Transforming Learning: AI for Differentiated Learning

by Nate Green & Kelly Enright

As educators, we know that students acquire information and develop skills in different ways and at different times; it’s one of the most challenging things about teaching. That’s why we believe in the power of differentiating our content and activities to better reach all of our students. By differentiation we mean designing diverse lessons and activities to reach students that start at different levels of understanding and come to know in different ways. When students easily access material and share their learning, it increases their confidence, engagement, and retention. AI provides a unique breakthrough on our quest to design deeper, more personalized learning experiences to reach all learners.

This article shares suggestions and prompts that have dramatically enhanced our teaching and our student’s learning. Using AI in the ways described below also creates more class time to connect deeply with students so we can learn as whole people. 

image from Dall-E

We want to be clear at the outset that AI outputs are not synonymous with learning. While AI can generate differentiated and personalized lesson plans and assignments (as we detail below), they aren’t effective–pedagogically speaking–unless they are tinkered with and delivered by a teacher that knows their students' needs and their curricular goals.

We believe teachers should design AI prompts to deliver immediate, actionable feedback to meet the needs of an individual student no matter where they are in terms of content knowledge and skill development. But this feedback won’t land without skillful facilitation by a teacher seeking to make learning stick and hone transferable skills.

AI for Scaffolding Instructional Materials
One of our favorite prompts is to input an activity or formative assessment and ask AI to create multiple versions of the activity for students at different levels of understanding. AI will generate multiple activities at various levels on the depth of knowledge framework, Common Core standards, or with standards from your own class. Differentiation is at the heart of good teaching; it creates a way for all students to access the same content at an appropriate level so that all students can enter the classroom conversation.

AI for Tutoring Students
Perhaps the most famous prompt for personalization is Ethan Mollick’s tutor prompt. This prompt transforms an AI model into a tutor that asks open-ended questions that are tailored to the learner’s understanding of the content and provides examples and analogies to help make the learning stick. Many educational technology companies like Magic School, SchoolAI, and Flint have deployed similar prompts and added dashboards where teachers can assign an AI tutor and also see what students are learning and what they are struggling with. This prompt levels the playing field so that no matter what the circumstances, all students have the opportunity for individual tutoring to engage with the content in ways that connect to their lives and their level of understanding. Furthermore, curious students can access a tutor to further explore course topics, or try to learn something entirely new.

AI for Accessible Resources
When teachers assign challenging readings, AI transforms into a “text-leveler” to make it easier for all students to understand a challenging topic rather than just the students with larger vocabularies and stronger reading comprehension skills. AI can also connect challenging concepts to a student’s life with a real world scenario or example, which helps students understand and retain tough topics. Additionally, when teachers introduce their most difficult topics, it takes only seconds for an AI to generate a number of analogies to help the teacher explain it in more unique and relatable ways. Teachers can ask for analogies that will make the most sense to their students based on the curriculum, their age, their geography, or their values.

Another way for teachers to assess and improve comprehension is to use AI tools to ask questions and provide feedback (much like the tutor prompt above). One app we love, Sherpa Labs, leverages AI to ask and assess comprehension questions in a conversational style with the students. Students respond verbally and receive feedback in real-time about how well they understood the reading. This application has helped us support our students who like to discuss but can struggle putting thoughts into writing. When students arrive to class after having conversed extensively about the reading, it leads to better classroom conversations and in-person interactions. Additionally, students can input their own writing and converse with the AI to better articulate their thoughts in preparation for a discussion or a presentation.

AI for Multimedia
With the introduction of multimodal AI applications, teachers can share information in multiple ways from image, to audio, to video. In addition, teachers can have students showcase their learning in a variety of formats where they can feel more confident expressing their understanding. For example, when explaining a challenging concept, teachers can use image generators to help students visually recall information.

Similarly, OtterAI can transcribe a conversation, a lecture, or a YouTube video, which can help students take notes or revisit course content with the help of a text readout. This process greatly benefits students who like to see course content in writing rather than hear it in lecture. It allows students to process content in their own way, at their own time, and as many times as needed.


