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Family

Gen Z grew up in a screen-saturated world. They're vowing to raise their kids differently.

As Gen Z approaches parenting age, they say refuse to raise "iPad kids."

young child at a table with an ipad
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Gen Z is planning to take a restrictive approach to their own kids when it comes to screens.

As a parent of three Gen Zers ages 15, 19 and 23, I spent many years fending off children begging, pleading and cajoling for screens and screen time of one sort or another. From around ages 9 to 14 with each child, I fielded question after question and complaint after complaint about them not having a phone and/or the limits my husband and I placed on their screen usage. It was exhausting to stick to our guns on that front (especially with our one child who would make an excellent lawyer). But we held the line, hoping and praying that someday they all would thank us for it.

Sure enough, each one of them has thanked us for it. Phew.

In fact, they've all started talking about how their own kids won't have any screens at all until they really need to, which is more restriction than we placed on them even.


"Good for you!" I tell my them. "And good luck." Their convictions are admirable, but little do they know that it's not as easy as it looks.

As the first full generation to be raised in the internet-enabled, screen-saturated world, Gen Z (approximately ages 11 to 26) has grown up in uncharted waters. Pretty much every adult they've ever known has carried and used a smartphone. Their educations have included hand-held screens from their earliest years, as the "edutainment" industry has exploded. Today's older kids and young adults became tech-savvy very young, they've been marketed to with various addictive apps their entire childhoods and have felt the pressures of social media throughout their formative years.

And Gen Z's parents have had to navigate those uncharted waters, raising kids in an online world we didn't have ourselves as children and struggling mightily to find a balance for them amid the digital chaos,. In an era where parents often need to work and childcare is prohibitively expensive, devices have become the easiest temporary babysitter, and a moderate amount of screen time (whatever "moderate" means) feels practically inevitable. Even the experts no longer have set screen time limit recommendations, but rather encourage parents to be conscious and engaged with what their children are using screens for. (In my former teacher opinion, there's a significant difference between setting up a child with an interactive app that teaches kids math or reading or geography and leaving a child with unbridled access to the internet.)

We also live in a world where people in general use our devices for almost everything and where sites like YouTube can be valuable tools. It's a reality that kids will not just get their own devices eventually, but will actually need to. But when, which one, how much, how often, what to limit and allow at what ages can be overwhelming questions for parents to navigate. Very few of us have managed to strike a balance that feels right. Sometimes I've worried we were being too strict and other times I worried we were too lenient. With each kid, especially when we were thrown into pandemic isolation, determining healthy screen time became more complicated.

But now that a good chunk of Gen Z are officially adults and starting to think about how they want to parent their own kids, they're surprisingly Luddite-like. After years and years of wanting screen time, getting screen time, and seeing how screen time can be filled with pitfalls, and also after observing Gen Alpha's early screen addictions, they don't want the same for their kids.

Interestingly, some Gen Zers are even trying to limit their own screen time by switching to 90s-style flip phones—or "dumb phones" as they now say.

Some are also pleading with their fellow Gen Zers to vow not to raise "iPad kids" who can't behave without having a screen shoved into their hands. Gabe Escobar garnered 25 million views with his "iPad kids" rant, with countless Gen Zers in the comments agreeing with him.

@gabesco

seriously pls we cant let it happen #genz #genalpha #ipadkid

And these Gen Zers aren't just kneejerk-reflex saying they don't want their kids to have screens at all. They understand that technology is a tool we all need and kids need to have access to learn how to use it. But they're watching the struggles of Gen Alpha and seeing how giving kids the excessive amount of screen time that they themselves probably begged their parents for at one point actually impacts them. It's not that they don't want their kids on screens at all, but it appears Gen Z is preparing for their parenting approach with foresight and wisdom, which is great to see.

@hopeyoufindyourdad

@gabesco I am fully on board with what this creator is saying although kids having ipads is a bit inevitable at this point the real issue is regulation and parenting styles #genz #genalpha #millennial #parenting #ipadkid #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen

I just hope they're prepared for how exhausting it is to fight that battle with their kids when the time comes. But at the very least, they can speak from experience when they tell their kids that they'll thank them someday for the limits.

