We blinked and somehow it’s already December! ❄️☃️ Welcome back to In The Loop, it’s Olivia and Ally here with the final edition of 2025! It’s been a whirlwind of a year at #HalfTheStory, with big milestones and the brightest teens leading the way!
Before we jump in, here’s a quick snapshot of In The Loop in 2025!
Published 46 articles and counting 🚀
Reached nearly 60K views 👀
Readers from New York, California, and Ilinois were 53% of our audience! 🌍
Thank you so much for being a part of this community and we’ll be continuing to spotlight teen stories next year and beyond. 🫶
Movember x #HalfTheStory Mentor Meetup!💪
Last week, we hosted a special #DigitalCivicsAcademy Mentor Meetup with the incredible team at Movember, where teens learned how Movember is transforming men’s mental health and how they can get involved in spreading awareness and advancing mental health research!
Teaching Teens With Screens IS LIVE!🧑💻
Our new educator-facing newsletter, Teaching Teens With Screens(right here on Substack) is live! This newsletter, designed for teachers and education leaders, breaks down the tech trends shaping students’ daily lives. With each new edition, we hope to offer practical tips for navigating tech-related challenges and creating environments to ensure digital flourishing within the classroom. Two editions are up already, with more to come! Check out the latest here. 🧑🏫🍎
Drumroll please…🥁
We’re so excited to announce Gabe Follone as December’s DCA Alum of the Month! Since completing our summer program, he joined our Teen Advisory Board and is inspiring more teen boys to join the movement!
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:
Need a last minute gift idea? Put together an analog bag! 🖍️ Simply put, it’s a basket of items that help you stay off your screens! From things like a needlepoint set, Sudoku’s, coloring books, and more, anyone in your life could probably use lower screen time and less brainrot this coming year.
Can a social media detox actually improve mental health? 🧠 Turns out, it could! A recent study with 18-24 year olds found that after a one-week social media detox, 16% reported a decrease in anxiety symptoms and 24% saw a decrease in depression symptoms. Note: This study was done with 18-24 year olds and more research will need to be done to see how this effects younger teens. Stay tuned, because our teens are sharing their takes on this soon!
If you’re on TikTok, you may get to try out their new digital wellbeing featuressoon including an affirmation journal and badges that help users improve their mental health. We’re all for making social media apps a healthier place to be on, but will these updates actually make a positive impact? 🤔
👎What’s Not:
This past week, the federal government announced an executive order that would block states from enacting any and all AI regulation. This is huge because it allows Big Tech to continue gaining momentum and power despite countless situations of it’s platforms negatively impacting young people. All that to say, here is what our teens shared on why we can’t let this happen.
We can’t not mention Australia’s social media ban for under-16s, which officially took place this week. The biggest question we’re all asking right now is “will it work?” While it’s too early to tell, there is a lot of discourse happening, including many teens speaking outabout why they believe this ban won’t work and others who share why they’re glad this law is being enforced.
Welcome to Digital Wellness Unwrapped, #HalfTheStory’s spin on Spotify Wrapped, where we’ll be breaking down the top brainrot words, internet trends, and big tech moments from 2025. This week, we’re sharing our Top 5 Brainrot Terms.
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.
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, 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 6-7 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.
Enjoying this article? Teen Feed has it’s own column! Click here to keep reading!
Last month, we brought together 60 high schoolers through our New York Teen Tech Councilfor a full-day of screen-free activations! Check out a recap below. If you’re a New York high school student who wants to be a part of moments like these, apply for our Teen Tech Council by January 11th! ✌️
Can we ditch the ‘Suggested Posts’ feature on Instagram? Turns out, you can actually snooze suggested posts by going to ‘Content preferences’ in your Instagram settings. While this doesn’t permanently remove suggested posts, it’s one step to making your feed show content you actually want to see. Try it out! 👇
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! 🤩
Great job!! I look forward to reading each edition.