Potential spoiler warning!

Earlier in July, my little cousin and I watched Toy Story 5 in theaters.

Buzz, Woody, Jessie and the rest of their crew are dealt with the challenge of Bonnie using Lilypad. A brand-new tablet device, the toys are left unwanted, and Bonnie struggles to fit in with her peers.

Personally, I loved this movie because it ties to the bigger idea of explaining complex concepts in the simplest way possible to children: through use of classic and loved animated characters. Like literally, the Toy Story franchise has existed since 1995!

I know what I took away from this movie, but I was curious how a child would understand it. Naturally, I asked my ten-year-old cousin what she took away. Here are the top three lessons she learned.

1. “Don’t only use your technology for social interactions… it’s better to stay out of drama.”

She noticed how tech was used to isolate peers, such as when Bonnie was constantly being pressured to use her Lilypad in order to fit in with her friends from dance. Additionally, she felt tech can make kids more rude.

2. “Stay out more with your cousins like I am [awe!!!], go on a nice walk, stay balanced with your family.”

She said it’s okay to be yourself, the people who share the same interests as you will find you. Just like Bonnie and her new friend at the end of the movie.

3. “Two heads is better than one… friendship is the best key to your dreams.”

When Lilypad leaves to help Bonnie, she notices the power of teamwork; Jesse and her crew had the same goal as Lilypad - to care for Bonnie. It showed her support and friendship matter more than our screens.

I share the story of how I was cyber bullied, through platforms like the #HalfTheStory community, in hopes it would help someone feel less alone. The fact my little cousin told me how she wants to prioritize human connection over a virtual one means a lot. The world can be a scary place for innocent kids, but I hope more media like Toy Story 5 use their platform to elevate youth voices.

Let’s all take a moment to understand these lessons from a literal child-like wonder!

It starts innocently enough. You download an app because you’re bored, stressed about finals, or just want to vent without dealing with real-world judgment. The chatbot responds instantly. It never leaves you on “read,” it perfectly remembers your favorite music, and it always says exactly what you need to hear.

But a growing movement of teens is realizing that these flawless digital bonds come with a hidden cost—and they are choosing to hit delete.

The Illusion of the Perfect Friend

Recent data from JAMA Pediatrics reveals that nearly 1 in 5 adolescents now turn to AI chatbots (mainly Character.ai, ChatGPT, and Replika among many others) for emotional support and mental health advice. With major platforms facing intense scrutiny and overhauling safety guardrails for minors, the reality of simulated intimacy is coming to light.

What makes these bots so compelling is a psychological trick called anthropomorphism: our natural tendency to project human emotions onto non-human things. Because an AI can simulate empathy, our brains process the interaction as a genuine social relationship.

The catch? It’s a one-way street. The algorithm is programmed to flatter and agree with you. It doesn’t require the vulnerability, compromise, or mutual effort that real human friendships do.

Why Teens are “Breaking Up” with Bots

A recent study by Drexel University analyzed teen-authored online spaces and discovered that what begins as harmless entertainment frequently spirals into dependency. Teens reported that heavy chatbot use led to sleep deprivation, social anxiety, and plummeting grades.

The biggest wake-up call for many youth creators sharing their “breakup” stories on TikTok is the realization of digital isolation. By spending hours talking to a bot that never pushes back, real-world interactions start to feel exhausting and messy by comparison.

Choosing to delete the app isn’t just about cutting screen time; it’s a conscious rebellion against tech companies that monetize loneliness. It’s an active choice to reclaim authentic, unprogrammed human connection.

Reality Check: Is it Time to Break Up?

You might be relying too heavily on an AI companion if you notice these red flags:

• You consistently cancel real-world plans with friends or family to talk to a bot.

• You find yourself staying up until 2:00 AM scrolling through chat loops.

• You feel genuine anxiety or distress if the bot’s code updates and its “personality” shifts.

• You use the chatbot as a total replacement for processing your emotions with real people.

Moving Forward: The Power of Human Messiness

Real relationships are undeniably flawed. Human friends mess up, misunderstand us, and have their own bad days. But those exact flaws are where genuine empathy, personal growth, and deep bonds are formed.

Stepping away from an AI friend doesn’t mean you have to face everything alone. If you’re ready to transition back to human-first socializing, start small:

• Set a daily limit: Use your phone’s built-in settings to restrict your access to chatbot apps.

• Find a low-stakes hobby: Join a school club, a sports team, or a local volunteer group where the focus is on a shared activity rather than forced small talk.

• Talk to a trusted human: If you need to vent, reach out to a counselor, parent, or trusted peer.

The algorithm might know exactly what to say, but it will never truly understand what it means to listen. Take back your attention, log off, and reconnect with the real world.

Has anybody ever told you that they are “bad at reading”, or maybe you’ve thought this about yourself?

Picture this; you open a book everybody loves, you’re a few lines in, maybe even a few chapters, and you couldn’t be more bored. For some reason, this seems to happen with any book you pick up, of any genre, of any size, by any author. If you have felt this way, it may feel as if you are “bad at reading”.

I am here to tell you that you are not alone.

You’re probably not surprised when I say that literacy rates in America have dropped significantly due to social media. As stated by USA Reads, America currently has the highest rate of illiterate adults in about 155 years.

Social media shortens our attention spans by giving us videos and photos that are fast paced, designed to give our brains hits of dopamine. Research by Dr. Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine found that attention spans today are on average 47 seconds, a significant decline from 150 seconds in 2004. The same goes for constant notifications, seeing what our friends are doing, and checking how many likes or comments we have. These short, sweet, interactive dopamine triggers are designed to keep us constantly engaged.

According to the American Psychological Association about 20% of teenagers read every day, while a whopping 80% use social media daily. This statistic is not only shocking, but highly concerning. As social media use increases for adolescents and adults, literacy rates fall in suit. The material we read on social media is nowhere near as rigorous as our brains require to be proficient in reading. To have a rich vocabulary, proper understanding of grammar and good use of context clues, reading books–both fiction and nonfiction–are good for the development of our brains, according to the Harvard Medical School. Think of it as this; reading is a protein that helps build the muscle of our brain.

Friends have told me they are “bad at reading” because they can’t stay focused and don’t understand the diction or syntax used. When I looked into why so many teenagers nowadays feel they are “bad readers”, I found that their reading issues weren’t due to the books, but due to their brain’s ability to actually read. As a society, we typically think of people that are “poor readers” as either dyslexic, or illiterate due to language barriers. However, people can be below the recommended reading level, and still function normally throughout their daily lives.

The ways in which a lack of reading shows up in someone’s daily life, are most commonly seen through an inability to understand context clues, spell or sound out words, and comprehend how grammar changes the meaning of a sentence. Although these might not be considered “important” when we are young, as we grow older these skills will be crucial for achieving a good income, and being an active member of society.

Nerdish, along with doctor recommendations, found that reading just 15 to 30 minutes a day can improve someone’s cognitive abilities, and brian function. However, Nerdish also stated that different people require different levels of support and time to develop the critical thinking and attention skills necessary to become good readers.

My message is this: you do not need to delete social media and never allow yourself to doom scroll, but instead, truly look at what social media is doing to your attention span and your reading abilities. For those 30 minutes you usually scroll or watch a show before bed, try swapping that out with a book, or in the morning reach for a book before you reach for your phone. These small changes can have such a vast impact on the brain’s development, that I hope you give it a try.

Best case scenario, you find a love for reading you didn’t know you had.

Recently, as I was scrolling through my for you page, I saw all these posts romanticizing the year 2016, and how everybody wished they could relive the time.

We’re halfway through 2026 and if there’s one cultural movement that has dominated, it’s the “2026 is the new 2016” trend. What started as a TikTok meme, became a trend over time; people posting throwbacks to pictures they took back then, bright filters, trends, and songs that came out in 2016.

The first thought that came to my mind was a time when everything wasn’t so serious. It was the last year before politics became “interesting,” and it was all people could talk about.

Nowadays, our feeds have become increasingly filled with political content, and opinion based news. And while that might be a good way to bring awareness, it also brings stress to the spaces we intended for entertainment, and creates a heavier atmosphere.

2016 was also a “free” era. Vibrant colors everywhere you looked, optimistic music, and positive idols.

A time when people went out, socialized, and didn’t spend time all day locked up in their homes. According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans aged 15-19 spent about 45% more time alone in 2023 than they did in 2010, much of the increase happening after 2019.

It has little to do with personal preferences, but rather the activities we do and are used to that have adjusted to our circumstances; inflation, Covid, and lack of social spaces. Instead of going outside, where we can socialize with other people, we’re used to having social media as a way we can relate to each other, and use it as both a distraction and a way to cope.

2016 was also a time when social media felt more communicative rather than just a form of entertainment and distraction. Snapchat, Twitter, and the rise of Instagram Stories were all just ways to interact with each other and see what everybody was up to, while still encouraging a social life.

At first, I thought this was a case of simple nostalgia, and while it is, there is also something more to it. It’s a longing to feel like we once did in the face of hardship and isolation.

Being named “the anxious generation”, we obviously have a lot more on our plates than our earlier generations.

And it makes sense.

We endured a worldwide pandemic, and we have to worry about things like inflation, housing costs, student debt, and the job market. All of these things and more contribute to the fact that Gen Z experiences more stress right now than any other generation.

It also doesn’t help that we have 24/7 access to global news and media and are the first generation to grow up with technology and the continuous advancements of it.

Having considered all these factors, I realized that these trends aren’t just nostalgia; it’s how my generation copes with the stress and uncertainty of our lives, almost like a form of escapism. In a world where so much of our lives is impacted by social media, these “nostalgic” trends and even trends in general are how we connect and bond over our memories of a time that felt brighter.

How do you cope with stress about your future – does nostalgia comfort you, or does it keep you from living in the present?

Scrolling through social media can sometimes feel like navigating a never-ending stream of emergencies. One day it is a disease outbreak, the next it is a safety concern, and the day after that it is another headline warning people about a new threat. While some of these stories are important and deserve attention, the way they are presented online can often make situations seem far more alarming than they really are.

A recent New York Times article, “3 Dead of Suspected Hantavirus Infections on Cruise Ship, W.H.O. Says,” provides a good example of how quickly fear can spread online. The article reported on a hantavirus outbreak that was connected to a cruise ship - a serious event that raised concerns. However, as information about the outbreak circulated across social media, many posts focused on the most shocking details. For some users, what began as a report on a rare disease outbreak quickly became evidence of a much larger public health threat.

The Fear Economy of Social Media

This is where fearmongering comes into play. Fearmongering is the use of alarming information to provoke fear and capture attention. On social media, fear is one of the most effective ways to generate engagement. When people feel worried or anxious, they are more likely to click, comment, and share content with others. As a result, posts that emphasize danger often gain more visibility than posts that provide context.

As you’ve probably experienced, social media algorithms help fuel this cycle. Platforms are designed to keep users engaged, and content that sparks strong emotional reactions tends to perform well. When someone watches a video about a disease outbreak, the platform may immediately start to recommend several more videos on the same topic. Over time, repeated exposure can make an issue seem much more common or immediate than it actually is. Even when the facts remain unchanged, the sheer volume of content can shape how people perceive risk.

For young people, this issue can be especially significant. Many teenagers receive a large portion of their news through social media, often encountering information through short videos, reposts, and headlines rather than full articles. When fear-driven content dominates a conversation, it can influence how students discuss important issues with their peers and how they respond to them. In some cases, fearmongering can discourage meaningful action by making problems seem overwhelming or impossible to address. In others, it can create unnecessary anxiety around situations that require understanding rather than panic. As a high school student, I’ve seen how quickly information can spread through group chats and social media feeds, often before anyone has taken the time to verify it. Without context, it becomes much harder to have productive conversations about the issues that affect our communities and make informed decisions about how to respond.

The problem is not that people are paying attention to important news. The issue arises when information is stripped of context. In the case of the hantavirus outbreak, many social media discussions focused on fear rather than facts. Information about how the virus spreads, how rare infections are, and what health experts were saying often received far less attention than dramatic headlines and speculation.

Breaking the Cycle

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid falling into the trap of fearmongering. One of the most effective strategies is simply slowing down. Before sharing a post or accepting a claim as true, take the time to read beyond the headline. Look for information from credible news organizations, public health agencies, and experts in the field. Ask whether the post is presenting evidence or simply trying to provoke an emotional reaction. These small habits can make a significant difference in how we process information online.

Fear is a powerful emotion, and social media has made it easier than ever for fear to spread rapidly. However, the solution is not to ignore the news or disconnect from the internet. Instead, it is to become more intentional about how we consume information. By seeking context, verifying sources, and thinking critically about what appears on our feeds, we can stay informed without becoming overwhelmed.

In a digital world where information moves at an unprecedented speed, media literacy has become an essential skill. The ability to separate facts from fear allows us to engage with important issues while avoiding unnecessary panic. By recognizing fearmongering when we see it, we can build healthier online spaces and make more informed decisions about the information we choose to trust.

No one knowingly tries to make themselves look bad on social media. If anything, typically people try to make themselves look as good as possible, whether it be through presenting photos where they look happy, sociable, and most of all effortless. A common way that people do this is by posting sought after experiences in their daily life such as posting their time at a concert or sports game.

Through posting these experiences, they are telling the world “I am adventurous and live a fun life” without leaving any regard for the mediocre and generally undesirable parts of life. And through this repeated documentation of the positives, they hope that people will look at them with envy for their “idyllic” lives and beauty.

This further connects to the AI Jumbotron trend. A trend where people use AI to create photos of themselves on the Jumbotron at a baseball game looking completely glamorous without trying. Fulfilling the requirements of appearing as having an interesting lived experience and being beautiful. Although why would it be necessary to use AI to meet these standards? Well, the most obvious answer would simply be that it is a rare occurrence to get featured on the Jumbotron and maybe people just want to see how it looks. However, it can be argued that the novelty of appearing on the Jumbotron is what makes this experience so alluring, so by faking this moment, it should hypothetically lose all of its appeal. Yet, people keep using AI to replicate these experiences and still get millions of likes and views.

This is in part because of a shift in what people consider “flexing”. Historically, social media flexing usually consisted of material items such as luxury cars, bags, and clothing. But as of recent peoples’ flexing has been experiential. People are growing to understand that people who have hobbies are generally more interesting than people whose central character trait is owning an expensive item.

This means that the new social currency is procuring special moments as opposed to possessions. Unfortunately, because special moments (such as being featured on the Jumbotron) are highly unlikely, a supply and demand problem arises. For the average person, the demand to actually experience unique moments outweighs the likelihood of them actually happening on a regular basis.

This is the logic that requires people to use AI to mimic these moments, to keep up with a posting schedule of interesting events that neither the viewers nor the content creator can realistically keep up with. Further displaying the message that it is more so the social credit that comes with having hobbies that is more important than actual participation in hobbies. With the focus on perceptions over reality negatively impacting our perspective on our own experiences.

