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Young People, Mental Health and Forest Bathing [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-30
The world is a hostile place for most everyone right now and there is nothing fascism funds and feeds on more than stoking fear and hopelessness. As a result, entire populations are at best miserable and most young people (0-30) get up every day to a world of wraparound doomscrolling.
What can we do about that without a magic cheque book . . . more than many might expect, just through consistently replacing the ugly and looping with the hopeful and open-ended.
Supporting students’ mental health with the hopeful and open-ended is part of my work and there are a range of approaches that work well in a variety of contexts including high school students, university students and young activists. These can’t replace seeing a mental health expert when struggling but aim to help to prevent young people from becoming stressed and demotivated.
There is nothing much involved beyond social construction’s ‘apprentice model’ but approaches tailored to young people can place emphasis on visual and/ or ambient delivery, often encourage reflexive engagement and may favour freedom to roam, which are the exact opposite of how media shapes information.
However, we are all familiar with visiting art galleries and, thanks to Banksy, we can easily spot some of the available learning processes. Another relevant comparison is ‘forest bathing’, where we know that time spent in favourable environments can help with time spent in hostile environments. Access to a wilderness helps, but the ‘forest’ or ‘park’ can take many forms.
More generally, ‘the Snapchat generation’ or ‘Gen Z’ wants info served fast and in bite-sized portions. The Ukrainian and Iranian galleries in the linked content, much like Indivisible’s Truth Brigade, show plenty of mostly young activists already routinely target audiences with various types of images.
I’ve some examples of approaches I’ve used concerning support for mental health available on my personal site or Flicker pages, which are linked below. Please note a gallery of content is usually distributed over months and mixed with topical content. Trying to scan the lot all at once may make your brain explode ever so slightly :)
A rough take on how the content applies approaches to support mental health can be broken down into these loosely defined areas:
Climate confidence (Solutions and participation)
Uncertainty into identity (Developing self-appraisal)
Isolation into connectivity (Gaining a voice)
Clarity (Clear contrasts and differentiation)
Reflexive thought (Introspection and abstract thought)
Some galleries emphasise a particular area, others contribute to multiple areas.
Joining in
Easy options for applying these approaches to encouraging young people and building trust over time include:
Avoiding adding to the ugly. Why post a pic of Trump when you could post HIMARS/ wildflowers/ otters instead?
Adding some (more) poets/ artists/ musicians/ cartoonists/ history/ wildlife to your feed.
Posting and sharing the awesome, amazing and uplifting.
Sourcing and sharing ‘straight to the point’ memes.
Sourcing and adding more images to posts and feeds.
Connecting comment to action.
Sharing more and sharing in teams.
The majority of the images I’ve used are from free or cheap sources such as Pixabay, Unsplash and Creative Market, or from sites that allow non-commercial use of their images such as Stand with Ukraine. A bit of design can be speeded up using ‘click and go apps’ like Adobe Express, but I’ve posted far more quick, scrappy memes than those now tidied into galleries. That said getting hold of a few glossy images can be helpful in dealing with visitors who might declare everything WOKE! and go no further. For instance, even among MAGA Valkyries always slay old guys dressed in white hoodie man frocks.
Color the Sky (All galleries)
Flickr (Downloads for personal and ethical use)
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