Brett Woods:
Well, I think one and I really appreciate that the NCAA presents itself with the Draw the Line campaign. What you are starting to see, you know, during the 5, 10, 15 years with the increase in social media, is that it has a very big impact on our students athletes in mental health and well-being.
So, some of the things I like to educate the athletes I work with is that how much you use social media can of course affect your mental well-being. So when we arrive at around this brand of three hours or more, we see rates of anxiety, depression increase, we see that self -alienation and others increases.
You therefore have the influence of social media above fans who have financially financially interest and game results, I think I am ripe for affecting the type of mental health and well-being of our athlete students. You have fans who now reach out in a way and platforms that did not exist five, 10 years ago via Instagram and Twitter or X and other types of social media platforms.
And because of what they have online. This is one thing when we dressed in our team equipment and we celebrate, we are delighted. But when you put money on the line, it goes beyond the ego, it goes into other forms of risk and reward.
And so when these bettors, when they lose this money, it activates this part of our brain or our body that threatens us and we are more likely to harass or say and do things that we would not generally have and would not do in our normal life.
Thus, one of the terms we have in the world of psychology is the idea of morality in hooks. This idea in the context of sport, when money is at stake, we suspend our moral beliefs and our values and we may be useful to be good and decent people most of the time. But in this type of context, people say and do things that they would not generally do it because they have lost something and they enter this threat mode.