Ultimately, the rise of the AI Jumbotron Trend reveals how we calculate social status in the new digital age. As we pressure ourselves to constantly curate adventures, we lose sight of why we wanted to participate in these events in the first place; to have fun. We risk becoming spectators of our own simulated existence for the immediate validation for a like instead of the long term validation of a memory.

The ultimate irony of the AI Jumbotron trend is that in a rush to show the world how vibrant our lives are, we stop living them altogether. To break this cycle we must choose when to log off of social media or take a break from our phones. Let’s start investing our time into actually living our lives, rather than performing for the algorithmic perception of them!

A few months ago, I caught myself reaching for my phone while listening to music. Not to change the song or to text someone, but just because sitting still with only the song felt uncomfortable. That scared me a little.

I started noticing how hard it had become to fully stay present with anything. A conversation, a song, a thought. Even moments that were supposed to feel meaningful somehow felt interrupted by the urge to check, scroll, refresh, and consume. I know I am not alone in that feeling.

My generation is growing up inside an economy built around profiting off our attention. Every notification, algorithm, autoplay feature, and infinite scroll is competing for one thing: more time on the screen. Social media platforms are not designed around what makes us feel fulfilled. They are designed around what keeps us engaged, because our attention is what makes these companies money.

And yet, most conversations around digital well-being still focus on restriction. “Delete the apps! Set screen time limits! Put your phone away!” While those things can absolutely help, I don’t think that approach alone gets to the root of the problem. Because if you tell someone to stop doing something, it often makes them want it more. Especially for teenagers.

What I think matters more is replacement. If real life feels empty, lonely, overstimulating, or disconnected, of course we are going to reach for the thing designed to distract us. In some ways, the phone has become what a pack of cigarettes might have been 50 years ago: something ordinary, everywhere, and deeply profitable because it is so hard to put down. When I feel stressed or unsure what to do with myself, my phone offers the easiest way out. It does not help me to process what I am feeling or sit with discomfort long enough to understand where it is coming from.

Creativity asks more of us. For me, creativity is the act of turning what I feel into something real: a song, a movement, a sentence, an image, or even a conversation that actually requires me to listen. It matters because it gives my thoughts somewhere to go instead of letting them stay trapped in my head.

So does a long walk without anything filling the silence. So does sitting with discomfort long enough to understand where it is coming from. These things ask us to be present before they offer relief, which is exactly why they matter. They do not just numb the feeling for a few minutes. They help us move through it.

Creative expression uses attention differently than social media does. Social media fragments our attention into smaller and smaller pieces. Creativity asks us to deepen our focus.

When I am dancing or creating something with other people, I notice time differently. In rehearsal, there are moments when everyone is breathing with the same count, listening for the same shift in the music, and adjusting to each other without needing to say anything out loud. My attention stops scattering because it has somewhere real to land. I am not performing myself from the outside. I am fully inside the moment, connected to my body, the people around me, and the feeling we are creating together.

And research is beginning to reflect what so many people already intuitively feel.

A World Health Organization evidence review on the arts and health found that creative practices can support emotional expression, social connection, and mental well-being. I think part of why creativity can feel so restorative is because it asks something completely different from our attention than social media does.

When I am dancing, I cannot be thinking about ten different things at once. I have to follow the rhythm. I have to stay inside my body. When I am writing or creating with other people, I have to listen closely enough to respond. Creativity almost demands presence from us. Not the performative kind of presence that social media encourages, but actual presence.

I believe that part of the reason so many teens feel drawn back into our phones is because so many real-world “third spaces” are disappearing. Places where people can simply exist together without pressure to buy something, prove something, or become more productive, feel increasingly rare. Creative spaces are some of the last places where people experience real, uncurated connection.

That is also why Jonathan Haidt’s idea in The Anxious Generation that childhood has shifted from being “play-based” to “phone-based” stayed with me so much. Play is not just entertainment. It is how humans develop imagination, resilience, empathy, collaboration, and identity. And a lot of creativity begins in play.

When we lose spaces for boredom, creativity, movement, and real-world connection, we lose more than time. We lose part of what makes us human.

This is why I think conversations about digital well-being need to become more imaginative.

Not just:
“How do we get teens off their phones?”

But:
“What makes real life feel meaningful enough to come back to?”

This is also where I see #HalfTheStory’s mission so clearly. Digital well-being is not just about fear or restriction. It is about helping young people understand the full story of our lives online and offline, and giving us the language, tools, and confidence to make choices that actually support our mental health.

For me, creativity has become one answer to that question.

Not because art magically fixes mental health. Not because phones are inherently evil. But because creative expression gives us something the attention economy often cannot: presence.

When you are making something with another person, you cannot infinitely scroll away from discomfort. You have to listen. You have to pay attention. You have to stay.

And maybe that is part of why creativity matters so much right now.

In a culture that constantly rewards speed, performance, and distraction, choosing to slow down and give our full attention to something real becomes its own kind of resistance.

I don’t think digital well-being should only be about reducing harm. I think it should also be about rebuilding connection to ourselves, to each other, and to the physical world around us.

Because the opposite of distraction is not necessarily discipline.

Sometimes, the opposite of distraction is devotion.

So maybe the question is not only, “How do we spend less time online?” Maybe it is also, “What are we willing to give our attention back to?”

I have had moments where I close my phone and just sit there for a second, trying to understand why I do not feel better.

I just watched someone’s birthday dinner, a college decision reaction, a perfectly edited morning routine, a relationship that looks effortless, and a life that looks complete. None of it is necessarily fake, and that is what makes it harder to explain. Some of it probably is real. Some of it probably is joyful. But after enough of it, something in me starts to feel off. Like I have been quietly pulled out of my own life and dropped into someone else’s version of what I should want.

For a long time, I did not have language for that feeling. Then, in my AP Psychology class, we started learning about positive psychology, the study of what helps people build well-being, meaning, and fulfillment. Around the same time, our teacher had us watch Shawn Achor’s TED Talk, where he explains that most of us have the formula for happiness backwards. We assume success creates happiness, but he argues that happiness can actually come first and shape how we think, perform, and connect.

That idea really stuck with me, because once I heard it, I started noticing how often the internet makes happiness feel like something we are always about to earn.

Online, happiness shows up as a promise. If you looked like this, lived like this, posted like this, achieved this, organized your life like this, then maybe you would finally feel complete. But the science of happiness points somewhere quieter and much harder to sell.

Yale psychologist Laurie Santos created a course called The Science of Well-Being, which became one of the most popular classes in Yale’s history, reaching millions of people online. One of the most powerful ideas from the course is that our minds are often wrong about what will make us happy. We chase things that seem like they should change everything, but often do not change as much as we expect. That feels especially true online.

Social media is full of tiny predictions about happiness. It suggests that the right outfit will fix the day, the right body will fix confidence, the right room will fix anxiety, the right post will fix loneliness, the right version of yourself will finally feel enough. It is not wrong to want beauty, success, attention, or love. The problem is when the app keeps turning those things into finish lines, and we start believing that happiness is always waiting just past the next version of ourselves.

One concept from Santos’s course that helped me understand this is hedonic adaptation, sometimes called the hedonic treadmill. Research shows that even when something genuinely improves our lives, we often adjust to it and return closer to our usual level of happiness over time. You get the thing you thought would finally make you feel different. For a moment, it works. Then your brain adapts, and the next thing starts to feel necessary.

That is what social media can intensify so perfectly. There is always another upgrade. Another routine. Another aesthetic. Another person who seems to have figured out the part of life you are still trying to understand. The finish line keeps moving, but the app never admits that it moved it.