Family

Technology expert shares the one message that can get teens to rethink their screentime

“Social media is free because you pay for it with your time.”

via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Dino Ambrosi speaks at a school assembly.

In a 2023 TEDx Talk at Laguna Blanca School, Dino Ambrosi made a startling revelation that perfectly underlines the big question of the smartphone era: What is my time worth? Ambrosi is the founder of Project Reboot and an expert at guiding teens and young adults to develop more empowering relationships with technology.

Assuming the average person now lives to 90, after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, cooking, eating, doing chores, sleeping, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves.

"How you spend this time will determine the quality of your life,” Ambrosi says. However, given the tech habits of today’s young people, most of those months will be spent staring at screens, leaving them with just 32 months to leave their mark on the world. "Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi says.



dino ambrosi, teens and technology, smartphone addictionAn 18-year-olds remaining time, in months. via TEDx

The idea that an entire generation will spend most of their free time in front of screens is chilling. However, the message has a silver lining. Sharing this information with young people can immediately impact how they spend their time.

How to get teens to reduce their screentime

Ambrosi says his work with Project Reboot through on-campus initiatives, school assemblies, and parent workshops has taught him that teens are more concerned about time wasted on their phones than the damage it may do to their mental health. Knowing the topic that resonates can open the door for an effective dialogue about a topic that’s hard for many young people to discuss. When teens realize they are giving their entire lives away for free, they are more apt to reconsider their relationship with smartphones.

“I actually don't get through to a lot of teens, as well as when I help them realize the value of their time and then highlight the fact that that time is being stolen from them,” Ambrosi told Upworthy.

A Common Sense Media study shows that the average 13 to 18-year-old, as of 2021, spent an average of 8 hours and 39 minutes a day on entertainment screentime.

“It’s important to get them to view time as their most valuable resource that they can use to invest in themselves or enjoy life and tick the boxes on their bucket list. I really want them to see that that's something they should take control of and prioritize because we're all under the impression that social media is free, but it's actually not free. We just pay for it with our time.”

dino ambrosi, project reboot, teens smartphonesDino AMbrosi speaks at Berkeley.via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Ambrosi believes that young people are less likely to hand their time to tech companies for free when they understand its value. “I find that kids really respond to that message because nobody wants to feel manipulated, right? And giving them that sense of being wronged, which I think they have been, by tech companies that are off operating on business models that are not aligned with their well-being, is important.”

He also believes parents should be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when talking to young people about screentime because it’s a struggle that just about everyone faces and feels shame about. A little understanding will prevent them from shutting down the conversation altogether.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

How to reduce my screentime

Ambrosi has some suggestions to help people reduce their screentime.

The ClearSpace app

ClearSpace forces you to take a breathing delay before using a distracting app. It also asks you to set a time limit and allows you to set a number of visits to the site per day. If you eclipse the number of visits, it sends a text to a friend saying you exceeded your budget. This can help people be accountable for one another’s screentime goals.

Don’t sleep with your phone

Ambrosi says to charge your phone far away from your bedside stand when you sleep and use an alarm clock to wake up. If you do have an alarm clock on your phone, set up an automation so that as soon as you turn off the alarm, it opens up an app like Flora or Forest and starts an hour-long timer that incentivizes you to be off your phone for the first hour of the day.

“In my experience, if you can stay off screens for the last hour and the first hour of the day, the other 22 hours get a lot easier because you get the quality rest and sleep that you need to wake up fully charged, and now you're more capable of being intentional because you are at your best," Ambrosi told Upworty.

Keep apps in one place

Ambrosi says to keep all of your social apps and logins on one device. “I try to designate a specific use for each device as much as possible,” he told Upworthy. “I try to keep all my social media time and all my entertainment on my phone as opposed to my computer because I want my computer to be a tool for work.”

Even though there are significant challenges ahead for young people as they try to navigate a screen-based world while keeping them at a healthy distance, Ambrosi is optimistic about the future.

