What Are You Turning On?: The Science of How Media Affects Us

What Are You Turning On?: The Science of How Media Affects Us

75% of scientific study participants felt better after doing one thing with their smartphones for two weeks. That's significant! And just the beginning. Producing this episode changed how I watch what I watch. I go deep into what the science actually says about how media shapes us. Mentally, emotionally, physically. I dove into six decades of research. What I found is scary, mindblowing, and empowering. In Episode 2 of Convos about Conscious Media, I walk through the science of how media reshapes us: George Gerbner’s Mean World Syndrome (heavy TV viewers believe the world is more dangerous than it actually is), narrative transportation (absorbed viewers adopt a story’s attitudes and carry them into real life), and the prosocial media research: over 100 studies, 22,000 participants, confirming that what we watch can measurably increase compassion, generosity, and helping behavior. The question isn’t whether media affects us. That science is settled. The question is what we choose to turn on next. I think you should turn this one on. Topics: smartphone study · Mean World Syndrome · narrative transportation · prosocial media research · embodied simulation · cortisol and inspiring media · emotional contagion · "you are what you watch." → Shape the future, take the founding audience survey (I read every response) and Subscribe: consciousmediaconvos.com [http://consciousmediaconvos.com] Follow Convos: IG / FB / TikTok / Substack: @consciousmediaconvos X: @cmediaconvos Photo: Jen Serena / @serenacreative Editor: Drew Unser / @cdrewunser-editor Music: Simon Jomphe Lepine via Storyblocks a conscious media visionaries production

What Is Conscious Media? You Know It When You See It

Nobody fully agrees on what conscious media is. Not the festival directors, not the filmmakers making it, not the audiences watching it, not the researchers who study it… If you've ever finished a movie or a show and just sat there — not stunned, just changed — you already know what conscious media is. You just didn't have the name for it. You're not alone. There are over 100 million of us in the U.S. and even more globally, and almost nobody knows the name of the genre we love watching. In this first episode of Convos about Conscious Media, host Kia Kiso-Brennan walks the territory we've all been wandering. She brings you the working definitions and then explains why every one of them ends up at the same place: "You know it when you see it." From a moment crouched behind a Stage 24 set at Warner Bros. — where a single question reshaped her career — to the question this whole show exists to answer together: what is media that positively shapes our lives and envisions a future we want to live in? And how do we find more of it? The premise of the show: Definition by conversation, episode by episode, we map it out together. This is where the convos start. Topics: defining conscious media · conscious media vs. SIE · faith-based media · the food-spectrum metaphor · industry voices · specific titles that qualify · the big question that wouldn't leave. → Shape the future, take the founding audience survey (I read every response): consciousmediaconvos.com [http://consciousmediaconvos.com] → Subscribe at consciousmediaconvos.com [http://consciousmediaconvos.com] Follow Convos: IG / FB / TikTok / Substack: @consciousmediaconvos X: @cmediaconvos Photo: Jen Serena / @serenacreative Sound edit: Dave Barnaby, MPSE Graphic animation: Drew Unser / @cdrewunser-editor Music: Simon Jomphe Lepine via Storyblocks a conscious media visionaries production