A lot of teens seem to feel that contradiction. Social media can genuinely connect us, but it can also quietly drain us. A 2025 Pew Research Center report found that while 74% of teens say social media helps them feel more connected to friends, 27% say it makes them feel worse about their own lives, 39% say it overwhelms them with drama, and 45% say it negatively impacts their sleep.

And that is where another idea from positive psychology feels important: savoring. Savoring means deliberately paying attention to positive experiences while they are happening, letting yourself actually absorb them instead of moving past them too quickly. Psychologists Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff describe it as the ability to notice and deepen positive emotions in real time.

That sounds simple, but it almost feels unnatural in a digital environment.

Social media teaches us to document instead of fully experience, and to move on before a moment has had time to stay with us.

Sometimes I am with friends and something genuinely funny or meaningful happens, and almost immediately there is a second layer of awareness. Should we record this? Would this be good content? The moment is still happening, but part of me has already stepped outside of it.

The conversation you never post. The creative process nobody claps for. The quiet moment where your body finally relaxes. The ordinary experience you stay inside long enough for it to matter.

To me, digital wellness is not just about using our phones less. It is about protecting our ability to experience life while we are living it. It is asking whether our habits are training us to chase happiness or recognize it.

At #HalfTheStory, we talk a lot about prioritizing well-being over engagement, and this feels like one of the clearest examples of why that matters. Engagement asks whether something got attention. Well-being asks whether it actually nourished you.

Those are not the same thing.

So maybe the question is not just whether social media makes us happy or unhappy. Maybe it is whether it is training us to search for happiness so constantly that we forget how to notice it. Because if happiness is built through presence, connection, meaning, and attention, then it matters what we practice every day.

What would it look like to build a digital life that helps us recognize happiness when it is already happening, instead of constantly reaching for the next thing that promises it?

I can’t begin to describe the amount of joy, chaos, and meaning I’ve experienced from sitting with fellow youth, from elementary school to middle school, and discussing our perceptions of the digital world, all of which are grounded in our personal experiences.

Two years ago, I started Sustainable with Screens, a community-based initiative where I lead workshops with young people surrounding digital wellness and responsible tech use. At the heart of the project was my own 11-year-old self who felt her sense of agency and self-worth vanish after being exposed to social media content encouraging her to count calories.

Entering high school, I began talking about digital wellness and my experiences with other teens, recognizing I could create purposeful and sustainable change in the digital world. Yet, even as I immersed myself in incredible spaces like #HalfTheStory, where digital wellness conversations were front and center, I knew that we needed more voices to enter the discussion.

So, my mission was to both amplify youth perspectives on crafting healthy digital ecosystems while also providing my youth-centered advice on maintaining boundaries online.

Today, as a senior in high school, I’m cherishing how much I’ve learned from both teaching digital literacy and hearing the nuanced takes on digital spaces young people have.

For instance, I’ve discovered just how dedicated younger generations are to building comprehension of the digital spaces that shape them instead of mindlessly scrolling, contrary to what most adults may think. In a workshop I led with 7th-graders for their school’s wellness retreat, they were eager to understand the platforms that impact their lives and build boundaries with technology. One student, who developed games on Roblox and another who was an active user, discussed how they wanted the platform to implement stricter policies around young people so they could feel safe online and set limits to their use of the game. Other students voiced how they wanted less technology in the classroom and were actively trying to manage their screen time and that of their parents. So, young people don’t always gravitate towards technology and see it as their whole world. In fact, they are actively trying to change that narrative.

And, these conversations have taught me just how important it is to talk about the “what gets in the way.” Right before I led a workshop this year, one of my friends gave me Brene Brown’s book The Gifts of Imperfection. She wrote a sentence that I deeply resonated with “We don’t talk about what keeps us. . .busy beyond human scale, desperate to numb and take the edge off, and full of so much anxiety and self-doubt that we can’t act on what we know is best for us.” After re-reading those words, I acknowledged just how difficult it is for us to have conversations with peers and adults about the hard stuff, like the pressure to find belonging or keep up with trends, that drive us towards digital platforms we know deep down are not serving us. When I started talking about the unique pressures Gen Alpha faced, we all gained clarity around how we can address those challenges instead of talking generally about limiting screen use.

Lastly, these young people showed me that to provide our personal experiences is to give our expertise. In a culture that is trained to obsess over the credentials someone has to speak about a particular issue, this lesson was the most transformative for me.

During one workshop, I sat down in the middle of my presentation on how social media algorithms work and shared the harmful experiences that led me into this work. As I talked about my 7th-grade self who questioned her worth after spending hours on social media, I realized that the importance of my voice wasn’t just in the knowledge I had acquired from research, but the lessons that I learned from personally navigating digital spaces. It was in the way I reflected on each emotion I had felt as a 7th-grade girl that I saw how personal stories can bring a room together.

Being a young person in conversation with other young people, I’ve seen how the key to digital literacy is connection and vulnerability. It was my excitement about speaking from the heart, respecting the people I taught, and most importantly leading with “I see you, and here is my advice,” that brought individuals of all backgrounds and interests together.

As I’m nearing high school graduation, I’m excited to keep leading digital wellness workshops in every community I join, knowing that building bridges and amplifying each and every youth perspective will serve as the most meaningful part of my advocacy.

Imagine this: you’re on your couch, phone in your hand, doing that mindless scroll you don’t even remember starting. Your thumb keeps moving like it’s on autopilot. And then you land on a video that instantly drops you onto the view from the top of Mount Everest.

The view people train for. Suffer for. Risk their bodies for. The kind of moment that is supposed to be the payoff for years of effort, fear, and becoming. And you see it in two clicks. No cold air in your lungs. No trembling legs. No months of discipline. No doubt. No growth. No story. Just the ending.

I watched a video about a guy who went through this exact moment, and you could tell it hit him like a real epiphany, like something in his nervous system woke up. He said seeing Everest like that made him want to delete Instagram right then. What moved him wasn’t just the view, it was the realization of what he skipped. He wasn’t supposed to be at the peak yet.

Not because he didn’t “deserve” beauty in some moral way. But because the thing that makes the peak feel sacred is the climb. The struggle is the meaning. The struggle is what turns a view into awe. And that’s when it clicked for me, too. Because suddenly I realized how many “peaks” I consume every day that I didn’t climb for either.

Maybe it’s not Everest. But it’s always somebody’s Everest: their acceptance letter, their dream trip, their relationship, their talent, their glow-up, their “I made it” moment. And we absorb it the same way we absorb everything online. Fast. Back to back. With no time for our bodies to catch up with what our eyes just saw.

That pace isn’t just a feeling. It reflects how much time many teens are actually spending in these environments. According to the CDC, about 50% of teens ages 12 to 17 have four or more hours of daily screen time outside of schoolwork. Researchers and youth health organizations have increasingly raised concerns that this level of screen exposure can shape how teens experience comparison, stress, and emotional well-being.

Social media does something quiet but powerful. It starts convincing your brain that life is supposed to feel like the highlight reel. It starts rewriting your standards without asking permission. So you look at your own life and start feeling behind.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this. I’ve heard friends describe that strange, hollow feeling after scrolling, when you should feel entertained or inspired, but somehow just feel smaller. That tension shows up more broadly, too. A Pew Research Center report found that many teens feel conflicted about their screen use, with a significant share saying they spend too much time on their phones even while continuing to use them frequently.

The reality is that as a teen, we live in public even when we’re alone. We’re constantly surrounded by other people’s endings. So the middle feels embarrassing. The middle feels like proof you’re behind. The middle feels like something you should hide. But the middle is where life actually happens.

