I wanted to share this podcast episode from Adam Grant. Lisa is a psychologist specializing in teen mental health and was also an advisor for the movie Inside Out 2.
The discussion was insightful in many ways, especially about the need for teens to be connected to peers and their parents and the importance of other adult connections.
Talking about the pandemic’s impact on teens, for example, teens generally used technology to connect to their peers, who were home and connected to their parents. Still, the damage was done by not being around teachers and other adults they would interact with regularly. Those interactions may seem insignificant but mean a lot to an emotionally developing teen. Even just chatting about the weekend games on Monday morning or the weather is integral to teaching these teens about interacting and navigating the adult world. Lacking that, many are having difficulty with feeling a part of the world that surrounds them.
This discussion between Adam and Lisa also got me thinking about what my teen years looked like and how they differ from what today’s teens are dealing with. Yes, social media didn’t exist. There was no internet. I don’t blame teens for using technology to connect. That makes perfect sense. Connecting to peers is a necessity for their mental health. They use the internet like I used my bike when I was 13-16. I connected to my peers by hopping on my bike and meeting them at the mall, a park, their house, etc.
We don’t let teens do that so much anymore. Is it any wonder they use technology to connect? What other options do they have? Where do the teens you know “hang out?” They do it online because they have to. There isn’t an option for unscheduled connections outside of using technology. That’s been one of my concerns about blanket bans on teens using social media. We must provide them with ways to be out in the world, connecting to peers and other adults. How will they connect if we take away the technology they use now?
I needed the ability to go places on my own because I didn’t have the internet. Teens today have much less freedom to go places independently, so we should consider how to keep them connected to society if it’s not online.
Listen to the podcast at the link below: