Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy of Connecticut’s theater department will be tackling the increasingly important issue of social media usage amongst teenagers and invite the community to join in the conversation.
On Sunday, October 22, BCHA and the upper school BCHA Players will host a live performance of “Me, My Selfie & I,” the award-winning, funny, and poignant one-act dramedy about a group of teens struggling to find the balance between documenting their lives and living them. The show starts at 3 p.m. and tickets are $10. To purchase tickets, visit buytickets.at/bcha.
For Janice Chaikelson, theater director at BCHA, there was a very important reason for choosing this show. “I knew it was content students could relate to both as actors and as audience members,” Chaikelson said. “It’s great to create good entertainment, but it’s that much better when everyone involved can walk away feeling like they learned something.”
While the show is highly anticipated, BCHA have stepped it up a notch. After the show, there will be a panel discussion with mental health professionals who will discuss best practices for phone, computer and social media usage among students.
“We are fortunate to have a great group of diverse professionals to join this panel discussion,” said Dr. Ariel Gershon, director of School Services, school psychologist and moderator for the panel discussion. “Our panelists will cover a variety of phone and social media issues, including mental health implications of social media use, appropriate phone ‘hygiene,’ pressure to present a certain way online, technology addiction, and parent phone behavior and its influence. Each of our panelists comes with a unique professional background and expertise, making for an insightful and informative discussion.”
In addition, the discussion will include a very important Q&A session, where audience members can interact with the panel of experts.
“The misuse of technology today by young people can have devastating effects on themselves and each other,” said Rabbi Tzvi Bernstein, head of school. “It can impair their current mental health and in an increasing number of cases, limit opportunities in the future. This program gives an important perspective for parents on the pressures that our children are under as a result of the technology that is readily accessible to them in general, and in particular, built into their smartphones. This perspective is critical to protecting their emotional health and the opportunities available to them in the future.”