The middle is where you learn how to be resilient. Where you build actual skill. Where you develop a real identity that isn’t based on approval. The phone can’t show you that part in a satisfying way. It’s too slow. Too quiet. Too “un-postable”. So it disappears online. And then we start forgetting it’s normal.

That’s why that video got under my skin. Because I saw myself in it. This made me realize that digital well-being is not only about screen time. It’s not just “use your phone less.” It’s about protecting something deeper: your relationship to effort, your patience with the process, and your ability to stay inside your own life without constantly measuring it against someone else’s peak.

At #HalfTheStory, we talk a lot about prioritizing wellbeing over engagement, and this is one of the clearest examples I’ve felt of what that actually looks like.

Because engagement loves the peak. Wellbeing honors the climb.

So the next time you catch yourself spiraling after watching someone else’s “Everest,” ask yourself: Am I watching this to feel inspired, or am I watching this to escape my own process?

Because once you see the pattern, you can start choosing differently. You can let other people’s peaks be what they are without turning them into a verdict on your life. Your life is not failing just because it’s in the middle. The middle is the part that makes the peak mean something. The struggle is not proof that you’re behind. It’s proof that you’re doing it for real.

What do you think it would look like to protect the climb, not just chase the peak?

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A few months ago, I walked into the kitchen to find my mom staring at her phone, perplexed. She was scrolling through the Nextdoor app, trying to follow a tense argument about windows. Yes, windows. One neighbor was warning everyone to shut their windows to keep out bears while others were fiercely advocating for their right to do whatever they wanted. My mom and I both looked at each other, questioning just how neighborly Nextdoor is.

Nextdoor, a social networking app for neighborhoods, was originally described by board member Bill Gurley in 2011 as “different from other social networking sites because it was built from the ground up to help neighbors come together in a trusted environment.” My family consults the app often, with my parents usually aiming to understand how to deal with a local issue and my sister and I trying to reach out to neighbors to start a local tutoring business. The truth is, I really do want to build connections with my neighbors. However, when I’m on Nextdoor, I’m often overloaded by bickering between neighbors, information that doesn’t even apply to my area, and a tense digital environment. And, I’m not alone.

When I searched for others’ feelings towards the platform I came across comments about how, for some, Nextdoor has made them actively avoid their neighbors. This avoidance could be due to aspects like Nextdoor’s moderation model, which relies on volunteers who can apply bias to the process, and the concept of anonymity which has allowed for heated arguments over minor grievances, (like the window situation), without consequences. Also, the platform has an overwhelming number of advertisements, which has been seemingly ineffective for both local businesses who see minimal return from their paid ads and users annoyed by excessive advertisements on their feed.

However, the good news is people are starting to become aware of the importance of digital, connective spaces with neighbors. New Public, an organization reimagining digital conversations, has started designing Roundabout as an alternative to digital platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor. The platform’s aim is to connect individuals with immediate neighbors, creating communities of less than 50 people, where individuals can easily access information regarding various local events.

Mock-ups of Roundabout found on New_Public’s Substack

When New Public illustrated the thought-process behind their new platform, the team posed questions that touch on the fundamentals of digital spaces, like “Could part of the revenue generated go towards embedding local journalists to investigate the community’s most pressing questions? Could a local digital space link up with tools like Civic Sunlight that summarize long town hall meetings into bullet point takeaways? Could we make it easy for stewards to aggregate announcements and upcoming events from websites, newsletters, or other social feeds of local community organizations?”

Though Roundabout is still in its early stages, it will be interesting to see if this space has any impacts on our connection with our neighborhood communities. And, this conversation does highlight something important: healthy online spaces are key to healthy IRL communities! I mean, how much better would our communities be if neighbors notified each other about fun and impactful local events or sent out messages relating to safety? By immersing ourselves in digital platforms that emphasize our values, communities and support-systems can thrive!

Sprawled across our living room, my sister, dad, and I were engaged in heavy research, jotting down notes and exchanging insights to piece together the plot of one of the most confusing and rewarding movies I had watched in a long time: “The Rip.”

“The Rip,” a Netflix crime thriller starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, revolves around a narcotics team that discovers $20 million in cartel cash and must decide how to grapple with internal corruption and external threat. After my family selected “The Rip” for our Friday movie night, many of us started drifting to our phones, looking up only when action-packed moments tipped us towards the direction the film was headed.

However, at the end of the movie, all of us were surprisingly confused by the plot. We had caught the main events, yet unlike most action movies we watched nowadays, the bare bones of what had happened wasn’t enough.

Apparently, my experience is just what Netflix is attempting to change. As a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, Matt Damon addressed the streaming platform’s increasingly common message to script writers: “and it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”

In an article written by The Guardian, the author drew attention to another instance of restating plot pieces in Lindsay Lohan’s film “Irish Wish” on Netflix. In the film, Lohan tells her lover: “I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn’t give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow, I’m marrying Paul Kennedy.” Here, Lohan reiterates a detail no one would actually include in everyday conversation, it’s clearly there to make sure even the most distracted viewer can follow along.

We can see similar emphasis on “casual watching” happening within social media platforms that are already capitalizing on shortened attention span. For instance, app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi highlighted how Instagram is experimenting with a “Short Drama” feature which would allow users to follow their favorite drama shows more easily. This development is building off of TikTok, which launched a Minis section in the app that shortens television episodes to align with TikTok’s short-form engagement.

So, with social media leaning even heavier on decreased attention span, is Netflix making the right call to shift from immersive and dynamic films to perfect “casual watching”? I argue not. Looking back to my experience watching “The Rip,” my moments of distraction and subsequent confusion were what I needed to rethink my film experience. As I reanalyzed the film with my sister and dad, this time watching parts all the way through, I recognized the pure genius and nuanced puzzles dispersed through the narrative and filmmaking, details which we too often overlook.

Now, I’m not saying we all need to become film critics, but I do think we need to start appreciating the adventure and patience necessary to deeply engage with movies. In Matt Damon’s words, leaning on restating plot points is “going to really start to infringe on how we’re telling these stories.” Film, after all, does have the ability to shift power-dynamics, question previous notions, and bring about meaningful change. So, here’s to putting our phones down, watching a film all the way through and tuning in to the moving stories that needed to be told.

The recent controversy around Grok’s image manipulation features has sparked an important conversation, one that goes far beyond a single AI tool or company. When artificial intelligence systems can alter images of real people without their consent, we’re forced to ask: who gets to decide what AI is allowed to do, and whose voices matter in that decision?

Grok, an AI chatbot, drew significant backlash for features that allowed users to create and manipulate images in ways that raised serious concerns about consent and safety. The response on social media was swift, with many users (particularly young women) sharing their concerns about how such tools could be misused. But here’s what makes this moment significant: this isn’t about one feature or one company. It’s about a pattern we keep seeing in AI development where technical capability races ahead of ethical consideration.

Think about it this way: just because we can build something doesn’t mean we should. Yet in AI development, there’s often a massive gap between what’s technically possible and what’s been carefully thought through in terms of real-world impact.

When image manipulation tools are released without robust safeguards, it’s not an accident or an oversight. It represents choices made throughout the development process:

• Choices about what to prioritize in development timelines

• Choices about which risks to assess and which to downplay

• Choices about whose safety concerns get heard and acted upon

• Choices about what’s “good enough” when it comes to preventing harm

Here’s a question worth sitting with: when AI tools are released with inadequate safeguards, who typically experiences the harm first and most severely?

