Media releases

• Brock summit aims to gather community to improve youth sport

  Monday, April 15, 2024 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: April 15 2024 – R0050

  Ways to better the world of youth sport for current and future athletes will be at the heart of an event hosted by Brock University next week.

  Organized by Brock’s Centre for Healthy Youth Development through Sport in partnership with Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX), the Youth Sport Summit on Wednesday, April 24 will feature two dozen workshops, panels and presentations from both academic and community sport professionals.

  “We have an amazing lineup of presenters who will share insights and best practices in several facets of youth sport, including inclusivity, injury prevention, mental health and more,” says Corliss Bean, Director of the Centre for Healthy Youth Development through Sport and Assistant Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Brock. “This event will be a meaningful space to bring people together to learn, network and generate new ideas.”

  Sawyer Nicholson, a 12-year-old soccer player and record-breaking runner, will be among the presenters at an inclusivity themed podium session. She will share her experiences earning a world record for her age group at last year’s Niagara Falls International Marathon and will discuss how to create welcoming and belonging spaces for girls in sport.

  The event’s keynote speakers include Marco Di Buono, President of Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities, who will address the future of youth sport in Canada, and Dean Kriellaars, Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Manitoba, who will discuss physical literacy research and practice.

  Representatives from several Brock research centres, including the Centre for Sport Capacity, the Brock-Niagara Centre of Excellence in Inclusive and Adaptive Physical Activity and the Brock Sports Performance Centre, will share research and best practices as part of a safe sport panel.

  Community collaborators with the Centre for Healthy Youth Development through Sport will also present at the summit, including Canadian Girls Baseball and Lay-Up Youth Basketball.

  “Most of the work we do at the Centre is community-engaged, so many of our community partners are attending the summit as a way to translate their learnings around quality sport and showcase findings from the collaborative research we have engaged in,” says Bean.

  Complementing the workshops, panels and presentations will be more than a dozen poster presentations outlining student and faculty research on topics such as positive youth development, evidence-based practice, and equity, diversity and inclusivity in youth sport.

  The summit also serves as an experiential learning opportunity for Brock students, who will help organize and manage event-day operations, moderate sessions and review research abstracts.

  Everyone is welcome to attend the Youth Sport Summit, including professionals involved in all types of youth sport and physical activity, post-secondary students, researchers and community members.

  Registration is open until Friday, April 19. For more information, visit the Youth Sport Summit website.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Maryanne St. Denis, Manager, Content and Communications, Brock University mstdenis@brocku.ca or 905-246-0256

  – 30 –

  Categories: Media releases

• Actions needed beyond lawsuit to address social media’s influence on youth, say Brock experts

  Monday, April 15, 2024 | By Brock University

  EXPERT ADVISORY: April 15 2024 – R0049

  While four Ontario school boards recently announced a $4.5-billion lawsuit against the social media giants behind Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, Brock University experts are calling for additional actions to address the influence popular online platforms have on teens.

  Professor Shauna Pomerantz in the Department of Child and Youth Studies says that although a leak from whistleblower Frances Haugen shows that Meta was aware of the harm teenaged girls experienced using Instagram, she also fails “to see how suing social media corporations will stop bullying, mental health crises and inattentive students.”

  She suggests that other options, such as regulating or banning smartphones in schools, could make a big difference in spite of the complexities of culture change and rule enforcement.

  “Students face a world full of trauma, pain, hate and judgment, and while social media may be a symptom of these things, it is not the sole cause, and to suggest so is to overlook a thousand other contexts that shape young people’s lives,” says Pomerantz. “There is no magic bullet here — no one problem that, when solved, will fix everything.”

  Her research on TikTok has shown that adults do not understand the role of social media in the lives of young people, pointing to a need for creative thinking to come up with new approaches to the issues raised in the lawsuit.

  “A decision about social media and smartphone usage without consultation from those deemed to be affected — kids — is doomed to fail because kids always find a way around the rules, bans and blocks,” Pomerantz says. “The point of most of these platforms is that young people can operate outside of adult surveillance, and they’ll continue to do so whether adults like it or not.”

  Assistant Professor Michelle Chen in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film says that while social media platforms may “facilitate and encourage toxic and harmful behaviour,” new technologies are often blamed for broader issues.

  “These are enduring problems seen in many older discussions around new types of media,” Chen says. “Decades ago, action movies and television shows and, later, video games were blamed for promoting aggressive and addictive behaviour in young people.”

  Chen believes that while the current lawsuit will reignite public conversations around social media use and regulation, expecting social media companies to make meaningful changes at the expense of their profit margin may be unrealistic “because their business model hinges on their ability to keep audiences engaged on their platforms for long periods of time regardless of age.”

  Instead, she says public attention would be better focused on digital literacy and empowering young people to understand the impact of social media use.

  “While the lawsuit may be an effective strategy in drawing attention to the need for more regulation, digital literacy education will go a long way toward helping young people navigate social media and better equip them with digital skills for the next ‘big thing’ in technology,” says Chen.

  Assistant Professor Mohammed Estaiteyeh in the Department of Educational Studies asserts that digital literacy is paramount to student success.

  “Social media is a typical if not essential part of today’s students’ lives, and classrooms must reflect that reality and equip students with the skill set to navigate it,” says Estaiteyeh. “The guided use of social media is crucial to teach students about digital citizenship and digital literacies.”

  He suggests that ministries of education and school boards could leverage the use of technology in the classroom by providing devices such as tablets or laptops, ensuring that everyone has equitable access and minimizing the use of personal devices at school.

  “The use of smartphones and the consumption of social media can happen independently of each other,” Estaiteyeh says. “If school-issued devices are available to students, a teacher can use social media creatively in the classroom for teaching and assessment purposes in a carefully monitored and regulated approach. This minimizes distractions and negative consequences and also models proper use of these sites.”

  Associate Professor Karen Louise Smith in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, says the lawsuit signals that “school boards want to make visible and name the kind of harms related to social media apps for young people and school boards.”

  “They are very clearly seeking collective redress in the form of more than $4 billion dollars to support mental health support, curriculum innovation, IT services and other costs school boards face,” she says.

  Smith describes the choice by the Schools for Social Media Change group to engage personal injury firm Neinstein LLP and file the lawsuit is “a bit of a Robin Hood move.”

  “Through this lawsuit, school boards are trying to compel social media companies to pay out some of the massive wealth they’ve accumulated,” she says. “They would redistribute it towards community good, through our public education system.”

  Professor Shauna Pomerantz in Brock’s Department of Child and Youth Studies, Assistant Professor Mohammed Estaiteyeh in the Department of Educational Studies, and Associate Professor Karen Louise Smith and Assistant Professor Michelle Chen, both in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, are available for media interviews on this topic.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Maryanne St. Denis, Manager, Content and Communications, Brock University mstdenis@brocku.ca or 905-246-0256

  – 30 –

  Categories: Media releases