We hope these suggestions help teachers ignore the AI hype and focus on honing the strategies that have delivered great teaching and learning for years–differentiation and personalization. A teacher’s role is to ensure that the classroom is a place where all students have access and retain content and demonstrate their learning in multiple ways. Great facilitators ensure that students are engaging with the material and gaining knowledge. When used well, AI can help teachers and students right now. When students feel like they are seen and supported in ways that work for them, it engenders a sense of self-efficacy. Self efficacy builds engagement, confidence, and, in turn, fulfillment. When students are comfortable with learning and excited to share their learning, their whole self shines through, and this brings deeper learning to our classrooms, and a more constructive culture to our learning communities. AI can help us do that now. Why wait?

The Age of Social Media is Over, Welcome to Parasocial Media

image from DALL-E

By Nate Green and Jack Besser

As AI becomes more pervasive, parents and teachers have glimpsed the innovative, unexpected, and in some cases unsettling ways young people are using AI. Setting aside the important debate over AI’s place in the classroom, we’re interested in how AI has begun to guide teens’ social lives. For instance, when an 11th grade boy received a Snapchat from his crush and was unsure what to do about it, he asked ChatGPT to analyze their recent communications to find out whether or not his crush was into him and how he should respond. When a 12th grade girl sought positive affirmation from her social network, she had AI write captions for her Instagram posts in the style of her favorite influencers. When diffusing a tense disagreement with friends, a 7th grader asked ChatGPT to craft her responses in the groupchat. And when an 8th grade student was “left unread” one evening by a friend, he spent the next few hours conversing with his “My AI” on Snapchat instead.

These anecdotes demonstrate the new parasocial relationships our children are developing with AI. These AI applications aren’t just telling them what to write, but how to feel.

Many of the applications young people use have integrated and pushed AI products. Teens can follow AI influencers on Twitch and YouTube, they can watch videos of humans pretending to be AI on TikTok, they can converse with AI versions of celebrities on Meta, they can chat with a personalized AI on Snapchat or a personalized “AI companion” on Replika.

Adolescents frequently use AI to augment their interactions on social media. TikTok trends and Snapchat lenses frequently push AI filters on users. Social media platforms promote novel multimedia posts and edgy humor – like superimposing a peer’s face over an inappropriate meme – all but assuring our students will adopt new apps and features. AI technology helps adolescents use beauty filters to create unrealistic expectations and it helps them generate synthetic audio and video (deepfakes) to joke with peers.

Not only do teens find AI applications trendy and fun, but they also see positive results from the outputs, in the form, for instance, of well-received posts, which then drives further adoption. AI can protect teens from making mistakes by giving them distance from their words. Young people use AI to avoid being “cringe” — or saying something that could be embarrassing or uncomfortable online.

AI is not a good substitute for human interaction, especially in the critical teenage years. For teens, social conflict is inevitable and should be embraced as a way to practice resilience and conflict resolution skills. Friction and uncomfortable moments are character-building. Developing emotional intelligence improves academic outcomes. Social emotional learning research clearly demonstrates the benefits of centering skills like self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Students need face-to-face conversation — trusted mentors and friends who can ask good questions, understand social context, and interpret crucial non-verbal cues like facial expressions, tone, and body language. Replacing these interactions with instant gratification via an AI model robs young people of a learning experience and erases the nuance, feelings, and friction of their human interactions. A childhood mediated by this many AI bots prevents young people from learning how to be vulnerable, how to navigate conflict, and how to build deep friendships.

This year, the CDC reported a decline in teen mental health. So did the APA. And the US Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic. AI will exacerbate these problems. As social media use rises, so do the youth rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Anxious, stressed, and lonely children are more likely to turn to AI for instant gratification and social connection. Researchers sounding the alarm about causation between social media and negative mental health outcomes arrived a decade late. We can’t wait another decade to study the negative effects of parasocial relationships.

It’s time to implement proactive solutions to parasocial media. Adults must be open-minded and empathetic, and must lean in to uncomfortable questions and conversations. We may not know what teens need, as they may share with chatbots what they normally shared with parents, teachers, and counselors. But we need to create space to hear from adolescents, so we can mentor them through the difficult moments. We have to learn enough about AI to highlight the benefits — like exploring interests and creating multimedia content to share with like-minded friends — while also teaching the pitfalls of this technology.

At every juncture, we have to remind young people that filters are fake, bots aren’t friends, and friction is part of growing up. We can’t count on tech companies or congress to moderate these spaces, and we can’t ban internet usage; we have to encourage quality media consumption that includes friends and mentors. We can encourage the next generation to interact with peers, spend time outside, and even FaceTime rather than text.