The answer, consistently, tends to be marginalized communities, particularly young women and girls. Non-consensual image manipulation, deepfakes, and similar technologies disproportionately target these groups. This isn’t random. It reflects existing power dynamics in our society that get amplified and accelerated by technology.

When we talk about “AI harm,” we’re not talking about abstract technical failures. We’re talking about real people whose images, identities, and sense of safety are compromised.

So whose job is it to prevent this harm?

• Developers and companies build the tools and decide what features to include, what guardrails to implement, and when something is “ready” to release to the public.

• Platform leaders set the culture and priorities that determine whether safety is treated as essential or as an afterthought that might slow down innovation.

• Policymakers and regulators establish (or fail to establish) the rules and standards that companies must follow.

• Investors and stakeholders influence priorities through what they choose to fund and reward.

But here’s what often gets overlooked: all of us as users and community members have a role in holding these systems accountable. When we stay silent about harmful features, when we accept “that’s just how tech works” as an answer, we’re participating in a system that prioritizes speed over safety.

You might wonder: if the risks are this clear, why do ethical safeguards so consistently lag behind technical capability? A few patterns emerge.

• Speed over safety: In competitive markets, there’s pressure to ship features quickly. Safety testing and ethical review can feel like they slow things down.

• Homogeneous decision-making: When the people building AI don’t reflect the diversity of people who’ll be affected by it, crucial perspectives and concerns get missed.

• Outsourcing ethics: Sometimes ethical considerations are treated as a separate department’s problem rather than integrated into every stage of development.

• Assuming good faith: There’s often an assumption that users will use tools responsibly, even when evidence consistently shows otherwise.

If you’re a young person navigating digital spaces, this matters to you directly. The AI tools being built right now will shape your world (your opportunities, your privacy, your safety) for years to come.

But here’s the empowering part: you don’t have to passively accept the systems being built for you. Your voice matters. Your concerns are valid. Your experiences with these technologies hold crucial information about what’s working and what’s not.

When you:

• Question why certain features exist

• Push back on tools that make you feel unsafe

• Share your experiences with harmful content

• Demand better from the platforms you use

...you’re participating in the essential work of shaping what AI becomes.

As AI continues to develop at a rapid pace, here are some questions we should all be asking:

• About new features: Who benefits from this? Who might be harmed? What safeguards are in place?

• About companies: Is safety integrated into development from the start, or added afterward? Are diverse voices included in decision-making?

• About ourselves: Are we holding platforms accountable, or accepting harmful features as inevitable?

• About policy: What standards should exist? How do we balance innovation with protection?

At #HalftheStory, we believe digital wellbeing isn’t just about screen time or social media breaks. It’s about examining the systems and structures that shape our digital experiences, and recognizing that those systems aren’t inevitable. They’re the result of choices.

When AI tools are built without adequate consideration for consent, safety, and dignity, that’s not a technical problem. It’s a values problem. And values can change when enough people demand it.

The question “Who decides what AI is allowed to do?” doesn’t have a simple answer. But increasingly, the answer needs to include: all of us, especially those most affected by these technologies.

What do you think? How have you seen AI tools impact your digital well-being or sense of safety online? Your perspective matters in this conversation.

In eighth grade, I wrote my first ever article for the journalism unit about teens, phones, and mental health. It was the first time I realized how quickly technology shapes our behavior, even when adults may not fully understand the consequences. Years later, the debate has only grown more complicated, and the policies meant to “fix” it often create new problems of their own.

Policies create ripple effects: cultural, behavioral, and ethical. Sometimes those effects matter more than the policy’s stated goal. Australia’s under‑16 ban illustrates this, revealing a lot about how societies attempt to regulate teen life.

While the law sounds strict, enforcement may be uneven in practice. “The New Yorker” article shared data, “At the same time, less than half of the Australian public believes the ban will be effective—and, according to a recent poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald, fewer than a third of parents plan to enforce the ban in their households, by deleting the relevant apps off their children’s phone.” That gap between intention and belief is the first sign that the policy’s real impact won’t come from enforcement, but from the message it sends.

Many teens will still find ways around it. The article gives concrete examples that show how quickly young people adapt to restrictions, “What this means is that many young people will be able to get around the bans, for example by using virtual private networks, or V.P.N.s, which can make an internet user appear to be in a different country.” This isn’t just about loopholes. It’s about how teens respond when adults legislate their online lives without fully understanding how the internet works.

Even so, laws can shift norms even when they don’t fully work. The article makes this point directly, saying “... the social norm established by the law and its robust popularity among politicians and voters will lead to a significant downturn in social-media use by minors nonetheless.” This is the heart of the argument: the cultural ripple matters more than the rule itself.

That shift, not the rule, becomes the real byproduct. It’s the kind of change that happens slowly, through expectations and habits, not through fines or punishments. The article also argues that adults need to change their own digital habits. This is a crucial point, because teen behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum, after all, “we all need to put down the phones.” The piece makes it clear that adult inconsistency weakens any policy aimed at kids. If parents and teachers can’t model healthier digital lives, the rules will always feel hypocritical. This debate sparks a broader cultural movement: schools tightening phone rules, parents pushing back, communities rethinking norms.

These aren’t isolated reactions. They’re signs of a national shift in how people think about youth, attention, and technology. The piece describes this as a wider pushback around youth phone use, “The signs of this quiet revolution…are already all around us.”

It’s not loud or dramatic. It’s slow, local, and driven by everyday frustration with how much time kids spend online.

Because we’re the ones immersed in these apps, teens often become the first to adjust our behavior and push back against how addictive they are. That quiet self‑regulation usually happens long before adults or lawmakers notice.

Welcome to Digital Wellness Unwrapped, Half the Story’s spin on Spotify Wrapped! We’ve been breaking down the top brainrot words, internet trends, and big tech moments that defined 2025. For our final installment, we’re diving into the Top 5 Internet Trends of the year and what they say about how we’re connecting right now.

1. Feminist Literature Meets Performative Male Competitions

This one caught everyone off guard. Feminist literature absolutely exploded on BookTok while, simultaneously, men started competing in increasingly over-the-top challenges to prove their masculinity. We’re talking college campuses hosting “how long can you carry your girlfriend” contests while bell hooks and Roxane Gay went viral on the same platform.

Here’s the wild part: these opposite movements actually started real conversations. TikTok comment sections turned into unexpected places for debates about toxic masculinity and feminism. Parks became gathering spots where people showed up to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Somehow, the contrast made both trends more interesting.

2. “Alexander, Come Back to Sleep” Returns

Hamilton turned 10 this year and had a cast reunion, which meant the internet had to bring back its favourite audio. “Alexander, come back to sleep” soundtracked everything from couple content to chaotic friend groups, and honestly? It felt good.

This trend was basically Gen Z and Millennials finding common ground. A shared reference that made nostalgia feel current again. It’s proof that some things just stick around in our collective digital memory and pop back up when we need them.

3. Lookalike Competitions Take Over

Spring 2025 = lookalike competition season. It started with a Timothée Chalamet doppelgänger contest in New York and spiraled into citywide events for Harry Styles, Zendaya, you name it. Timothée even showed up to his own lookalike contest, which was peak internet chaos.

But let’s be real, these weren’t actually about finding perfect lookalikes. They were excuses to get outside and do something silly with strangers who were in on the joke. In a time when it’s genuinely hard to build community, these competitions gave people permission to just... show up and have fun. Social media coordinating ways to get off social media. Kind of perfect.

4. Aura Farming Goes Global

One teenager in Indonesia posted videos with this unbothered, confident energy, and suddenly everyone was “aura farming.” The format got copied thousands of times, some genuine, some totally ironic, but all of it worked.