“I'm really optimistic because I have seen in the last year, in particular, that the receptiveness of student audiences has increased by almost an order of magnitude. Kids are waking up to the fact that this is the problem. They want to have this conversation,” he told Upworthy. “Some clubs are starting to address this problem at several schools right now; from the talks I've given this semester alone, kids want to be involved in this conversation. They're creating phone-free spaces on college and high school campuses by their own accord. I just think we have a huge potential to leverage this moment to move things in the right direction.”

For more information on Ambrosi’s programs, visit ProjectReboot.School.

New research shows how to fight misinformation.

The rise of misinformation on social media has been a monumental stress test for the world’s critical thinking skills. Misinformation has had a huge influence on elections, public health and the treatment of immigrants and refugees across the world.

Social media platforms have tried to combat false claims over the past few years by employing fact-checkers, but they haven’t been terribly effective because those who are most susceptible to misinformation don’t trust fact-checkers.

“The word fact-checking itself has become politicized,” Cambridge University professor Jon Roozenbeek said, according to the Associated Press. Further, studies show that when people have incorrect beliefs challenged by facts, it makes them cling to their false assumptions even harder.

These platforms have also attempted to remove posts containing misinformation that violates their terms of service, but this form of content moderation is often seen as insufficient and is often applied inconsistently.


via Mattias Berg/Flickr

How do we combat dangerous misinformation online if removing false claims or debunking them hasn’t been effective enough? A new study published in the journal Science Advances by a team of university researchers and Jigsaw, a division of Google, has found a relatively simple solution to the problem they call “pre-bunking.”

Pre-bunking is an easy way of inoculating people against misinformation by teaching them some basic critical thinking skills. The strategy is based on inoculation theory, a communication theory that suggests one can build resistance to persuasion by exposing people to arguments against their beliefs beforehand.

The researchers learned that pre-bunking was effective after conducting a study on nearly 30,000 participants on YouTube.

“Across seven high-powered preregistered studies including a field experiment on YouTube, with a total of nearly 30,000 participants, we find that watching short inoculation videos improves people’s ability to identify manipulation techniques commonly used in online misinformation, both in a laboratory setting and in a real-world environment where exposure to misinformation is common,” the recently published findings note.

The researchers uploaded videos into YouTube ad slots that discussed different types of manipulative communication used to spread false information such as ad hominem attacks, false dichotomies, scapegoating and incoherence.

Here’s an example of a video about false dichotomies.

Researchers found that after people watched the short videos, they were significantly better at distinguishing false information than they were before. The study was so successful that Jigsaw is looking to create a video about scapegoating and running it in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These countries are all combating a significant amount of false information about Ukrainian refugees.

There’s an old saying, “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach that man to fish and he’ll eat forever.” Pre-bunking does something very similar. We can either play a game of whack-a-mole where social media platforms have to suss out misinformation on a minute-by-minute basis or we can improve the general public’s ability to distinguish misinformation and avoid it themselves.

Further, teaching people to make their own correct decisions about misinformation will be a lot more effective than pulling down content and employing fact-checks. These tactics only drive vulnerable, incredulous people toward misinformation.


This article originally appeared on 8.30.22

Nolan Reid / TikTok

There's an old joke slash meme that goes something like this:

"Guys literally only want one thing and it's disgusting."

Its used to imply, obviously, that men are shallow and crude creatures.

TikTok creator and simple-life advocate Nolan Reid, however, has a different idea of what men really want.



Nolan recently made a video about "Little things in life that make men happy."

The hilarious list includes:

  • A fridge full of beer.
  • Drinking said beer in the garage. With your dog. And a good buddy.
  • Finding a cool stick.
  • Kicking a rock.
  • Staring at water.
  • Dropping rocks into said water.

As a fellow man, I would say: Yeah. That pretty much covers it.

It really doesn't take much! Watch Nolan's full video to see the rest, and just appreciate how much joy and satisfaction he gets from these simple thing.

People loved Nolan's list – so much so that they began adding their own ideas of "simple things men love."

The video racked up hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok and Instagram.

One commenter wrote, "He just described my whole personality." Another added, "This guy gets it."

Others chimed in with their own additions to the list, like staring at a fire for hours. Or just peace and quiet.

But most of the nearly 200 comments were just people chiming in to say one thing:

"Hell yeah."

Finally, someone who understands us.

