Are You Ready to Unplug with Us This Weekend?
Today is the Global Day of Unplugging and we're celebrating two years of In The Loop! 🎉👏
Important news!
Before we dive in, we’re excited to share an important update about our newsletter community.
As #HalfTheStory continues to grow, so does the conversation around digital wellbeing. To better reflect the full scope of our vibrant community, we’re joining forces with our educator newsletter, Teaching Teens with Screens to bring you an elevated version of what you’re already familiar with.
What does this mean for you?
We’re creating one dynamic space where you can hear a variety of POVs from young people to teachers and thought leaders shaping school culture and digital wellbeing. Stay tuned!
Hey hey! It’s Ally and Olivia and we’re back for the 24th edition of In The Loop! This is a special one because it marks two years of sharing youth POVs on the topics that impact us all on a daily basis. When we started ITL, Ally was 18 and in high school, and Olivia was 20 and in college. Now Ally is a 20 year old college student and Olivia is out in the world and graduated!
Whether you’re a teen, parent, advocate, or even educator, we appreciate you tuning in each month and being a part of our movement to empower youth to reclaim their relationships with tech.
Here’s a snapshot of our impact ⬇️
Help us make ITL better! Take 5 minutes to share your thoughts on In The Loop - madlibs style! This is completely anonymous and will help us understand how we can improve the newsletter.
Unplug with Us on the Global Day of Unplugging!
Did you know that this Friday and Saturday (March 6-7) is the Global Day of Unplugging? In celebration, Teen Tech Council and Creator Collective member Sofia Lee Verovic is leading the #HalfTheStory Unplug Campaign - an awareness movement that encourages people to unplug and engage in screen-free activities in a fun and accessible way! Curious to learn more? Check out our launch video and join us on March 6th and 7th as we go offline together!
Introducing the 2026 Lookup Live Innovators!
We’re so proud to share that three #HalfTheStory youth leaders were selected for the 2026 Lookup Live Innovation Challenge - a grant that supports groundbreaking solutions in digital wellbeing and humane technology. Click on their names to learn more about their projects!
At #HalfTheStory, we look at both sides of the internet, so here are the latest trends and tips you should know. And who knows…maybe watch out for 👇
🔥What’s Hot:
Is “play” making a comeback in youth culture? 🛝 It looks like it. When Alysa Liu talked about focusing on joy instead of pressure at the Olympics, it struck a chord with a lot of young people. Her disposition felt easy and genuine, and you could tell she was truly having fun. That kind of joy feels contagious! More teens are choosing creativity, embracing silliness, and real-life connection over constant perfection, and we love it. Read GrownKid’s recent article on this here!
We called it in December: Gen Z wants to bring back physical media! According to a recent piece in The New York Times, young people are rediscovering devices like the Apple iPod and CD collecting because they offer distraction free listening and a sense of ownership over music. This comeback shows that many teens are craving slower, more meaningful ways to experience the things they love and UNPLUG!
Happy Women’s History Month! 💪 We are so grateful for the women who lead, and show up with courage every day, especially the incredible women in our #HalfTheStory community. We are also loving the wave of powerful women edits and women’s history edits taking over TikTok right now. Be sure to celebrate and uplift the women in your life who inspire you!
👎What’s Not:
Mark Zuckerberg took the stand to defend Meta against a young woman accusing Meta and YouTube of hooking her as a child and harming her mental health, arguing that platforms like Instagram were designed to fuel addictive behavior. Zuckerberg told the jury he believes the company has handled teen safety “in a reasonable way” and says its platforms are meant to build community, not cause harm. Meanwhile, parents outside the courtroom say these companies put profits first. The bigger question now is where responsibility really falls, on tech companies, families, or somewhere in between.
What is “AI Fatigue”? Software engineer Siddhat Khare shared in Business Insider how constant AI use at work made him more productive, yet much more exhausted. Khare notes that AI has actually made his job harder by increasing context-switching and review work instead of reducing stress; “‘the AI doesn't get tired between problems. I do.’" The nature of the work has changed, leaving software engineers mentally drained with the endless pace of updates. It makes us wonder if teens using AI tools for schoolwork might start feeling a similar kind of pressure to keep up in their schoolwork.💭
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.”
Enjoying this article? Teen Feed has it’s own column! Click here to keep reading!
In honor of today being the Global Day of Unplugging, we are shouting out a TikTok idea we shared in Bright Side vs. Dark Side a few months back! This month’s phone hack is a DIY Phone Docking Station.
The original creator of the “HANG UP THE PHONE” movement on TikTok, LivingMadly made her phone dock from a slab of clay. She leaves her phone charging on this dock like a wall phone would stay mounted in one spot to decrease her screen use. Others have gotten creative with cardboard and boxes for their phones, and you should too!
It’s Women’s History Month! This month, we’re highlighting Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez. This book shows how gender data gaps shape our world in ways we often don’t notice and why inclusive design matters. Find it here!
Thanks for scrolling along with us! Don’t leave us on read…subscribe…we’ll be back next month! In the meantime, stay 'In The Loop’ daily by keeping up with us @halfthestory on all socials! 🤩
