September 2014


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Are Young People Losing the Ability to Read Emotions?


The Hampton Roads Messenger 5


Dominion Resources, Dominion Foundation Select Recipients to Share


$1.3 Million In Education Grants K-12 and Higher Education grants focus on energy, environment and workforce development


RICHMOND, Va. - More than 100 BY STUART WOLPERT UCLA scientists found that


sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions


than


five days in their ability to read facial emotions and other nonverbal cues to emotion, compared with the students who continued to use their media devices.


Researchers tracked how many sixth-graders from


the same school who continued to spend hours each day looking at their electronic devices.


“Many people are looking at the


benefits of digital media in education, and not many are looking at the costs,” said Patricia Greenfield, a distinguished professor of psychology in the UCLA College and senior author of the study. “Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues — losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people — is one of the costs. The displacement of in-person social interaction by screen interaction seems to be reducing social skills.”


The research will be in the October


print edition of Computers in Human Behavior and is already published online.


The psychologists studied two


sets of sixth-graders from a Southern California public school: 51 who lived together for five days at the Pali Institute, a nature and science camp about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, and 54 others from the same school. (The group of 54 would attend the camp later, after the study was conducted.)


Phone-free zone The camp doesn’t allow students


to use electronic devices — a policy that many students found to be challenging for the first couple of days. Most adapted quickly, however, according to camp counselors.


At the beginning and end of the


study, both groups of students were evaluated for their ability to recognize other people’s emotions in photos and videos. The students were shown 48 pictures of faces that were happy, sad, angry or scared, and asked to identify their feelings.


They also watched videos of actors


interacting with one another and were instructed to describe the characters’ emotions. In one scene, students take a test and submit it to their teacher; one of the students is confident and excited, the other is anxious. In another scene, one student is saddened after being excluded from a conversation.


The children who had been at the camp improved significantly over the


errors the students made when attempting to identify the emotions in the photos and videos. When analyzing the photos, for example, those at the camp made an average of 9.41 errors at the end of the study, down from 14.02 at the beginning. The students who didn’t attend the camp recorded a significantly smaller change. For the videos, the students who went to camp improved significantly, while the scores of the students who did not attend camp showed no change. The findings applied equally to both boys and girls.


No substitute for face-to-face


contact "You can’t learn nonverbal


emotional cues from a screen in the way you can learn it from face-to-face communication,” said lead author Yalda Uhls, a senior researcher with the UCLA’s Children’s Digital Media Center, Los Angeles. “If you’re not practicing face-to-face communication, you could be losing important social skills.”


Students participating in the


study reported that they text, watch television and play video games for an average of four-and-a-half hours on a typical school day. Some surveys have found that the figure is even higher nationally, said Uhls, who also is the Southern California regional director of Common Sense Media, a national nonprofit organization.


Greenfield, director of the CDMC,


considers the results significant, given that they occurred after only five days.


She said the implications of the research are that people need more face-to-face interaction, and that even when people use digital media for social interaction, they’re spending less time developing social skills and learning to read nonverbal cues.


what


“We’ve shown a model of more


face-to-face interaction


can do,” Greenfield said. “Social interaction is needed to develop skills in understanding the emotions of other people.”


Uhls said that emoticons are


a poor substitute for face-to-face communication: “We are social creatures. We need device-free time.”


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schools and educational institutions in nine states and the District of Columbia have been chosen to receive education grants totaling more than $1.3 million from the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources, for the 2014-2015 academic year. "This year's projects are exceptional and reflect both Dominion's focus on the environment and the future of energy," said Hunter A. Applewhite, president of the Dominion Foundation. "We are privileged to invest in these innovative efforts and to partner with the forward- looking them."


teachers who are leading Dominion's K-12 Education


Partnership program will give 77 schools up to $10,000 each to fund projects related to energy and the environment. The Higher Education Partnership program will award 39 college


and post-secondary schools


up to $50,000 each to underwrite projects in energy, environmental studies, engineering and workforce development. Nearly 300 grant applications were considered. Recipient schools and educational organizations


are


Forte Jazz and energetic


FROM PAGE 1 performances as the


trademark of the Forte experience. Performing a wide variety of popular jazz music and original compositions, and remaining a group of true friends, it is no wonder that the group has been together making great music (with the original members) for almost 20 years.


Forte is a very versatile group.


Recently, the band performed in concert with Chris Botti at the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News, VA. Whatever your live musical needs, they can handle it. "We can play anything, but we're primarily a jazz band, so if you want to have a four-hour knock-down-drag-out Top 40 dance, we're not the group for you," says saxophonist Brian Pinner. "But we've been in many situations where functions have shifted gears midstream and turned into a more "lively" situation. That's when we break out our "funkmaster" hats and do what we have to do to keep the patrons happy." You name it - solo saxophone, sax and keys, trio with sax, keys, and drums, or full eight-piece band with vocals, Forte can configure to fit your needs.


During the years that the group


has been together, Forte has performed for just about every type of function imaginable. They’ve been involved with television, radio, star-studded events, major corporate affairs, and also events where they themselves were the celebrities. In 2001, they shared top billing at a concert featuring vibraphonist Roy Ayers and that same year, released their first single on Arrow Records titled “5 For 3 To 1 (We Three Kings).” This first release received moderate airplay. Also in 2002, they were chosen as the opening act for crooner Will Downing. Pretty


located in


Connecticut, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Grant recipients include:


Christopher Newport


University in Newport News, will be awarded $30,000 for a student-led Campus Sustainability


project


Roanoke-Chowan Community College in Ahoskie, NC, will be awarded $20,000 to develop and maintain a virtual welding program, training more students while using less energy and raw materials during instruction.


Paul D. Camp Community


College, Franklin, VA, will be awarded $25,000 to develop a Solar Array for Experiential Learning


Thomas Nelson Community


College, Hampton, will be awarded $25,000 for the Renovation of Trades Training Center


the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic


The grants are given by arm


of Dominion


Resources, the parent company of Dominion Virginia/North Carolina Power, Dominion East Ohio, Dominion Hope, and Millstone Power Station in Connecticut.


cool for a group of homeboys from small-town Smithfield.


Speaking of small towns, we


would be remiss to omit mention of the award winning high school band and music programs at Smithfield and Surry High Schools which produced five members of the Forte family. There have been several directors at both schools over the years, but both programs came into their own and flourished in the late ‘70s and into the ‘80s under the leadership of Mr. James E. Carver Jr. (Smithfield) and Mr. George Fauntleroy (Surry), both Norfolk State University graduates. Through their leadership, students from all walks of life learned about music and many valuable life concepts such as discipline, responsibility, integrity, leadership, winning, AND losing. Forte would like to thank everyone who contributed to and participated


in these organizations


because we realize that the concepts and valuable lessons learned in school contributed greatly to the way Forte plays, works, sounds, and treats our fellow man.


Although this early training has a


lot to do with what Forte is all about, there’s another factor that is a large contributor to the aura surrounding the group. A substantial faith base and spirituality can be found throughout the Forte family. This faith-based upbringing is evident in all of Forte’s endeavors. As with any business, the music industry has its share of questionable dealings. Forte is proud to say that it conducts its business in an honest and straightforward manner. “It has been said that we’re too good to be true,” says Manager Brian Pinner, “because we come at you straight and we’re always willing to help.” This upbringing can also be heard in Forte’s music where at anytime during a performance, the group might break out into a rendition of “Amazing Grace” or “Goin’ Up Yonder”. Also,


FORTE JAZZ PAGE 15


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