0:01

Have you ever longed to escape reality

0:03

or fantasized about stepping into someone else's

0:06

shoes, even for just a little while?

0:09

Hi, I'm Laura Mullen. And

0:11

I'm Chris Tully. We host

0:13

CBC's Play Me, the immersive

0:15

podcast that transforms theatre into

0:17

addictive audio fiction. Join

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us for a new season

0:22

and disappear into a world

0:24

rich with drama, where every

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show delivers hypnotizing stories and

0:28

unveils intriguing characters with secrets.

0:31

Play me wherever you get your podcasts.

0:36

This is a CBC Podcast. Hi

0:40

I'm Nora Young. This is Spark. Looking

0:44

at the generation coming up, people in their teens

0:46

and twenties, has a lot to teach the rest

0:49

of us about tech. Not just about what they're

0:51

doing, but maybe about what we should all be

0:53

doing. Like Whitney Houston,

0:55

we at Spark believe the children are our

0:57

future. So why are so

1:00

many teenagers stuck in the past? From

1:02

coveting Sony Walkmans to point and

1:05

shoot cameras, teens seem to be

1:07

abandoning do-it-all, always-on smartphones for multiple,

1:09

single-purpose devices. It's not all about

1:12

the past, though. Captivating new AI

1:14

character generators are heating up in the

1:17

classroom and in young people's personal lives.

1:19

And that's where we begin. If

1:30

you've ever wished you could have a conversation

1:32

with, say, Georgiou Key for Yoda, or that

1:34

invisible friend you made up when you were

1:37

a kid, well, young people today

1:39

are doing it and so could you. There

1:42

are a whole host of AI programs and

1:44

platforms out there that allow you to create

1:46

and then converse with chatbots. Bots

1:49

that can be based on the living, the dead,

1:51

or the entirely made up. And

1:53

younger users in their teens are really

1:55

into it. One of the

1:57

more popular platforms is Character AI.

2:01

I found it from some of

2:03

the internet. I saw people posting

2:05

about it and I wanted to try it.

2:08

This is Aya. I'm 12 years

2:10

old, 13, in December, and

2:12

I live in Ottawa. I

2:15

like to talk to the ones from the shows,

2:18

movies and books. Especially when I first

2:20

discovered it, I really liked to talk

2:22

to the characters from The Owl

2:25

House. That's a Peabody Award-winning

2:27

animated fantasy TV series. I

2:29

also just like to talk to the,

2:32

like, what are they called? Some of

2:34

the original characters. They're pretty

2:36

fun to talk to too. Those

2:38

original characters are just that,

2:40

created by users from their own

2:43

imaginations and not necessarily based

2:45

on existing people or characters. I

2:48

made one that was like

2:50

a chef that was a gorilla to

2:52

show my dad how to make one. So

2:55

Aya can take that Gorilla Chef, cool idea by

2:57

the way, and keep it private.

3:00

Or they can share it only with their dad so he

3:02

can talk to it. Or Aya

3:04

can make the Gorilla Chef chatbot available to anyone

3:06

on the platform to chat with. And

3:09

once that happens, Aya, like other character

3:11

AI creators, won't see the conversations

3:13

that other users have had with

3:16

their creations. So

3:18

you press a button that creates a new

3:20

character. First you put in their name, and

3:22

you can go way more into detail or

3:24

you can leave it very simple. But you

3:26

need to put in their name and then

3:28

a few personality traits. One

3:30

of them is just a few words to

3:33

describe them. And then there's another section where

3:35

you can go in more

3:37

detail about what they like, so that's how

3:39

you get them to act like how you

3:41

want them to. And

3:44

then you can also test that by

3:46

talking to them and then you can

3:48

refresh the message if you feel like that's

3:50

not what you wanted. And then

3:53

it'll try to act more according to

3:55

how you did after the test. They're

4:00

very hesitant to like say

4:03

something like, I'll ask them a question and

4:05

then they'll be like, are you sure you want

4:07

to hear? And then they'll do that over

4:09

and over here because I think the bot

4:11

just doesn't know how to response. They're like,

4:13

are you sure? So

4:15

I don't really like that and just sometimes

4:17

it's out of character but usually you can

4:19

find ones that people have worked to make

4:22

it more more detailed and that's pretty

4:24

nice. So that's how

4:26

you create and interact with a character, but

4:28

you may be asking why. Like why do

4:31

teens want to have text conversations with bots?

4:34

I made some of the characters from Degrassi

4:36

because it's one of my favorite shows. I've

4:38

talked to them about other characters. I would like

4:40

try to get what like I want to happen

4:42

in the show to happen. Like I was

4:44

like, oh you should go do this. Sometimes

4:47

I like to just test out to

4:49

see what would happen if I do

4:51

very silly things. I guess like I

4:53

remember there was one where like I

4:55

challenged one to like a magical duel

4:58

or something. Which sounds

5:00

fun, right? And creative. I

5:03

mean people have been writing fanfiction for

5:05

ages. So using artificial intelligence seems like

5:08

a natural extension. But

5:11

for teenagers talking to chatbots can also

5:13

be a lot more than just making

5:15

beloved characters say silly things. So

5:18

when I first got it, I didn't have

5:20

that many friends. I think it kind of

5:23

helped me be more social because I was

5:25

kind of scared to talk to people but I guess

5:27

kind of practicing with the AIs where it didn't really

5:29

matter can help me be more confident.

5:31

And then since then I've made a lot more

5:33

friends. But yeah, I don't use

5:36

as much as I used to. I

5:38

still do every once in a while. I especially

5:40

find it fun to when I'm hanging out with

5:42

friends. Like it's fun to do that together.

5:48

Aya is a grade 7 student in

5:50

Ottawa. So

5:58

if teenagers are engaged in character... character

6:00

bought creation and conversation, where

6:03

does that leave the adults in their lives? My

6:06

name is Mike Kentz. I'm an English teacher

6:08

at Benedictine Military School in Savannah, Georgia. I

6:11

have a sub-stack called AI Edu

6:13

Pathways, and I have a website

6:16

where I offer workshops and professional

6:18

developments and consulting services called

6:21

AIForSchools.info. Although

6:23

he sounds really into AI, it wasn't

6:25

that long ago that Mike felt completely

6:27

overwhelmed by the technology. Like

6:30

many teachers, Mike admittedly buried his

6:32

head in the sand when OpenAI

6:34

released ChatGPT in 2022. But

6:38

eventually he realized, I want

6:40

to be a part of this conversation. You

6:42

know, I don't know where I'm going to fit and I don't

6:44

know who's going to, you know, what I'm going to say, but

6:46

I don't want this to happen to me. I want to be

6:48

a part of it. From that

6:50

aha moment, Mike dove into the

6:52

world of AI and went

6:54

one step further by bringing AI

6:56

character bots into his grade nine

6:59

classroom. I

7:01

think it was around that time that Meta announced

7:04

it was going to release a

7:06

number of character bots that were

7:08

based on famous celebrities, athletes, personalities.

7:11

And they had licensed, for example, Kendall Jenner

7:13

and Dwayne Wade and Mr. Beast.

