about screenagerS Under The Influence

Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston as she picks up her camera once more to examine the impact of our digital age on teens' decision-making in relation to substances such as vaping, drugs, and alcohol.

Exploring the latest research and learning more about the personal experiences of teens and families, the film highlights the changing landscape of the substances themselves, offering solutions for how we can best empower teens as they face decisions about what they will and will not be influenced by.

synopsis

Screenagers Under The Influence: Addressing Vaping, Drugs, and Alcohol in the Digital Age, the third feature documentary in the Screenagers trilogy, delves into how the tech revolution has reshaped adolescence and its effects on substance use. The film debunks myths and depicts strategies parents and schools can use to encourage healthy decision-making, support teen mental health, set limits, and create healthy home environments. The film also includes many ways young people are using their wisdom and strength to help each other and themselves through this complicated terrain around substance use.

While most documentaries about substance use focus on severe addiction, Screenagers Under The Influence fills a pressing need for a film that explores more common scenarios. The film is grounded in teens’ current reality of being flooded by images on social media, movies, and TV shows about vaping, drugs, and alcohol.

Like the first two Screenagers films, Screenagers Under The Influence interweaves cutting-edge science with personal stories to create an informative and entertaining film experience for young people and adults alike. Screenagers Under The Influence focuses on practical solutions for keeping our teens safe in a changing world.

filmmaker

DELANEY RUSTON, MD
Documentary Filmmaker & Primary Care Physician

Delaney Ruston

Delaney Ruston chose her two career paths of primary care physician and documentary filmmaker for one reason: to help create positive change in people’s lives. Her experiences receiving medical care in free clinics while growing up motivated her to pursue health care. During her medicine residency, she began studying filmmaking for social impact and made her first award-winning film.

For twenty years Delaney has split her time between providing primary care and creating short and feature-length documentaries, such as Screenagers. Examples of her other films include Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia about her father and Hidden Pictures about global mental health. These films have been screened widely, aired on PBS, and were at the forefront of advocacy campaigns, including with the World Health Organization. For her work in using films to building movements, Delaney has won several awards including Harvard’s McLean National Council Recognition Award and New York’s Fountain House Advocacy Award.

Delaney trained at Stanford Medical School, followed by a medicine residency at UC San Francisco. She has practiced and taught medicine in diverse settings including faculty positions at The University of Washington School of Medicine and at The Center for Medical Humanities, Bioethics and Compassionate Care at Stony Brook School of Medicine, NY.

Ruston has conducted investigative research in diverse fields—including biophysics at NIH, bioethics, and communication at UCSF and behavioral health as a Fulbright Scholar. She has spent the past six years intensely researching the impact of screen time on youth and solutions for screen time balance.

film team

Delaney Ruston

DELANEY RUSTON, MD
Director / Producer

Delaney is a Stanford-trained physician and long-time social change filmmaker, including the films Screenagers, Screenagers Next Chapter, and  Screenagers Under The Influence. Ruston has made several films on mental health topics as well as short films on substance use issues. Ruston has long paired her film work with creating advocacy campaigns, including working with the World Health Organization, and for these efforts, she has received many awards. In addition, Delaney has been a researcher and teacher at top medical universities and has been providing primary care to underserved teens and adults for the past 20 years in Seattle, Washington. Full bio

Lisa Tabb

LISA TABB
Director / Producer

Lisa is the co-producer of the Screenagers Movies trilogy and co-directed Screenagers Under The Influence. She is a story-telling entrepreneur for more than 30 years. With Ruston, Lisa has sparked a movement around screen time via the Screenagers Movies. These films have thus far brought together over 5 million youth and adults in community screenings in 90 countries.  For 15 years, Tabb produced news at ABC 7 News in San Francisco, focusing on school issues and parenting. For 20 years, Lisa has been involved in educational initiatives in Northern California. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

experts in the film

ANNA LEMBKE, MD

Chief of Stanford Addiction Medicine. Author, Dopamine Nation

YASMIN HURD, PHD

Prof. of Neuroscience, Chief of Hurd Lab, Mount Sinai

LISA DAMOUR, PHD

Psychologist. Author, Under Pressure

BEN DANIELSON, MD

Pediatrician, University of Washington

LAURA KASTNER, PHD

Adolescent and family Psychologist. Author, Getting To Calm

PAM LING, MD

Dir. UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research

KAREN PAVLIDIS PHD

Adolescent Psychologist, University of Washington

NORA VOLKOW, MD

Dir. National Institute on Drug Abuse

SHARON LEVY, MD

Dir. Adolescent Substance Use & Addiction Program. Prof. of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

ALISHA MORELAND-CAPUIA, MD

Prof. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

RENE AYALA

Boys Varsity Soccer Coach, Archie Williams High School

ROBERT K. JACKLER, MD

Sewall Professor & Principal Investigator, Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA)

JOSEPH LABRIE, PHD

Prof. of Psychology, Loyola Marymount University

ROSALIND WISEMAN

Author, Queen Bees and Wannabes.

JUNE P. TANGNEY

Prof. of Psychology, George Mason University

DAVID YEAGER, PHD

Psychology Researcher, University of Texas at Austin

testimonials

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Screenagers Under The Influence provides a concise but comprehensive and engaging film about the impact of alcohol, marijuana, vaping, and substances on adolescent health, (with) up-to-date information that is accurate and from authoritative sources.

Ellen Moorhouse - Executive Director, Student Assistance Services Corporation

The film really shakes up long-held beliefs about what is normal, acceptable, and safe.

Lili Schliesser, Clayton Schools

Wow! I just finished watching Under the Influence. The final line had me in tears - "we are here for them, not to shame them but to help them figure out their best and safest road forward.

Jill Smith, Resource Coordinator, Academy of World Languages, Ohio

"I loved the movie. I thought it was great! The topics covered were appropriate to what we are seeing."

Anthony Ferrandino, Social Worker - Northport School District

“The timing of this movie could not be better or more urgent as we are facing a national youth mental health crisis"

Kelsey Fernandez, Prevention Coalition

Very powerful. Amazing work and amazing messaging.

Elizabeth McGlynn, Executive Director - Girls on the Run of Montgomery County