Posted by eporter on May 29, 2025
Prevent Substance Use and Promote Healthy Decision-Making in Mentees: Incorporating Media Literacy Skill-Building Opportunities in Your Program
Mentoring programs have an important opportunity to maximize the benefits of their program for mentees by helping matches become more media literate.
Children and teens today encounter and interact with traditional and digital media more than any generation before. In fact, children eight-years-old and younger spend about two and a half hours with screen media every day, and 60% of their screen time is spent watching television or videos.1 96% of teenagers use internet daily, and 46% report being on the internet almost constantly.2
Given the large quantity of media messages that young people are consuming, it is important to consider how their extensive exposure to media may be affecting them and how young people can be protected from the negative impacts of excessive media consumption. For example, some media contain messages that could be harmful to young people such as advertisements for alcohol or drugs that present products in ways that are attractive to young people without regard for their health or well-being. In addition, television shows or movies may portray unhealthy and unsafe behaviors in fictional romantic relationships that may influence young viewers to adopt harmful beliefs about their own romantic relationships or interests.
How can developing media literacy help mentees?
Developing media literacy can help children and adolescents protect themselves from the negative impacts of harmful media messages. Media literacy education teaches young people how to interpret and critically analyze media messages to determine if the messages are true or false, healthy or unhealthy, and intended to sell something to them or not. Then, they can make more informed, healthy decisions about imitating the media messages they have consumed. For example, when using their media literacy skills to determine the validity and purpose of an alcohol advertisement, children may be less likely to walk away feeling compelled to drink.
Developing, mastering, and utilizing media literacy skills takes a lot of practice before using those skills becomes a habit, and young people can build these skills more effectively with the support of adults. This is why mentoring programs are well positioned to provide media literacy skill-building opportunities for matches. Using the context of a mentoring relationship to teach young people media literacy skills will also provide learning opportunities for both mentees and mentors. Learning new skills together can allow matches to bond, and matches can use their new skills to do activities together.
How can mentoring programs provide media literacy skill-building opportunities for matches?
Mentoring Central is a division of innovation Research & Training (iRT). iRT develops web-based and instructor-led programs that use the power of media literacy education to prevent youth substance misuse, promote sexual health, prevent violence, empower youth to make healthy decisions, and more. iRT’s programs are interactive and strategically designed to be engaging for young people, so they feel motivated to practice new skills they have learned. Below are a few of iRT’s programs that mentoring programs can implement to teach mentors and mentees media literacy skills:
After completing a media literacy education program together, matches can have follow-up conversations about what they have learned and chat about how they have been using their new media literacy skills in their time apart. For example, mentors can tell their mentee about an advertisement they recently saw and ask their mentee what they think of it. Matches could also watch movies or series together that reflect the interests of the mentee and pause to have discussions and critically analyze what they have seen.
By providing media literacy education to matches, mentoring programs can help mentees learn to critically analyze media messages instead of accepting them at face value, which may ultimately, positively impact their health. In addition, mentors and mentees can bond over learning and practicing new skills together, which can help matches thrive. To learn more about iRT’s media literacy education programs for children and teens, visit https://irtinc.us/products/.