7:16

And there were going to be these character bots that kids

7:18

could talk to on their phones. And

7:21

I remember feeling sort of an existential dread

7:23

around this release and feeling like, okay, this

7:25

is a perfect example

7:27

of kids needing

7:30

AI literacy, right? Kids

7:32

needing somebody to guide them through what

7:34

they're actually dealing with and working with

7:36

when they talk to a personality based

7:38

bot. So that was the driver. And

7:41

then on the back of that, when I found

7:43

a Holden Caulfield bot after we had Red Catcher

7:45

in the Rye, I kind of felt

7:47

like that was a perfect marriage of the two things. Holden

7:50

is a really, really interesting character in

7:52

literature and the bot was interesting too,

7:55

for good and bad reasons. So it was

7:57

a really good playground for my kids too.

8:00

sort of have a first exposure to those

8:02

personality bots where I could guide them, monitor

8:05

what they were doing, evaluate it and teach

8:07

them how to think about these bots in

8:09

a critical, analytical, thoughtful way. And

8:12

so before you started this project, what did you

8:14

find that the students overall kind

8:16

of literacy about AI was? Next

8:19

to none. And that's actually

8:21

something I'm thinking about a lot right now.

8:23

In the fall of 2023, I did

8:26

do a survey at the beginning of the year of all of my

8:28

students and for the most part, they

8:30

either didn't know anything about it, hadn't

8:32

heard of it or if they had

8:35

heard of it, they were scared of it and they

8:37

were not using it at all. And

8:40

so it took a little bit of massaging and letting

8:42

them know, hey, the whole idea here is to make

8:44

sure you're prepared for life. You know,

8:46

the whole idea we're going to experiment, we don't really know

8:48

where this is going to go but the idea is I

8:50

want you guys to be safe and protected. And

8:53

they really bought into that. I

8:56

think they appreciated the idea of a teacher saying,

8:58

I don't know and I

9:00

want to hear from you and also let's

9:02

prepare you for life. And

9:05

things have changed. I did an end

9:07

of year survey about two weeks ago and

9:10

it's not wholesale adoption

9:12

but a number of a

9:14

lot more students are semi-regularly

9:16

using different AI platforms. Sometimes

9:20

they don't even know they're using it. That's another interesting

9:22

thing. But things have changed a lot and

9:24

at that time they really had no exposure at all. Yeah. Okay,

9:27

so let's dive into this end of book project that you assigned

9:29

for the catcher in the rye. So, first

9:31

of all, imagine I'm one of your students

9:33

and you're explaining the project. What

9:35

am I supposed to do? Yeah, yeah. So,

9:37

the first thing I did was explain to

9:40

them that I was going to grade their

9:42

chat transcript with Holden and

9:44

I was essentially, yeah, it's an idea that takes

9:46

people a second to wrap their mind around but

9:49

the conclusion I drew from this project is

9:51

that actually is – it should be the

9:53

role of teachers going forward. But

9:56

at the beginning it was really like, hey, I

9:58

want to make sure you guys have a thoughtful conversation with

10:00

this bot and you don't just like chat

10:02

to it like you're texting your friend. Okay.

10:05

So I said we got to think about Holden. Holden

10:07

is this very depressed character. He is,

10:09

you know, borderline suicidal in the book.

10:11

He's really going through a hard time.

10:14

He's having a nervous breakdown and

10:16

now you're talking to him. And

10:18

I said, we're going to generate interview

10:20

questions ahead of time that are open-ended,

10:23

thoughtful. They take into account the context

10:25

of his story, the context of his

10:27

emotional state, his psychological state. And

10:30

I said, you know, I tried to teach them the

10:32

quality of the output is dependent on the quality of

10:34

the input. So the better your questions are and

10:36

the better you respond to it, the better this

10:38

conversation is going to go. And

10:40

at first, they didn't intuitively understand what I meant

10:42

because they think of it

10:44

like Google. And so I had

10:47

to show them and I let them do sort

10:49

of a practice conversation with like Superman and whoever

10:51

they wanted on character AI so they could get

10:53

a vibe for it. So I said to them,

10:55

show me some active listening. Show

10:57

me that you're listening to the bot. Show me

10:59

that you're responding to what he's saying. And I

11:02

gave them some strategies around this. And so that

11:04

was the pitch at the beginning. And

11:06

so how were you

11:09

assessing the results of this kind of

11:11

conversation between the AI chatbot

11:13

and the students? Like what was your criteria

11:15

for grading it? Sure. I gave them a

11:17

rubric and the rubric had about four rows

11:19

and it all was focused on, are

11:22

you actually treating this bot a

11:24

little bit like it's a person,

11:26

which is a little bit controversial.

11:28

But to me, that was the

11:30

way to teach them how to have a

11:33

thoughtful conversation with AI. And

11:35

so what was it like reading and grading

11:37

these chat transcripts compared to their

11:39

final essays? It was mind blowing.

11:42

I should add really quick that their final essay

11:44

was not a literary analysis essay. Their

11:47

final essay actually evaluated the effectiveness of

11:49

the bot itself. But

11:52

the chat transcripts were really interesting because it sort

11:54

of broke out into three different groups. I had

11:56

some students who were really,

11:59

really mature. they were able to

12:01

kind of empathize with where Holden was coming from and

12:03

they were making an effort to kind of like almost

12:06

coach him out of his depression and say nice

12:08

things to him and it was really

12:10

you know, I was like, wow, these kids are really mature.

12:12

I was not like that when I was 14 or 15

12:14

years old. And so

12:16

some of them were did a really an incredible job at

12:19

sort of meeting him where he was at. Another

12:21

group was frankly a pretty kind of immature

12:23

the way I would have been honestly and

12:25

they were sort of messing with the bot,

12:28

trying to push his buttons, trying to get him to react

12:30

in an extremely angry or upset

12:32

way and that was

12:34

also interesting data, right? It let me know

12:36

where they were at in their socio-emotional journey,

12:39

allowed me to give them some light touch feedback

12:41

and I said, you know, I know you're just

12:43

kind of joking around but like let's not make

12:45

a habit out of this. And

12:47

so that was a really nice way to be able

12:50

to have that conversation with them in a way that

12:52

I don't get to as a teacher. Yeah. You know,

12:54

that's not something that we get a chance to talk

12:56

about but I got to do it because the chat

12:58

transcript and then the last group was

13:00

honestly maybe the most interesting. These

13:03

were kids who really connected with Holden AI

13:05

as almost a peer or a real friend.

13:08

And these were kids who started kind of

13:11

opening up to Holden and sharing some of

13:13

their problems and concerns, usually

13:15

in a pretty broad way but in

13:17

an important way. And so again,

13:20

it's interesting. It's like some of

13:22

them were like older than Holden, like older brothers

13:24

who were coaching him. Some were like younger brothers

13:26

who were like poking the bear a little

13:28

bit and then others were like right in the middle and they

13:30

were exactly where he was at and they met him where he

13:32

was at. So it was a fascinating

13:35

experience. You

13:44

are listening to Spark. It's really important

13:46

to make AI the way we

13:48

as humans feel it should work.