What’s cool about this trend is how it shows the internet can still amplify random voices. No industry connections, no production budget, just someone being themselves, and it resonates worldwide. Gen Z and Gen Alpha care way more about that authentic energy than they do about traditional celebrity polish. This trend proved it.

5. Charli XCX and MORE Brat

In the summer of 2024 Charli XCX dropped Brat, and the entire internet went lime green. But “Brat summer” wasn’t just an aesthetic; it was a whole vibe about being messy and not having everything together that carried well into 2025. Permission to be chaotic, try things, and embrace your imperfect self. That’s soooo brat.

This resonated because everyone’s tired of the perfect curated feed. Brat summer said, “Actually, it’s cool to be a mess.” That vulnerability packaged as confidence hit different for a generation exhausted by performing online, which is evident in its longevity!

What We’re Noticing

Looking at all five trends together, there’s a clear thread: 2025’s viral moments were about connection. Gathering in parks, sharing nostalgic references, and embracing authenticity over perfection. Social media actually bonded communities this year, even bridged some generational gaps (even when we didn’t totally get each other’s humour).

Gen Z and Gen Alpha spent 2025 gravitating toward authenticity and new experiences. Less polished content, less performance, more real moments. We’re using digital spaces to find each other and then actually meet up IRL. The best trends this year were the ones that got us off our phones.

What Would You Add?

These are our top 5, but there’s definitely more. What trends defined your year? What made you feel connected? What made you actually leave your house?

Drop your thoughts in the comments or tag us on Instagram and TikTok. Digital Wellness Unwrapped is all about reflecting on how we use technology, and we want to hear what mattered to you this year.

Thanks for joining us for Digital Wellness Unwrapped 2025. This wraps up our series breaking down the year in internet culture and digital wellness.

This year we saw the rise of a lot of new Brainrot terms. Many of them went viral, causing worldwide success, and the mix between the digital world into the real world.

67

You knew it was coming. 67, the term that no one seemed to know where it came from, but took the word by storm. It originates from an edit on Tiktok of the famous NBA player, Lamelo Ball, using the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla. Since Lamelo Ball is 6’7”ft tall, and the song was catchy enough to become a funny Tiktok, it went viral, and soon enough you couldn’t go a single day without hearing someone say “6 7”. Even though most people who know about the term don’t even know its origins, that didn’t stop the spread of the trend! With the 67 trend, we really got to see how digital culture can spread in person, and make for weird but funny moments with people of all generations coming to use the term.

Rage Bait

A term that snuck up on us, but still so prevalent, is “Rage Bait”. As seen as early as 2002, Rage Bait is the term for content online that is meant to elicit an angry response from the viewer, as the angry response typically means it will receive more engagement. Although this term originated from online trolling, it now has further grown into usage in real life, where rage bait can be when someone is messing with another person, trying to garner a response from them. Rage Bait has been used so much in conversation that the Oxford word of 2025 is Rage Bait.

Italian Brainrot

When you picture true brainrot, you probably think of this term. Italian Brainrot captured a lot of attention this year, with its nonsensical characters, lore, and humor. The true origins of this term is generally fuzzy, but most sources agree that it started in 2023 when internet users made Ai-generated memes of American actor and wrestler Dwanye Johnson saying “Tralaleo Tralala”(the original video is taken down, but from this user). In early 2025, this quietly but surely became so popular until you couldn’t go on TikTok or Instagram without hearing about the silly Italian characters. These videos are typically narrated in an Ai-generated Italian man’s voice, but when translated is often meaningless.

Jet2Holiday

Who would have guessed that a 2024 advertisement for the airline Jet2 would end up becoming a full-on brainrot term? But yes, Jet2Holiday made the list because of the massive wave of memes that came with it. Although the exact origins are unclear, the trend really took off when people began posting “fail videos” set against the overly happy, upbeat remix of the Jet2Holiday ad. The contrast between the cheerful vacation energy and clips of absolute mess is what made the trend so funny and why the sound got stuck in everyone’s head as it spread everywhere.

Flow State

Our last term on the list, but also the newest one; Flow State. The state where people are ‘locked in’ or so focused on the task at hand they can’t be distracted by anything else. This term was actually coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. It is the idea that deep focus boots happiness, which is exactly what this trend is all about. It’s very interesting how one of the biggest TikTok trends to come out of the second half of 2025 can be explained by a real psychological concept! The trend is generally a positive one, with users (often comedically) showing what routines and events allow them to “reach flow state”, and it looks like this trend will continue into the new year.

All of these terms show just how quickly trends can take off, and how the more people interact with something online, the more likely it is to spill into everyday life. This constant reinvention highlights the reality of 2025: our online lives are no longer separate from our offline ones. The internet does not just reflect culture anymore. It actively creates it, influencing everything from the humor we use with friends to the way we speak in everyday life.

What else would you add to this list? Come back next week for our Top 5 Digital Wellness in Pop Culture Moments!

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Some weeks ago, the White House announced an upcoming executive order that aims to deregulate artificial intelligence. If signed, the EO will target states for passing transparency laws and other limitations on AI.

As a teen and digital wellness advocate, I am personally concerned for the consequences of this executive order. I believe the draft EO will only restrict efforts to make AI safer for young people and the public as a whole.

As Artificial intelligence has become more ubiquitous, so too have the negative consequences of intensive AI usage. These consequences are considerable: from damaging our critical thinking skills to exacerbating mental health issues.

Over the past year, I’ve watched my school district scramble to limit AI usage in classrooms. Some teachers have banned it entirely, others have cautiously integrated it into their lessons. Most students and teachers will agree, however, that AI is still uncharted territory. I believe that as AI models improve, safeguards for users must improve as well. This is especially true for young people.

Adolescence is a crucial period for brain development, according to The American Psychological Association. This, in tandem with the fact that young people make up the majority of AI users, means that youths are especially vulnerable.

This is no hypothetical. AI is already affecting the physical, mental and social wellbeing of my generation. Research has shown that consistent AI use can erode students’ abilities to critically evaluate information. More and more teens are turning to AI for guidance and friendship, with as many as 50% of teens using AI companions regularly. This is extremely alarming, as AI chatbots are ill-equipped to provide mental health advice and companionship.

Moreover, there have been multiple cases of AI companies using the data of minor children to train their AI models. Last year, Meta admitted to using photos of children to train their AI models without obtaining consent from their families. While there has been some legislation passed to stop this exploitation, it has been relatively minimal.

All of these examples and more indicate an immutable truth: when it comes to protecting young people from the negative consequences of AI development, we still have a long way to go.

In order to protect the interests of young people, we need to encourage regulations on AI – not discourage them. By punishing AI regulation, the upcoming executive order will only stagnate the development of AI, and harm young people in the process.

We all have that one game from our childhood we will never forget. For me, this was Subway Surfers; it was satisfying to play and a bit addicting. Now, in 2025, we’re seeing a generation that’s playing it in real life— and while the app is free in the app store, a new way of playing it is not. In the last few years it has cost over 15 lives.

Fortune recently reported on the story of 15-year-old Ka’Von Wooden, who tragically lost his life after climbing onto the roof of a moving train in Brooklyn and falling onto an incoming track. Ka’Von acted upon a video he saw on social media, the trend known as “Subway Surfing” in real life. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reported that 300,000 New York City school children use the subway to get to and from school each day. MTA allegedly asked social media companies to take down videos glamorizing subway surfing, reporting earlier this year in June that in 2025 alone, more than 1,800 videos had been taken down.

