I was on the bus to work this week listening to a podcast that mentioned this story saying “most” American teens are on YouTube and TikTok “almost constantly.”
I thought about my two teens. While I don’t love their phone time, I don’t think it’s “almost constantly,” because my youngest has parental controls and surrenders the phone at MY bedtime, which is way earlier than hers.
Someday she’ll thank me for it. At least I hope so.
Because the stats are not comforting. We know these platforms serve up a toxic brew of crap, especially towards boys. And the algorithms favor “engagement” over quality, which means these companies don’t care what the content is, if people are “engaging” with it, they’re serving it up to more people. They care about getting the attention of our kids, not giving them good stuff, as this report details.
That’s like serving candy for dinner every meal because “that’s what kids want.” We all know that’s not healthy and will lead to bad outcomes.
I believe we’re conditioned by social media to “engage” with whatever they want us to. Here’s the thing: my sugar-loving 15-year-old requested vegetable pad thai for dinner tonight. Unprompted. Because throughout her 15 years, we’ve taught her what fuels her body constructively and what’s junk. Does she prefer potato chips to broccoli? Of course! But I still roast broccoli all the time and she eats it without complaint because she knows it’s good for her and it tastes fine.
You damn betcha she’s getting that veggie pad thai for dinner tonight.
Australia is taking the roasted broccoli approach. They’ve banned social media apps for anyone under 16. Other countries are considering doing the same thing.
On this podcast, one host asked, “What’s going to replace all this time spent on social media?”
If you’re reading this newsletter, the answer is obvious: GO RUNNING!
Listening to this pod, it occurred to me that we’re facing a similar problem to “boy crisis” of the 1900s. I’ve alluded to that in previous newsletters. That time was one of huge wealth disparity, technological change and immigration, there was a perception that boys were run amok causing trouble, breaking laws and skipping school.
The response was policy changes like universal public education and the founding of the Boy Scouts, Big Brother and other organizations. As I listened to the pod, I thought, “We need a ‘Take a Boy Running’ day.” Sorta like the “Take a Kid Fishing” efforts that I recalled from the 1980s.
But running is more of a commitment than a single fishing trip. And there are barriers to men wanting to offer to do this. Also, we have cross country and track teams in schools and participation wanes unless you have an extremely motivated coach.
I’m still thinking about what an attractive alternative might look like. Something in the spirit of the 1900’s solutions but adapted for today.
What do you think? How could running become a more club-like activity for boys? What can we do to encourage more men to take up the challenge Comment below. Or better yet, share this post with someone you know who might have ideas.
Thank you!