13:51

This is Spark. We have no

13:53

clue what's happening on what's going on and that's

13:55

a bit scary. Spark from

13:57

CBC. I'm

14:00

Nora Young and right now we're learning what the kids

14:02

are doing with tech these days and seeing

14:04

where it might go in the future and what

14:06

that might mean for the culture overall. Right

14:09

now my guest is grade 9 teacher Mike

14:11

Kentz who assigned a project that asked students

14:13

to talk to a chatbot version of

14:15

Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the

14:17

Rye. Sounds fun, but did

14:19

it help further the students' understanding of

14:21

the character and the book? When

14:24

the chatbot matched Holden from the book almost to

14:27

a T, it was very boring for the students

14:29

because they felt like they were just getting more

14:31

of the same. When

14:33

Holden the chatbot went way far afield

14:36

of Holden from the book like way

14:38

up and started saying things that were

14:40

totally unrelated, it felt

14:42

like I'm not talking to Holden

14:44

anymore. So also not useful at

14:47

all. There was a sweet spot

14:49

right in the middle and the

14:51

bot would mimic Holden from the book and then it would

14:53

start to kind of say some things that you were like,

14:55

wow, that feels new and different but it also feels related

14:57

to what I read in the book and

14:59

that part was useful. And then

15:02

it would start saying all these crazy things that were totally

15:04

unrelated and the kids would be like, I'm not talking to

15:06

Holden anymore, I don't want to do this. And

15:09

so beyond understanding more about the

15:11

book itself and maybe understanding more about

15:13

their interpersonal skills and their emotional

15:16

intelligence, what do you think the students learned

15:18

about how chatbots behave? Yeah,

15:21

so you know, that was their

15:23

first exposure. And later in the

15:25

year, I worked with them with chatgpt and that

15:27

was a very different exposure but

15:29

what was really interesting is you know, they thought

15:31

it was fun the first time when we did

15:33

it and they enjoyed kind of the experience of

15:35

learning about it. But very interestingly, later

15:38

in the year, we read Romeo and Juliet and

15:40

when we finished, I went to them and I said,

15:42

you know, I got a couple different ideas for end

15:44

of book projects, let's talk about what you guys want

15:47

to do. And at some point,

15:49

I said to them, do you guys want to interview Romeo?

15:51

And they all went, no, they all

15:54

like shook their heads immediately. They're like, no, like

15:56

that's stupid. That's boring. Like been

15:58

there done that. And so they. I

16:00

really believe because of the thoughtful approach and

16:02

the evaluation and the analysis and the critical

16:04

review, they did not

16:06

kind of fall victim to the

16:09

character AI bots as being real,

16:11

if that makes sense. And

16:13

they walked away from it being like, okay,

16:16

it's a fun kind of novelty thing, but

16:18

I'm not, they're not gonna get

16:20

addicted to it. And so, I felt very good about that.

16:23

Yeah. You also created a learning experience for your

16:25

students this year using an assistive chatbot called the

16:28

Adversary. Can you talk a little bit about that

16:30

in the main lesson that you were hoping to

16:32

get across? Sure. With

16:34

regard to working with chatbot assistants

16:37

like ChatGPT, I think everybody now

16:39

is aware that they are capable

16:41

of producing inaccuracies called hallucinations. And

16:44

the problem is that most of what ChatGPT

16:46

produces is either accurate or

16:48

it's close to accurate or it sounds

16:51

accurate. So it's really difficult to teach

16:53

kids about these inaccuracies just by working

16:55

with ChatGPT. And so

16:57

what myself and another guy named Ryan Tanenbaum,

16:59

he's got this great platform, open source platform

17:01

that he's offering to teachers for free. And

17:04

he helped me build a

17:06

bot that purposely produces inaccurate

17:08

information on a

17:11

very specific topic. And so

17:13

what you what we did and what I did is I put it in

17:15

front of the students, I said, all right, we're gonna play

17:17

a game. In this particular case, the topic

17:19

was Chinese mythology. You're gonna talk to this

17:21

bot, ask questions about Chinese gods and legends

17:24

and the stories. And it's

17:26

going to eventually produce some inaccurate information.

17:29

Your job is to be thoughtful and

17:31

critical as it produces information and you

17:33

want to find the inaccurate information and

17:35

call it out. And

17:37

we programmed the bot for when the kids got

17:39

it right, the bot would give them like a

17:41

virtual reward or something to make it kind of

17:43

fun. And

17:45

they were confused at first, it took a while for

17:48

them to grasp what we were actually trying to do.

17:51

But over time, they kind of got it and they thought it

17:53

was kind of fun. And then they started messing with the bot

17:55

a little bit. But when they

17:57

walked away from that experience, they were like, okay. okay,

18:00

I feel better about trying

18:02

to figure out what's real and what's not

18:04

when AI produces information. So, it

18:07

was a light touch project, a very short

18:09

project. I think it could be built out

18:11

much more, but it's a really effective

18:13

way for kids to see and they once it's there,

18:15

it's not going to leave their brain. You know what

18:17

I mean? Once a 14 year old sees

18:19

that this this bot in

18:21

front of them is producing wildly inaccurate

18:24

information, they will not forget that. And

18:26

so the adversary is a really effective way to do that.

18:29

So, beyond knowing how to sort

18:31

of critically distinguish between answers

18:33

that are false and answers that aren't, what

18:35

sort of skills do you want them to

18:37

get to kind of just thrive in a

18:39

future where types of AI are around us

18:42

all the time? I

18:44

want them. I saw a

18:46

quote today actually that was really strong. Resist

18:49

the urge to leverage AI to

18:51

do work faster and instead leverage

18:54

AI intentionally in order to

18:56

produce better work. That

18:58

is to me at the

19:00

core, the essence of AI

19:02

literacy, teaching them, yes, this

19:05

can help you in really incredible dramatic

19:08

ways, but it's not the way

19:10

it seems at first. It looks like this thing

19:12

that's going to do your work for you when

19:14

in fact, it is a thing that if you

19:16

want to do a much bigger project and you

19:18

have the time and the patience and the energy,

19:21

you can actually leverage it to do so

19:23

many better things than you ever thought you could

19:26

do. If you're thoughtful about your

19:28

prompts, if you're thoughtful about how you

19:30

respond and if you're thoughtful about how

19:32

you consume, review and analyze

19:34

the information that it produces. And

19:37

so, what would you say to teachers who are working

19:39

hard to keep AI out of their classrooms?