Nolan's ultra-relaxed vision of "masculinity" is honestly so refreshing.

Men on social media are usually bombarded with the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons of the world, influencers who constantly berate us to make more money, lose weight and add muscle, sleep with more women, take charge, relentlessly self-improve.

I like Nolan's much chiller idea of masculinity. It reminds me of being a kid, taking pleasure in the simple things, not racing to be anywhere, not trying to impress anyone or prove anything.

Nolan's entire account is a breath of fresh air, an antidote to hustle culture. His videos find joy in:

  • Breaking down cardboard boxes
  • Driving at sunset
  • Going fishing
  • Throwing a frisbee
  • Wearing t-shirts
A daily visit to his page is almost like a meditation. I highly recommend giving him a follow to add a little counterprogramming to your social media feed.

Nolan says in another recent video that he started making TikToks and Instagram reels just for fun, but discovered along the way that he was really passionate about the message.

"I never thought that my simple living and love for little things would resonate with so many of you."

He said he hopes to inspire people to "take a step back and enjoy the good simple things in life."

I suddenly have the urge to go chuck a rock into a river, so I would say: Mission Accomplished!

Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester filmed his daughter every week for 20 years.

Anyone who has raised kids knows the truth of the saying, "the days are long, but the years are short." Parenting when you're in the thick of it can feel neverending, but in hindsight, the time goes by too fast. Kids grow and change so constantly, it's hard to keep up. You blink and suddenly your baby becomes a toddler, your toddler becomes a kid, your kid becomes a teen and your teen becomes a full-fledged adult.

As time goes by, you try desperately to document it while also staying in the present. It gets harder with each kid, as life gets busier. (A commonly joked-about reality is how the first baby gets an elaborate baby book and the last baby gets a few photos on a hard drive somewhere.) But one dad purposefully set out from the start to create a record of his daughter's growth and change, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary.


Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester started filming his daughter Lotte for just a handful of seconds a week starting as a newborn. It's the kind of thing a lot of parents might plan to do or start doing but not stick with. Hofmeester kept it up, though, always filming Lotte in front of a plain cloth background. Putting the videos together as he went, he created a time-lapse of her growing up, which has received viral attention multiple times as he's released updated compilations every few years.

In 2019, Hofmeester shared the "Portrait of Lotte 0 to 20 years" video, in which we can see Lotte grow from an infant to an adult in just five minutes.

People found the video surprisingly emotional, even though they don't know Hofmeester or Lotte personally. Indeed, seeing someone's entire childhood zoom through time like this is moving, even if we don't have kids of our own. We've all been through the growing-up process ourselves, we all have a flood of memories from our formative years and we all know how quickly it all goes.

Those of us with kids see our own children in this video, which is even more striking than seeing ourselves.

"I wanted to document the growing up process and create an artistic project we could all enjoy forever," Hofmeester shared in another video. He has also created the same kind of video for his son, Vince. In an article in The Guardian, Hofmeester explained why he decided to dedicate himself to the project:

"When Lotte was born, she was changing at such a rapid pace, and I was desperate to keep the memories intact. As any parent knows, the difference between a child at two days old and two months old is startling. When Vince was born, I started filming him too. Other people might make a photo book, but I decided to film. This is the most photographed and filmed generation ever, but what are we actually doing with these pictures? They just sit in a file on the computer. I wanted to try and convey the essence of my children, of how they look to me. We don't often look at the photographs we take, not in the same way that an artist would look at his paintings."

Lotte is now 22, and Hofmeester shared a yearly version of her growing-up compilation just a few months ago. In this one, we get to see her on each birthday, saying a few words (in Dutch, of course). It's amazing to see the differences from year to year.

"One of the reasons that the project has had such an impact, I think, is because it's very moving," Hofmeester wrote. "People are touched by it because it conveys a feeling of the soul. They've written to me about their own children. The film makes you realise what life is about, in a direct way."

Imagine being able to see your whole childhood documented this way, or to have a record of your kids' growing-up years that was so succinct. What a lovely gift this father and filmmaker has created for his children—and for the rest of us as well.