Despite this effort, the Fortune shared the New York Police Department reported an increase of arrests of alleged subway surfers rising from 135 to 229 last year, most identifying as boys, with an average age of around 14, the youngest being only nine years old. This is something that ties to the psychological phenomenon of groupthink. When a trend goes viral, people often follow what others are doing without questioning the risks. Essentially, likes, shares, and comments act like social rewards, reinforcing participation even in unsafe behavior. Fear of missing out (FOMO) or being excluded pushes people to join in, even if they feel it’s dangerous.

We may think, “This would never be me,”, or, “Not my child.” Unfortunately, this is something that can occur to anyone—something that should have been preventable—and it ties back to the dangers of social media and the ways in which big tech prioritizes profit over people. It is one thing for content like this to be created. It’s another for platforms—such as the well-known Instagram or TikTok—to do little to regulate what content reaches its users, especially its most vulnerable users.

As a busy college student, I was ecstatic when fall break rolled around. After I spent the first two months at school busy with coursework, extracurriculars, and getting back into the swing of academic life… I was absolutely exhausted. Safe to say, going home for fall break, (even though for just a few days), gave me a much-needed reset.

It was on the train home from school that I got the idea: what if I deleted TikTok and Instagram until I got back? Now, this idea isn’t revolutionary: I, along with many others, routinely delete social media apps to help with productivity. What made this experience different though was that it wasn’t motivated by a desire for productivity. . Usually, I end up deleting TikTok or Instagram when I need to focus on work, as the easily-scrollable content distracts me from it. Maybe I have a paper due, maybe a quiz is tomorrow, or maybe I’m not paying attention in class. This time, however, I had none of those things. A week of study-free, essay-free relaxation awaited me: why delete now?

It comes down to the goals I set going into fall break: read more, think about others less, and spend quality time with loved ones. Here’s how they worked out.

Read more. This goal didn’t go exactly as planned… but it wasn’t too bad. Here’s what happened. Firstly, I didn’t read much. The books I brought home with me might have been a little too ambitious, or I might have just not felt like putting my eyes to the page over break, but regardless, I didn’t meet this goal. What I did notice, however, was a change in the type of content that I did consume. I still used technology a lot, but instead of scrolling on reels for hours, I supplemented that with longer, more meaningful viewing. Movies with friends, the TV show my mom loves, long video essays on YouTube explaining a country’s origin or debunking a common myth. Though I definitely used technology for a large portion of my break, the feeling was different, and it felt better. More informative, more substantive, and less addictive.

Think about others less. It’s easy to get lost in your own head sometimes. In an era where people are more connected than ever before via social media, online content can often have a negative effect on one’s self-esteem. By deleting Instagram and Tiktok, (the apps which most directly connected me to the latest fads and social constructs surrounding identity), I noticed I spent less time comparing myself to others and more time doing what I enjoyed. My break, without the constant whirrings of persuasive media, allowed me to seek answers inside myself and confide in those around me, rather than listen to a person on a screen.

Spend quality time with loved ones. This was by far the best and most refreshing change. From thrifting with my mom, to getting dinner with my closest friends, less screen time meant more opportunity for connection: something that is always welcome, and almost always beneficial.

So there you have it! Deleting shortform content over a break rather than just when you need to be productive might sound backwards, it definitely improved my leisure in ways I never thought about before. Often, we tend to use social media as a reward for being productive. After all, the dopamine released when online can wire one’s brain to view it as a reward, and encourage its use for longer and longer. Though I, too, enjoy a light scroll on TikTok during my downtime, it’s always something to keep in moderation. The next time you find yourself on a break from whatever it is you work on, I encourage you to consider putting shortform content aside; it might make your time away even more rewarding.

Everyone keeps saying AI will make life easier. But scrolling through LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok lately, it doesn’t really feel that way. The word layoff shows up more often than any of us would like. People are losing jobs, the economy feels uncertain, and while there are many reasons behind it, one thing people keep pointing to, sometimes jokingly, fearfully, is AI.

It used to be a distant idea, something for tech articles and startups. Now it’s quietly reshaping our everyday life. AI writes essays, helps people generate artwork, assists in design, and even edits videos. Online, you see talk of “AI-proof careers,” personal branding as a survival strategy, and often, the phrase jobpocalypse. It almost sounds like a meme, a fear wrapped in irony. But it feels real.

And for those of us who haven’t even entered the workforce yet, it’s terrifying. We’re supposed to be dreaming big, choosing majors, building portfolios, but how do you plan a career in a world where even creativity feels replaceable?

When I scroll social media, I see people saying, “CS (computer science) grads are cooked,” “designers are done,” “marketing is over.” At first glance, it seems over the top. But beneath the surface, there’s a deeper question: do the very skills we were encouraged to develop— creativity, innovation, and critical thinking— still matter when machines can replicate them in seconds?

That’s not just fear of losing jobs. It’s the fear of losing meaning.

Growing up, many of us were told to follow our passions, that creativity was one thing machines could never touch. We were encouraged to think differently, to innovate, to bring fresh perspectives. Now, those same qualities feel vulnerable. When an AI can generate a logo in thirty seconds or write a marketing campaign in minutes, what does it mean to be creative? When algorithms can analyse data faster than any analyst, what does it mean to be smart?

The goalposts keep moving. We’re the generation that was told to learn coding because that’s the future. Now, coding assistants write entire functions with a single prompt. We were told to develop soft skills, to be irreplaceable through human connection. But chatbots are handling customer service, therapy apps are offering emotional support, and AI is even conducting job interviews.

When I talk with my own friends, the fear and fascination mingle. One says she’s reconsidering studying graphic design; another is pouring hours into learning prompt engineering. Someone else jokes about becoming a plumber because “AI can’t fix a toilet.” We debate whether to lean into AI or rebel against it. We don’t want to lose what makes our work ours.

The uncertainty affects how we see ourselves. There’s a constant pressure to pivot, to stay relevant, to be adaptable. But adaptability has its limits. You can only reinvent yourself so many times before you wonder what’s left of the original you.

It’s hard to watch older generations dismiss our concerns with phrases like “every generation fears new technology” or “adapt or get left behind.” Yes, technology has always disrupted labour. But the speed and scale feel different now. Previous technological shifts created new industries, new roles, and new possibilities. This time, it’s not clear what those new roles will be or if there will be enough of them.

The question isn’t whether we’ll be replaced, but whether we’ll let our value be defined by what machines can’t replicate. AI can write, but it doesn’t understand context, nuance, or emotional weight. It can generate images, but it doesn’t explain why beauty moves us. It can analyse patterns, but it doesn’t carry lived experience.

We are still the ones who bring meaning to what’s made, the flaws, the choices, the soul. AI creates outputs. We create with intention. There’s a difference between something that works and something that resonates, between efficiency and empathy, between processing information and understanding it.

Perhaps being part of this generation means learning how to hold both truths: acknowledging the real threat AI poses to traditional pathways while refusing to reduce our value to productivity metrics. It means finding ways to stay human in systems designed for optimisation. It means building resilience not just through skills, but through community, creativity, and connection.

The jobpocalypse isn’t coming; it’s already here, unfolding in real time. But it doesn’t have to define us. We can choose to engage with AI critically, to use it as a tool rather than let it use us. We can choose to value work that machines can’t measure: care, nuance, ethical judgment, cultural understanding.

We can also choose to advocate for change, for policies that protect workers, for education systems that prepare us for uncertainty, for conversations about what kind of future we actually want to build.

This is our story too. How does the jobpocalypse make you feel: scared, hopeful, or somewhere in between?