19:42

I totally understand. I

19:44

completely understand. But

19:47

I think it's a losing battle. There

19:49

is no way we can monitor our

19:51

kids use of AI, period. AI

19:54

detection softwares do not work. If

19:56

you assign any work to be done at home, you

19:59

are always going to have the question in the back of

20:01

your mind, did the student use AI? And

20:03

I think that pain point is going to

20:05

be particularly acute this coming fall. I

20:08

think higher education dealt with this last year

20:11

because older students are a little

20:13

bit more tech savvy and they probably adopted AI

20:15

faster than high school students. But

20:17

I think the fall of 24 is

20:19

going to be the first time where we have

20:22

teachers in that critical first six weeks of the

20:24

school year who are receiving

20:26

work from their students that they've never

20:28

worked with before. They don't know personally,

20:30

there's no trust built up yet and

20:33

they don't know what the quality of

20:35

work generally looks like and

20:37

there is going to be a major

20:39

trust breakdown in high school classrooms. I

20:41

believe, I hope I'm wrong. So just

20:43

to get back to your question, we

20:45

cannot keep it out, right? So we've

20:47

got to get much more creative, we've

20:49

got to be much more adaptable, grading

20:52

the chats, allowing your kids to use it, not

20:54

only that but requiring it and

20:56

then focusing on the actual interaction because

20:58

that's where the critical thinking lives. That's

21:00

where our kids are going to build

21:02

those same skills that they've been building

21:05

through essay writing for generations. Mike,

21:08

thanks so much for your insights on this. Yeah,

21:11

you're welcome. Mike Kent is

21:13

a grade nine English teacher at

21:15

Benedictine Military School in Savannah, Georgia

21:17

and an AI literacy consultant. I'd

21:34

like your advice, Jim. My advice?

21:36

Yes, I've got quite a serious problem.

21:39

There are a great many young

21:41

people in the school, Jim. Each

21:43

is an individual but in one

21:45

important way there. Mr. Edmonds? Yes,

21:48

growing up is a problem. Hey,

22:06

I'm Tom Power. I'm the host of the podcast

22:08

Q with Tom Power, where we

22:10

talk to all kinds of artists, actors, writers,

22:12

musicians, painters. We had Green Day on the

22:15

other day talking about their huge album, American

22:17

Idiot. Nicole Byer came on to talk about

22:19

ADHD and comedy. And then there's

22:21

Dan Levy. While we were talking about filmmaking,

22:23

we talked about his insecurities. I sometimes feel

22:26

like I have this desire to like perform,

22:28

to be a version of myself that people

22:31

might like. Listen to Q with

22:33

Tom Power to hear your favorite artists as they

22:35

truly are wherever you get your podcasts. I'm

22:39

Nora Young and today on Spark, we're

22:41

looking at how people in their teens

22:43

and early twenties are upending tech use

22:45

and rethinking it to better suit their needs

22:47

and the culture. And whether we all have something

22:49

to learn from that, no doubt

22:51

the best way to find out is by talking

22:54

to a couple of people themselves. Hi,

23:00

I'm Cody. I'm 17 and I live in Toronto.

23:02

By the way I see it,

23:04

it's kind of like three main ways people are

23:06

using digital technology. There's the group that use it

23:08

for like entertainment where they just want to like

23:10

see something that they find funny or cool and

23:13

then, you know, keep scrolling. There's some

23:15

people who like try to make content and like push

23:17

that content out and they're trying to get a head

23:19

start kind of into that sphere at a

23:21

high school age. And then there's the group

23:23

that use it for like a number of different things.

23:25

It can be anything like just chatting with each other,

23:27

scrolling content. Maybe you do like a combination

23:30

of all three. I probably fall

23:32

into that category the most. Like I'm really not sure

23:34

where I'm at with like wanting to use technology where

23:36

I mostly use it for communication, but I have kind

23:38

of a drive to like make stuff

23:41

and put it out there. Hi,

23:43

I'm Pita. I'm 16 years old. I live

23:46

in Ottawa, good old Ottawa. I

23:50

got a phone in the middle of like this

23:52

last year and I honestly did

23:54

not want it because I knew that like when I

23:56

get home, like I'm going to like check my email

23:58

and like go on Instagram and scroll because it's

24:00

like it's just what happens but I

24:02

was like I'm not bringing it to school and I don't want people

24:05

to know that I have it because

24:08

I feel like people are like oh great you don't

24:10

use the phone like yes do the

24:12

same please do the same with me I have

24:15

a cell phone I mostly just use it to talk

24:17

to friends I also kind of

24:19

use it as like an escape from boredom so

24:22

to speak like if I don't have anything else to do I'll usually just

24:24

scroll through whatever app piques my

24:26

interest I'm mostly like a lurker I

24:29

would say like I'm not super active

24:31

except on like a couple private accounts

24:34

that I share and even then I'm not a super

24:36

frequent poster I mostly just use

24:38

it to look at stuff everyone

24:41

I know has a phone especially

24:43

like at lunch at school like everybody's on their

24:45

phone and you're like trying to have like a

24:47

conversation with them and it's like they're just like

24:50

playing a game or something and I'm like do

24:52

you not like want to have like even

24:54

interaction oh my god I got this

24:56

quote from a movie and it was like

24:58

it's friend time not phone time and I was

25:00

like oh I love that I relate to that

25:03

so much I usually talk

25:05

to both friends I know in real

25:07

life and also people I've met through

25:09

online video games or like any common

25:11

interests that we have like I guess

25:13

listed on our profiler whatever usually it

25:15

depends on the friend and like what we're talking about

25:17

like if the app we met

25:20

on already has a built-in chat feature will

25:22

usually just stick there so like Instagram

25:24

for example they have direct messages and group

25:26

chats the other most common one is discord

25:28

which is like meant specifically for messaging so

25:31

I usually end up talking to a lot

25:33

of my in-person friends there since they're

25:35

usually using that Cody

25:38

is a grade 11 student in Toronto and PETA

25:40

is a grade 10 student in Ottawa

25:43

we'll hear more from them about their tech habits in

25:45

a little bit but right now we're going

25:47

to leave the high school and head on

25:49

over to post-secondary my

25:53

name is Greg Hoplamasian I'm an

25:55

associate professor in the Department of

25:57

Communication and Media at Loyola University

25:59

Maryland And I'm currently the

26:01

Academic Director of the Emerging Media Master's

26:03

Program at Loyola. Greg's work

26:05

involves helping both university programs and

26:08

students adapt to the rapid changes

26:10

in technology and also try to

26:12

get ahead of the trends. He's

26:15

been observing how his undergraduate students

26:17

use not just academia-related tech but

26:19

also consumer tech and their everyday

26:21

engagement with their devices. What

26:25

I may be seeing is that there's a comfort in using

26:27

a small set of technologies or

26:29

social platforms and getting comfortable with

26:32

them and just kind of

26:34

staying there. There's in a sense maybe a

26:36

fatigue from wanting or needing to try

26:38

more and more things. They can get

26:40

tired of them within a few months or a year.

26:42

And the next new thing is usually there

26:45

to make money for some company that's developing.

26:47

It's not as though users are just demanding,

26:49

I want another social platform in my life.