This article originally appeared on 2.3.22

Health

Trying to guess which twin smokes is the perfect way to help you quit

Nobody would call smoking “glamorous” after seeing these comparisons.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

Which twin smoked?

It's not revolutionary news that smoking wreaks havoc on your body in different ways. More often than not, however, the focus of anti-smoking campaigns is on your internal health, citing emphysema, heart disease, and lung cancer, to name just a few consequences.

While the superficial effects may not be as lethal, appealing to people's sense of vanity can have a powerful effect as this clever gallery below shows. Twins, only one of whom smokes, sit side by side, showing the profound damage smoking can cause to your face, hair, and teeth.

The twins' circumstances vary in each set of pictures, but the differences and effects are undeniable. In some instances, one of the twins never smoked. In others, the "smoking" twin had smoked for at least five years longer than the other "non-smoking" twin.

Though they're not common knowledge, the effects of smoking on your appearance are predictable and consistent. You can identify a smoker with ease if you know what you're looking for. Harmful smoke, dehydration, and even the heat from a burning cigarette can damage your complexion, hair, and eyes. The photos below helpfully point out the symptoms and effects on the smoking twin.


The photos here were taken from those of 79 pairs of identical twins at the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. Though they weren't taken with this use in mind, that allows them to serve as an even more powerful testament to the effects as perceived by casual observers.

1. The eyes are a strong "tell" if someone's a smoker or not. In this photo, the smoker is the man on the right. He has smaller, more sunken eyes and carries more wrinkles throughout his face than his twin on the left. You'll also notice his hairline has receded further than his brother's. That's a little-known though hardly surprising effect of smoking habitually.

health, danger of smoking, studies on smoking, mental health

Can you tell the smoker?

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

2. Here, the difference is profound. Though they're the same age, they look almost like they represent different generations. The smoking twin on the right has done so for 16 years, and it's manifested in a number of ways. Most noticeable is the pervasive discoloration of her skin compared to her twin on the left. Less noticeable, but still apparent, is the damage done to her lips, eyes, and even her hair. It's difficult to believe they're even related, let alone twins.

aging, health benefits, clean living, cancer

Did I get this one wrong?

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

3. This comparison is less glaring but still apparent. The twin on the left is the smoker. You can see many more pronounced wrinkles on her forehead, under her eyes, and around her nose. There are also pronounced bags under her eyes.

skin aging, medicine, medical insurance, damaged hair

Some differences are more subtle than others.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

4. In this comparison, the smoking twin only smokes about two cigarettes per day, so the difference will be less profound. The twin on the right is the smoker. The differences are on the subtle side, mostly the more damaged hair and the squintier eyes.

twins, research, studies

Smoking can cause a receding hair line.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.


5. Based on what you've read in the earlier side by side pics, you might be able to ID the right twin as the smoker due to the discolored and receding hair as well as the aged skin.

wrinkles, aging, smoking

Smoking appears to cause more gray.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

6. These two twins are both elderly, so the differences are slightly less pronounced. Though the left twin has more graying hair, it's the right twin that's the smoker. She's got a droopier face, especially on the outside of the eyes. The wrinkles are also more pronounced in the brow and upper lip.

wrinkles, skin, health

The hallmarks of smoking apparent on the skin.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

7. Though the two sisters here are also older, it's easier to distinguish the smoker. The left sister bears the hallmarks all over her skin. Her cheek, outer eye, and neck all look weathered from her habit. Not only is she more wrinkled, but the skin has begun to discolor from the fair tone her sister has.

discoloration of skin, dermatology, identifying factors

Wrinkles around the lips distinguish the smoker.

Image via Wolters Kluwer Health.

8. Here it's pretty difficult to tell. The woman on the left is the smoker. She sports slightly discolored lips that are upon inspection, more wrinkled than her sister's. Since the lips are the most proximate to the smoke, they are a pretty telling feature when it comes to identifying smokers.

The pics above show a lot of singular traits that can call out a smoker, but it can be a lot more simple than that. Speaking to the NY Daily News, dermatologist Elizabeth Tanzi from George Washington Medical Center dispenses with the jargon, stating, "Smoking makes you look old. That's all there is to it."


This article originally appeared on 11.01.16