing something if we are rewarded for it (get something for doing it). Video gaming companies know this. That is why they offer lots of rewards (like points, levels, weapons, and access to other players), so we keep playing and spending.

Psychology studies have shown that the best way to keep somebody playing is by giving them a variable ratio of reinforcement. This means the player is rewarded after an unpredictable number of responses (e.g., sometimes after three clicks, sometimes after one, and sometimes after twelve). There is no set pattern; it’s variable.

Slot machines are also set with a variable ratio of reinforcement because it is the best formula to keep people playing. Gaming companies apply a variable ratio of reinforcement within gaming design to keep players playing too. This can lead to losing control over the time we spend playing, which can lead to unhealthy screen use. 

Too much reward can also overload your nervous system and stress you out without you realizing it. If you are cranky after gameplay, it may be that you’ve played too long or should opt for a mellower game.

Aspirational Marketing

Aspirational marketing refers to the technique of making the customer aspire, or wish, to be like the celebrity or influencer selling the product or to be happy like other customers seem to be.

Children’s brains are wired to copy people they look up to. This makes them vulnerable to this trick.

Parents must look out for ads that sell inappropriate things to young kids like sexy clothing, make-over products, rated-R movies, violent or sexual video games, music with inappropriate lyrics, processed and high-sugar, high-fat foods, and other things that aren’t good for kids. 

What do psychologists have to say about marketers targeting kids?

In the last twenty years, people have been speaking out about concerns that young children are being specifically targeted by online marketers. In 2004, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a special task force report addressing these concerns.

They concluded that advertising to kids is unfair and promotes the use of harmful products to kids. They recommended that:

  • more research be conducted,
  • new policies be adopted like restricting advertising to children 8 years of age and under, and
  • developing media literacy programs starting in the third grade.

Other countries have responded to these concerns. For example, television marketing to children was banned in Norway and Sweden, junk-food ads were banned in Britain, and war toys were banned in Greece. America is far behind.

Parents and teachers are our children’s only real defense against sneaky online marketers. Although teaching kids about these tricks is a good start, it may place unfair expectations on children. Even knowing the tricks, they often still can’t stop themselves. They don’t have the brain development to do that yet.

We Can Make a Difference

Not only must parents adopt smart online management strategies, but they must also demand changes within the online world and advocate for new laws.

Recent changes in child nutrition are excellent examples of how change can start at home and lead to effective progress within the broader community. For example, due to parents determined to make positive changes in California elementary and middle schools, soft drinks were banned, and healthier food choices were offered.

We can impact what happens to our kids on the internet too! What do you think about formal advertising regulations? Should the government step in or is it the responsibility of the parents? How much regulation is too much? Is there enough regulation already?

If you are ready to reduce the marketing aimed at your kids, check out our Screen Safety Toolkit. Designed to offer tried-and-true links and descriptions of free and for-sale safety products at the device level, this course gives you what you need to increase online safety for your family.

Onward To More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

The Psychological Mind Tricks of Online Neuromarketers

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blog2rat-trap-1024x749 The commercialization of childhood refers to the fact that companies advertise to kids through websites, video games, and social media. These marketers use sneaky tricks that most adults aren’t even aware of! Before screen devices, we partly blocked advertising to kids since they don’t yet know how to defend themselves. Manipulating kids into thinking they MUST have a product for happiness is unfair. Convincing them that they need something can also make them anxious and feel bad about themselves. Advertising can be harmful to kids. Today’s GetKidsInternetSafe (GKIS) article was written to teach tweens and teens about the sneaky techniques that marketers use to get their money.

How an Experiment with a Rat Taught Me About Operant Conditioning

When I was at UCLA, I took a physiological psychology class. We learned how to study the effects of certain drugs on rats.

Here is how this worked.

  • Give the rat a drug so she doesn’t feel any pain.
  • Insert a wire into the pleasure center of her little rat brain.
  • Attach the wire to an electric source that is controlled by a lever in her cage that she presses with her little paws.
  • Count every time she pushes her lever to get a small electric charge to her brain’s pleasure center resulting in pleasurable feelings.