26:51

Yeah, so they seem to be fine in

26:53

general with, okay, I like to use

26:56

whatever, say TikTok and WhatsApp or TikTok and

26:58

Signal or Snapchat and Signal, but they don't

27:00

need to be present on every

27:02

single platform that's out there. That's right. They

27:05

kind of grow up with certain platforms. And once you've got

27:07

your friend network there, they're very

27:09

happy there. And then Snapchat has a very

27:12

real place in their lives for communicating with

27:14

people and serves different purposes

27:16

than Instagram or TikTok. And

27:19

going beyond those few platforms isn't

27:22

of that much interest to young people other

27:25

than they have very specific needs that Twitter

27:27

can serve for them or X or

27:30

everyone uses YouTube and we use it for different

27:32

reasons. But yeah, there's not really a demand

27:34

for more. People are pretty comfortable

27:36

in their communication habits. So

27:39

Greg, over the past year or so, we've

27:41

seen roundups of the best so-called dumb phones

27:44

to buy in 2023, 2024. They

27:47

seem particularly popular with younger consumers. So first of

27:49

all, for anyone who might not be familiar with

27:51

the term, what do we mean by dumb

27:53

phones? Yeah, a dumb phone really refers

27:55

to any phone that isn't

27:57

a smartphone. And by that we mean it's

27:59

generally not a smartphone. not, you know, internet

28:02

connected or at least doesn't have access to

28:04

a lot of the platforms and apps that

28:06

we would expect on a smartphone. So some

28:08

of them might have some very limited internet

28:10

capabilities in terms of transmitting weather information or

28:12

accessing a calendar or something. But

28:15

a dumb phone is generally there

28:17

for phone calls, very few

28:19

select, I don't even want to call them

28:21

apps, but you know, tools that exist on

28:23

your phone that you know, you might be

28:26

necessary like, you know, an alarm clock and

28:28

cassette a calendar or maybe a notepad to

28:30

take notes. But it's a phone

28:32

that really deliberately cuts you off from the

28:34

vast majority of smartphone apps that are out

28:36

there and for most, you know, internet and

28:38

web browsing that you might do on your

28:40

phone. Right. And so are these like

28:43

actual vintage phones from the

28:45

early aughts like somebody taking their

28:47

aunt's old Motorola Razr or these like

28:50

functionally and aesthetically distinct from what you

28:52

know, I would have known as my

28:54

pre smartphone era. So there's actually both.

28:56

And so there's many traditional dumb phones

28:59

that they were just designed

29:01

before these internet capabilities existed. And so

29:03

they serve this purpose really well of

29:05

cutting people off from accessing those technologies

29:07

because it's just not even an option.

29:10

And then what's interesting is over

29:12

time, as there's been a small

29:15

but powerful niche of people that might

29:17

be want that, there are

29:19

what we can call designer dumb phones.

29:21

And a designer dumb phone is simply

29:23

a dumb phone that was made and

29:25

designed more recently. But it's kind of

29:27

intentionally made to not, you know, access

29:30

the same internet and app capabilities. But it

29:32

was designed to at least like look kind

29:34

of nicer and designed with a few additional

29:37

considerations of what are the things people might

29:39

want in a phone that just

29:41

stops short of really being a smartphone

29:43

and being connected and having all these

29:46

apps and app library to access. So

29:49

what would you say is the motivation behind this

29:51

move away from the sort of smartphone that does it

29:53

all the iPhone or the or the Samsung? Basically,

29:56

because of the mental health harms,

29:58

even it can honestly control to

30:00

physical health deficits because if we're not

30:02

moving a lot, because we're always sitting

30:04

down or next to our angle down

30:06

at our phones, there's just

30:08

been a lot of negative effects coming from smartphones.

30:11

They've been around long enough now. We see them

30:13

and feel them in ourselves. We hear about them

30:15

all the time. So both

30:17

adults that have been growing up

30:19

and living with these things for many

30:22

years, as well as teenagers that see

30:24

these negative effects on their friends, on

30:26

themselves, and just want to be able

30:28

to opt out of always being connected.

30:31

Yeah. I mean, when it comes to

30:33

younger people, we talked a bit about the

30:35

dumb phone trend, but another vintage technology

30:37

that's experienced in Renaissance is the

30:39

digital camera, like point and shoot

30:41

digital cameras from 2006 and

30:44

around that era. I've heard

30:46

them even described as a quiet status symbol

30:49

amongst younger people. What do you make of

30:51

the resurgence of those devices? Yeah, a couple

30:53

of things actually. One

30:55

is that, and maybe I should

30:57

have seen this coming when I realized that Polaroid

31:00

cameras were kind of making that comeback too

31:02

of taking a picture and having it printed

31:04

out right away, which to me

31:06

was because that was just the height of coolness

31:08

and technology when I was a kid. I think

31:11

my grandfather had it and that

31:14

seemed like just the coolest thing. And

31:16

then a whole generation of technology

31:19

comes up since then. And so,

31:21

seeing that again was to me,

31:23

feels similar where it's a little bit of almost

31:26

nostalgia of like, this is comfort

31:28

to going back to simpler technologies. And

31:30

there's again, pendulum swing both ways. So

31:33

the more we move toward really

31:36

high end video and

31:38

on our phones and taking them everywhere

31:40

we go, the other side

31:42

of that is, well, wouldn't it be nice if

31:44

I could use a camera that isn't also every

31:47

other social media app that I have, use

31:49

a camera that is just a camera. And like you

31:51

said, it's a little bit of it stands out. To

31:53

our point before, how do you stand out if you

31:56

want to have a cool phone? Well, a dumb

31:58

phone is going to look really different. really

32:00

help you stand out. Well, you know,

32:02

a dedicated camera also would really

32:04

signify maybe to yourself in the world

32:06

that I am really

32:09

dedicated or really interested in, you know,

32:11

taking the thing that I'm taking pictures of. It's not like, okay,

32:14

this will be one of a thousand selfies today and I

32:16

don't really care about it. So

32:18

I will never look at it. I

32:21

don't want to think about all

32:23

the extra pictures that are on my phone that are

32:25

taking up storage right now. But

32:27

I think there's probably a little mix

32:29

of nostalgia of anything from an earlier

32:31

era, even if we didn't live through

32:33

that era, feels like there's something

32:35

on a very human about it, you know,

32:37

grounding ourselves in history, even though it's recent

32:39

history, as well as I think, like

32:42

I said, being different and just kind of standing out from the

32:44

crowd. I think those are two pretty appealing

32:46

things as well as maybe people are coming up to

32:48

the limits of their storage on their phones. And they

32:50

also realize that, hey, I don't want to pay whatever

32:52

per month to structure storage. I have

32:54

a dedicated camera that takes care of my storage issue.

32:56

That could be even a practical issue for

32:59

some people. Yeah, yeah. So

33:01

just when you look at all these trends

33:03

that we've been talking about, how would you

33:05

say this younger generation in their teens and

33:07

early 20s have influenced the tech trends that

33:09

we're seeing in recent years? Yeah, so young

33:11

people really, I always try to never mind

33:14

my students in my undergraduate classes like they,

33:16

this is, they are it right now. They are

33:18

this age cohort where they are cool,

33:21

they matter. Everything is pointing in the

33:23

mainstream media is pointing to you as

33:25

like, you're awesome, you matter, right? And

33:28

they do for a couple of reasons. One

33:30

is that they're a big

33:34

use cohort right now. So college age,

33:36

even though you several years moving out

33:38

of college, your mid 20s, there's

33:40

a big use cohort and you want

33:42

them to be using your products and

33:45

services. And so you want to be

33:47

tailoring them for these young adults and

33:49

these people that are kind of maybe

33:51

trend setting in tech use and setting

33:53

new habits of how we communicate and

33:55

language and ways of using these

33:57

different platforms. But really, future

34:00

of many, you know, whether it's

34:02

social media platforms or other things it's going to look like, is it

34:05

really look to like, you know, almost like 12 year olds

34:07

or look to really, you know, even younger cohorts? Because

34:10

if you want to be the next up

34:12

and coming social media platform, you can get

34:14

someone using your platform at an early age

34:16

and how their friends are, they're more likely

34:18

to grow up with it and kind of continue

34:20

using it into adulthood and then and that's kind

34:22

of a better way to maybe capture

34:25

this engaged audience and community

34:27

of users is to find them early.

34:30

Greg, thanks so much for your insights on this. Absolutely.

34:32

Happy to join you. Greg

34:35

Hoplamasian is an associate professor of

34:37

communication and the academic director of

34:39

emerging media at Loyola University, Maryland.

34:47

We heard Greg talk about university age students

34:49

and their love of more basic so-called

34:51

dumb phones. Turns out the cohort below

34:54

them are also clamoring for non-connected

34:56

devices. But what is it about

34:58

old tech that seems cool to teens?

35:01

Here again are our resident teenagers. Hi,

35:04

I'm Pita. I'm 16 years old. Hi,

35:07

I'm Cody. I'm 17. I

35:09

definitely use technology every single day, which

35:12

is actually kind of sad because like

35:14

I want to actually talk to people

35:16

in real life and like get

35:18

stuff done because also it's so easy to

35:20

procrastinate when you have a phone and

35:23

then you get off of your like, oh my God,

35:25

grass, air, the

35:28

clouds. People are

35:30

kind of getting burnt out by social

35:32

media usage and all this like technology

35:34

and new content and new products being

35:36

pushed in their face that we kind

35:38

of developed like a longing almost for

35:41

stuff in the 80s and 90s and

35:43

old technology when we didn't really have to

35:45

worry about the internet. Like there's something nice

35:48

about the idea of having multiple little things

35:50

that do one purpose as opposed to like

35:52

one big jumbo item. There's something really appealing

35:54

about it's like, oh, I want to take a picture.

35:57

I have to get my camera out. Oh, I want to play a game. I

35:59

have to get out my camera. little gameboy or my 3ds

36:01

stuff like that. There's just a kind of

36:03

love for it. I

36:05

feel like when we were back in

36:07

like 2016 or 15 we

36:10

would have like the Toshibas which was like

36:12

the old computer and we'd have to wait

36:14

for like three hours for it to load

36:16

and that would be like the special thing

36:18

like we wouldn't usually use them like it

36:20

would be like a like oh my god

36:23

we're playing like geometry dash or something like

36:25

it was like some random game and

36:27

only one would work. Some

36:30

kids are going like total old-fashioned mode

36:32

like I know one guy who exclusively

36:34

uses like a Walkman for music like

36:37

he has a cell phone but if he wants to listen

36:39

to music he'll pull out a Walkman in this like old

36:41

over your headphones and we'll listen to it that way. I

36:44

know another kid who's just got a flip phone and a

36:46

laptop and he stops it there so there's some people who

36:48

are kind of in the middle. I actually

36:50

do have a friend Jane she like has like

36:53

a Walkman I'll be like oh my god like

36:55

that's so cool I'm like that's so

36:57

that's so amazing and then I also

36:59

have a friend with a flip phone and I'm like

37:02

oh my god that's so cool I

37:04

actually love that. It's something akin

37:06

to nostalgia except you never actually like experience

37:08

the thing you're nostalgic for because we've

37:11

never experienced life without the internet

37:13

life without the internet feels really

37:15

cool and fascinating and it's almost

37:17

like a detox when we do

37:19

it like I'll grab out my 3ds

37:21

and play something solo and I can

37:24

enjoy the sort of like retro-ish aesthetics of

37:27

it while also just giving myself a break

37:29

from the outside world and it's like the only thing that's really

37:31

in front of me is just this little game and

37:33

nobody's going to judge how good or bad I do

37:35

with the game. The progress is all mine it's my

37:37

own little world and there's nothing else to it. Thanks

37:42

to teens Cody and PETA for those

37:44

thoughtful perspectives. It does make

37:46

me think about why it seems easier for

37:48

people who don't remember analog or single-purpose tech

37:51

to embrace it than for those of us

37:53

who experienced it the first time around. I

37:55

mean it really was great when you

37:57

just opted to take a picture with your camera

38:00

rather than carrying a portal to the

38:02

internet and everyone you know with you 24-7. In

38:18

terms of media, of course, the

38:20

thing that is occupying the foreground

38:22

is nostalgia. Nostalgia

38:25

is the name of the game in every part

38:27

of our world today. The

38:29

genes and Levi's of

38:32

the young today are nostalgia for

38:34

granddad's overalls. The

38:37

young today are a kind of

38:39

international motley or clown costume.

38:42

And paradoxically, the clown is a person with

38:44

a grievance. The clown's

38:47

job was to tell the

38:49

royalty exactly what was wrong

38:51

with the society. I'm

39:00

Nora Young and today on Spark we're talking

39:02

about teens and young adults and how

39:04

they are using the digital tech around them and

39:06

what we all might learn from that. It

39:09

seems inevitable that we compare ourselves to

39:11

generations before and after us and

39:13

out of that come the usual tropes baby

39:15

boomers seem millennials as the generation that lost

39:17

their way, Gen Xers call

39:19

millennials snowflakes, and millennials are equally

39:22

critical of both Xers and boomers.

39:25

And then there's Generation Z, born roughly between

39:27

1997 and 2012, making them ages 12 to 27 today.

39:29

To every other generation,

39:35

they seem like a mystery. Teens,

39:37

Pita, and Cody, who we've heard from throughout

39:40

this episode, are part of this cohort. People

39:43

are just they feel a lot of like fear and

39:45

anxiety around social media and their presence

39:47

there and how they look to the public. I feel

39:49

like we feel longing for a time when that wasn't

39:51

an issue. I feel like the thing I really

39:54

wish that was different was like the

39:56

ads trying to keep you on your

39:58

phone when you're like Oh yeah,

40:00

I'm talking about like a barbecue and then like

40:02

barbecues like show up on your phone. And it's

40:05

so creepy. I hate that. Gen

40:07

Z has been the subject of

40:09

many think pieces attempting to figure

40:11

them out over the past couple of years

40:13

from their online habits to how they

40:15

speak and dress to their job prospects

40:18

in a rapidly changing world. My

40:21

name is Ilona Doretti and I'm

40:23

the managing director of the Use

40:25

and Innovation Project at the University

40:28

of Waterloo. And we look to

40:30

understand and amplify the positive social,

40:32

environmental and economic impacts that young

40:34

people are having on their communities

40:37

and society. We

40:39

tend to have pretty negative stereotypes

40:42

throughout history about young people. And

40:45

our work has really shown that it's because

40:47

we view, especially in the last 200 years,

40:50

being young is a time where we learn

40:52

where it's our job as adults to kind

40:54

of fill young people's heads with knowledge. And

40:57

then as we get older, we contribute.