We collected two types of data; the number of times she pushed the lever when she was on her medication, and the number of times she pushed the lever when she wasn’t on any medication. If the medication enhanced pleasure, she would push the lever more. If it had no effect, she would push the same amount. If it decreased pleasure, she would push it less.

Because of the “happy inducing” medication assigned to my study group, we found that our rat pushed the lever more when she was on the medication. Not only did my happy rat teach us about the effects of the medication, but she also taught me about how behavior can be manipulated with medication and brain stimulation.

In psychology we call this operant conditioning, meaning the frequency of a behavior (like pushing a lever) is increased with reward and decreased with punishment.

Advertisers Manipulate Us with Operant Conditioning

To get us to buy things, marketers must convince us we need them. To do that, they bake in rewards for buying and punishments for not buying. Sometimes we realize that we are being manipulated, and sometimes we don’t.

Like the rat cage is designed for more lever pushes, advertisements are designed to coax a behavior from us – which is to buy, buy, buy.

Advertising to Children on Screen Devices

In 2006, the Federal Trade Commission reported that food and beverage companies spent 20 billion dollars on advertising targeting children. This often involved cross-promotion with movies or popular television programs.1 With screen devices (like game stations, computers, smartphones, tablets, and handheld game devices), we are exposed to more advertising than ever!

Advertising Techniques Used to Manipulate Kids

Internet marketing influences child brains like the electricity influenced the rat’s brain. Advertisements impact our neurology. That is why advertising designed to influence our brains is called neuromarketing. By persuading you with the company’s messaging (also called branding), you learn to like and trust that brand.

When kids visit websites or play games online, what sneaking advertising tricks might they expect?

  • Appealing characters that are designed to build brand loyalties at an early age
  • Banners and popups with lots of color and movement designed to attract and keep their attention
  • Featured games, puzzles, contests, toys, videos, and appealing activities that are branded to keep kids engaged for long periods of time. The longer you are on screen, the more exposure to the different marketing strategies
  • Promises of discounts and extra value to encourage pester power (the powerful influence of begging kids on parents’ wallets)
  • Action commands that create anxiety and spur buying behaviors like BUY NOW, GO NOW, SHOP NOW, PLAY NOW, LEARN MORE

Internet marketing is neither all-good nor all-bad. Sometimes we want to watch advertising content and learn about new things to buy. There is even advertising within online educational products (like the website you are on now). Without customer purchases, companies can’t afford to make cool things.

Young Kids Don’t Yet Have the Brain Abilities to Defend Against Marketing

The good news is that you have found GetKidsInternetSafe.com as a resource to start this educational process and ultimately better educate yourself and your children.

The bad news is that psychological research has demonstrated that, even when trained, children under eight years old lack the cognitive ability to view commercials defensively. In other words, young kids have a limited ability to understand the vocabulary, sentences, and inference drawing required for analyzing marketing schemes. For young kids, visual aspects of advertising dominate informational aspects. Their brains soak in the fun but fail to see the business side of screen time.

Although tweens and teens have the brain wiring to learn the tricks, even with parents helping young kids may still not be able to see them. For this reason, it is important that we limit child exposure to online advertisements and content. Parents must choose what their young kids watch wisely and only allow screen time for short periods of time. As kids grow older and onboard more reasoning abilities, they become less vulnerable to the tricks if they know what they are looking for!

Your Call to Action

Over the next week, I challenge you to change your focus while you are online. Instead of being a passive consumer (watching without thinking), keep an eye out for the marketing strategies embedded within each activity. Notice what tempts you and holds your attention and why. Notice that some strategies push for an immediate sale, while others coax a long-term trusting relationship with the brand to breed familiarity for ongoing sales. Share your observations and your opinions about what is fair play and what isn’t with your friends, parents, and teachers. Pay particular attention to strategies geared toward the adult viewer versus the child viewer.

Next week, I will share with you 6 powerful marketing techniques intended to groom children to be paying customers.

Onward To More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Anna Lappe asserts that parenting needs to be left to parents – not food marketers, in this TED talk.

Works Cited
1″FTC Report Sheds New Light on Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents.” Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission, 29 July 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. <http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2008/07/ftc-report-sheds-new-light-food-marketing-children-adolescents>.

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