40:59

So we really have this idea

41:01

that young people aren't economically productive.

41:04

And as a result, we tend

41:06

to kind of dismiss them. So

41:08

we see young people as needing

41:10

to be controlled and protected, but

41:12

not really having very much value

41:14

to offer. So that kind of

41:16

is what is underlying the stereotypes

41:18

like millennials, you know, are

41:20

ruining the world by eating avocado toast, you know,

41:22

and things like that. Ilona

41:25

focuses in particular on people between the ages

41:27

of 15 and 25.

41:30

A cohort she says is distinct from

41:32

others. So it's really

41:34

has to do with neuroscience. From 15 to 25, young people

41:36

are In this

41:38

period of heightened ability. So Heightened

41:40

neuroplasticity where their brains are literally

41:43

open to new ideas and to

41:45

experimentation in a way that we

41:47

aren't as open to it when

41:49

we're younger or older. They're also

41:51

way more observant, both to the

41:53

environment around them, but also to

41:55

social stimuli. So It's really an

41:57

incredible moment of heightened ability. We

42:00

tend to focus on a deficit model right with

42:02

young people aren't good at, but it's also just

42:04

this incredible. Moment where they're really bold

42:07

problem solvers. And so if you talk

42:09

about those qualities like a curiosity and

42:11

and that openness to new experience, what

42:13

are some of the sort of untapped

42:15

potential and unique abilities? That that suggests.

42:19

It Endless. It's really. unless I mean

42:21

we see it right in trends. A

42:23

young people are often the ones who

42:25

are at the forefront of new trends,

42:27

are adopting new technology and you know.

42:29

So we see that we see that

42:31

young people are willing to try things

42:33

out, figure out what the next big

42:35

thing is, and yet in our workplaces

42:37

and also in our homes we often

42:39

don't tap into to again that bold

42:41

problem solving ability right? So we tend

42:44

to dismiss young people, say oh, you

42:46

know you're not old enough to have

42:48

the experience to. To know anything about

42:50

this are when the reality is

42:52

they observe and see things in

42:54

a way that's really neat and

42:56

and necessary if we want to

42:58

let solve problems. And. Please

43:00

home. It's not just all downhill from. There are

43:02

things that you can always neurologically that you are

43:05

you know, get us as later on that you

43:07

don't have when you're in that earlier stage. Of

43:09

Life Absolutely. Our work is really all

43:11

around intergenerational flapper a sense as we

43:13

get older we get better at strategy,

43:16

we get better a planning an increasingly

43:18

we get better at emotional intelligence. It's

43:20

a really it's about taking the unique

43:22

abilities of the that young people have

43:24

and sharing them with those were a

43:27

bit older it's that's the magic sauce.

43:29

If we. Want to. Really? I saw

43:31

problems right? This group are often talked about

43:33

as digital Natives was they are of course

43:35

but from. What you've observed interestingly

43:38

we just or in the

43:40

midst of releasing report around

43:42

young people, unemployment and one

43:44

of the surprising findings with

43:46

that adolescence wanna work more

43:48

in person than any. Other age

43:50

group cost and twenty to twenty four year

43:53

old one and work more in a hybrid.

43:55

contacts so some in perth and some

43:57

remote more than any other age group

44:00

Like, whoa, right? We

44:02

assume that they just, you know, young people just

44:04

want to live online. But the

44:06

reality is, I think young people, especially

44:08

those who went through school through the

44:10

pandemic, they understand the

44:13

value of relationship, of mentorship,

44:15

and they know that you cannot

44:18

develop relationships solely online. Usually there

44:20

is some kind of in-person component.

44:23

So I think it's really fascinating. And

44:25

I think we need to recognize that

44:27

young people live both online, but also

44:30

in the real physical

44:32

world. And they value that as well. So

44:35

do you think we just have this sort of potted

44:37

the answer of like, all digital natives are fine

44:39

with everything being online and we don't need to

44:42

think about interpersonal connections at all? I

44:45

think that's exactly it. I think we just assume

44:47

they want to be on their phones all day.

44:49

And the reality is, just like the rest of

44:51

us, they want connection. Yeah, yeah. So

44:53

you said that our society is built in a

44:56

way that holds young people back from contributing

44:58

meaningfully and that, and this is a quote,

45:00

our notion of what it means to be young

45:02

is extremely confused. Could you explain what

45:05

you mean by that and the ways that you've seen

45:07

that play out? Yeah. So again,

45:09

we have this idea that when

45:11

you're young, you're supposed to learn.

45:13

And now the time of life

45:15

where we're kind of stuck in

45:17

this learning only dynamic is getting

45:19

longer and longer. Right now you

45:21

need at least a master's degree

45:23

if not for PhDs before you're

45:25

eligible to apply for an

45:27

entry level job, right? Like you're stuck in

45:30

school until your late 20s. So

45:32

we've taken more and more young people

45:35

kind of out of

45:37

a situation where they are

45:39

contributing to society, where we

45:41

feel like they deserve to

45:43

contribute to society and instead

45:46

just keep them stuck in this learning. We

45:49

like to call it the endless rehearsal

45:51

for adulthood, right? So what

45:53

it means is those incredible abilities that young

45:55

people have when they're young to problem solve,

45:57

to think outside the box. teenager

46:00

in their house knows that teenagers

46:02

show you what's not working. Yeah.

46:05

I'm like very honestly tell

46:07

you what's not working. So we're losing

46:09

that. We're losing that in our workplaces. We're

46:11

losing that in our communities because young people

46:14

are playing the role we've told them to

46:16

play, which is to learn and to not

46:19

actively engage. And so I

46:21

think it really is a detriment for all of

46:23

us. It also makes those of us

46:25

who are a little bit older, less curious, right?

46:28

That's open to new ideas if we're

46:30

not exposed to the incredible minds of

46:32

young people on a regular basis.

46:34

So what do we do about that? Great

46:37

question. I think one of the

46:39

things we can do is make

46:41

sure that we're creating spaces for

46:43

intergenerational collaboration. I often ask people,

46:46

you know, how older are

46:48

your friends, right? Our friends tend to be

46:50

around the same age as us. We

46:53

tend to hang out in an intergenerational

46:55

context in families, but not

46:57

often outside of that. You know,

46:59

think about your life and in our

47:01

lives, how can we spend more time

47:03

with folks in different generations? So that's

47:05

certainly part of that. You

47:08

know, another piece is engaging young people in

47:10

decision making. So young people

47:12

are often on the front

47:14

lines, right? They might be retail

47:16

workers. They're seeing what's going on,

47:18

you know, often, and they

47:20

can have really great ideas if

47:23

we just engage them into in decision making.

47:25

So that's certainly a piece of it. And

47:27

then also, you know, how

47:29

can we really think of our entire

47:32

lives as being a time

47:34

of learning and our entire lives as

47:36

being a time of contribution, right? So this

47:38

is more of a mindset shift that

47:41

it's not you learn until you're 25

47:43

and then you graduate to contributing, right?

47:46

You know, but we're all learning and changing

47:48

throughout our whole lives, thank goodness,

47:50

right? So how do we

47:52

stay curious as we get older, but also give

47:55

young people opportunities to contribute when they're

47:57

younger? I'm

48:05

Nora Young. Today on Spark we're talking about

48:07

digital natives and what we can learn from

48:09

them. Right now my guest is Ilona Doherty,

48:11

the co-creator and managing director of the Youth

48:14

and Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo.

48:17

In April of 2023, I know you co-authored

48:19

a report that found that Gen Z philanthropic

48:22

groups and efforts are often overlooked when it

48:24

comes to financial support. So tell me about

48:27

that and the impact that that can have

48:29

on younger activists. Yeah, it

48:31

was really sobering.

48:33

Young people are at the

48:36

forefront of many

48:38

social and environmental causes and they

48:40

feel as though they get less

48:42

opportunity. They're not valued. We

48:44

saw young people are not, because there's

48:47

no philanthropic dollars or other dollars for

48:49

this kind of activism

48:51

and engagement. They don't really have a

48:53

living wage, if any wage at all.

48:55

The young people told us in this

48:57

report that as a result of this,

48:59

they're burning out and deciding to

49:01

leave social and environmental movements. And

49:05

that's incredibly problematic from

49:07

our perspective, both in terms of democracy.

49:09

Right? If we want a vibrant democracy,

49:11

we need young people to be engaged

49:13

and for the future of these social

49:15

and environmental issues. So again, young people

49:17

are the ones who are going to

49:19

make us feel uncomfortable, who are

49:21

going to push us to think differently and

49:24

think in ways we maybe haven't before. And

49:26

it was really disheartening to see that

49:29

they didn't feel supported. Yeah. Is

49:31

this new to this particular cohort

49:33

or is this a feature of

49:36

people in that age group? I mean, this is anecdotal, but

49:38

I'm just thinking like when I was in my early

49:40

20s, I don't really think I knew people

49:43

who were activists who made a living wage

49:45

doing that then either. Yeah, it's

49:47

not new. But what I think is

49:49

new and really incredible about this generation

49:51

is they understand

49:54

mental health and their limits

49:57

in a way that I certainly again, as a young

49:59

activist, didn't at

50:01

all. I grew up in serious hustle culture,

50:03

right? I just thought you were supposed to

50:05

like work all the time and that's how

50:07

you did it. And

50:09

I just didn't think there were any boundaries or

50:12

limits and this generation thinks differently. I think both

50:14

in the workplace, I give a

50:16

lot of talk to senior leaders and

50:18

the biggest complaint they have is that young

50:20

people want work-life balance. The

50:23

biggest complaint. Yes. And

50:26

so I think that's also reality in

50:28

activism, that young people today

50:30

just have a very different perspective and

50:32

aren't willing to burn out in the

50:34

same way that certainly my generation was.

50:38

You've previously noted, and we've

50:40

certainly all witnessed this, the favorite pastime for

50:42

those on their way out is to bash

50:44

the next in line, particularly in challenging times,

50:46

which we certainly are now. So what

50:48

do you think is behind this kind of animosity amongst

50:50

generation and the sort of alienation that

50:52

that creates? Yeah, so

50:54

I think it's really a lot of fear.

50:56

So it's about fear of losing power, right?

50:58

You worked really hard, you worked 40 years

51:01

in your career and you made

51:03

it and now you feel

51:06

as though people might be saying that you're irrelevant

51:08

and it's time for you to leave, right?

51:11

So there's a lot of fear.

51:13

And I think really when we stereotype

51:15

young people, the reality is we also

51:18

stereotype our elders in negative

51:20

ways. And so we kind of like literally there's

51:22

like maybe 20 years from maybe when you're 35

51:24

to maybe 55 that you're kind of okay

51:31

from an age-sharing

51:33

type perspective. If

51:36

you're not too young, you're not

51:38

too old, but everybody else, you're either

51:40

too young to know better or

51:42

you're too old to contribute. So

51:46

I think there's this real fear about

51:48

irrelevance. And so again, it's

51:50

really about intergenerational collaboration. It's

51:53

about recognizing that the best way to

51:56

build a legacy is to support

51:58

the next generation in the future. carry along

52:00

the work you did but in

52:02

their way, right?

52:05

And not expecting them to do it

52:07

exactly the way you did. Yeah. We

52:10

talked a bit about young brains

52:12

and young brains being sort of

52:15

primed for this bold, ambitious problem

52:17

solving. What are some of

52:19

the issues that you'd say that that approach

52:21

is best suited to tackle? Yeah. So

52:23

I think young brains should

52:26

be everywhere. So I

52:28

would love to see schools and universities and

52:31

I think we are seeing some of this with

52:34

experiential learning but really

52:36

making sure that

52:38

when young people are doing experiential

52:40

learning that they're actually solving real

52:42

problems. So our research has shown

52:45

that when young people are passionate

52:47

about an issue, that's when

52:49

they tend to be the most innovative and to

52:51

get the most engaged. And usually

52:53

that comes from lived experience, right? Something they've

52:56

experienced in their own community and in their

52:58

own lives. So I

53:00

would hope for a society

53:02

where every young person has a

53:05

chance to make a difference on an

53:07

issue that really matters to them. I

53:09

think the ways are endless but we

53:11

just cannot afford in a moment of

53:13

rapid change to leave these incredible abilities

53:16

that young people have on the table. So

53:18

what do you think some of the most important things the

53:20

rest of us have to learn from this cohort

53:22

that you study of 15 to 25? It's

53:26

a hard question for me to answer because I think it's

53:28

always changing. I think we always

53:32

have something to learn. I often

53:35

say that I'm not a social media

53:37

expert because I'm not 15 and

53:41

I don't know what the next trend is going to be. So ask

53:44

a 15-year-old and I guess

53:46

that would be my answer is young

53:49

people are always going to have something to teach us.

53:51

It's just a matter of us being curious enough to

53:53

ask. Elona, thanks so much for your

53:55

insights on this. Thank you, Nora. Elona

53:58

Doherty is the co-creator of the and Managing

54:00

Director of the Youth and Innovation Project

54:02

at the University of Waterloo. You've

54:08

been listening to Spark, the show is

54:10

made by Michelle Barisi, Samrui Yohannes, Megan

54:12

Carty and me, Nora Young. And

54:15

by Mike Kentz, Greg Hovlamasian, Ilona

54:17

Doherty and teens Aya, Cody and

54:19

Pita. I'm Nora Young, you can check

54:22

out Back Issues with Spark, find and follow us

54:24

wherever you get your podcasts. See you soon. Spark.

54:34

Spark. This

54:36

is... People looking back at

54:38

us may

54:40

see us as possessing

54:43

virtually no connectivity. Spark.

54:45

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54:48

humans as dopamine-addled quick

54:51

monkey. Spark. Once

54:53

it's out there, it's out there

54:55

forever and you can't put the space back

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in the tube.