It will take all of us — mentors, friends, parents, schools, and civic institutions working together. We need to start now. The growth and wellbeing of our adolescents depends on it.

Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?: Blockchains, Crypto, and NFTs in Q4

A section of the Garman Blockchain

 
To keep my 5th graders engaged at the end of the year in an ungraded Library-Technology class that meets once a week, I decided to increase the intellectual level… significantly. My co-teacher, the Librarian, shook her head and laughed when I shared that I intended to teach  10-year olds about blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs. Adults complain all the time about how they “don’t get crypto,” but these 5th graders picked it up quickly thanks to a blockchain role-playing game I created with just a google sheet and some creativity.

I knew I would never get 10-year olds to understand blockchains, cryptocurrency, and NFTs by lecturing at them, so I designed a game that runs on a homemade blockchain where students receive cryptocurrency and NFTs and can use them to succeed on class activities and assessments. Think of this as a role-playing game, where, by using their crypto and NFTs (to defeat bosses!), students come to understand this technology. In our discussions throughout the unit, students made insightful points about our homemade cryptocurrency and NFTs that applied perfectly to the debate in the tech world about the utility of blockchains. They also learned a lot about tangential topics like digital and financial literacy, intellectual property, and citizenship. Perhaps most importantly, students thought innovatively, creatively, and strategically about a new technology with the potential to change the world they will inherit.

Background
I am no crypto-evangelist. Frankly, I don’t see the practical use, and I can’t get over the environmental problems (not to mention all the scams). Regardless, blockchains are an innovative piece of technology and they’re fueling ambitious and optimistic projects that may have an impact on future technology. For example, evangelists want users to own and control their own data on a blockchain (e.g. NFTs) and they want to build new decentralized institutions (e.g. DAOs) that can check the power of the current tech monopolies. Whether or not these projects are here to stay, I want my students to 1) understand the disruptive technology that they may inherit and 2) start thinking innovatively and strategically about how they use technology in their lives. Again, I am not sold on whether and to what extent this technology will enter our lives, but there’s loads of capital and thousands of talented engineers trying to transform technology as we currently use it. It’s imperative for the next generation to understand this so they can embrace the good pieces and push back on the bad. After all, had citizens better understood the last round of companies that “disrupted” our information ecosystem–companies like Facebook/Instagram and Google/Youtube–we could have better resisted the ad-driven business model that thrives on stealing our data and feeding it into an algorithm designed to hook us by amplifying our anxiety, anger, and fear.

Blockchain
With help from a colleague, I coded a Google Sheet to function like a blockchain, and then I launched our game with a loot drop (think: opening a chest in a video game) where every student acquired currency, called Garmans (named after the Head of School), and NFTs. The NFTs were items to be used in our role-playing game (e.g. Volcanic Battle Axe). Students received a wallet number that appeared on our public ledger/blockchain. They then created “character cards” based on the items in their wallet (Garmans and NFTs). They took these "characters" on quests–creative, fun challenges in faraway lands with mythical creatures–in the hopes of winning more loot and enhancing their characters.

The Google Sheet served as our “public ledger” of all transactions on our Garman blockchain. Students could buy, sell, or trade Garmans and NFTs with a simple Google Form. Much like a real blockchain, in order for the trade to go through, a “miner” (another student), had to verify the trade. For example, if one player wanted to trade her “Salmon Spidey Sticky Fingers” to another student for his “Golden Invisibility Cloak,” they would fill out the Google Form and enter their wallet numbers. The Form was connected to our blockchain and it auto-generated an email that went to a random student in the 5th grade who had to then verify, or “mine” (a crypto term for verifying a transaction), the trade in order for that exchange to appear on our public ledger.  I incentivized “mining” the same way real cryptocurrencies do by releasing Garmans to miners that verify transactions. And I incentivized trading to acquire more Garmans and better NFTs because it helped them succeed on quests! If this sounds confusing to you, that simply highlights one of the biggest problems with crypto! People don’t get it. But I can assure you that my students figured it out quickly. Whether students were trading, mining or questing, they learned intimately how this process works. Students checked the public ledger frequently to see which wallet numbers were trading which items for how much.

After just one class, the Garman blockchain set off a wave of excitement and activity that spanned far beyond my classroom. Students raced to collect NFTs from the same “set.” They designed intricate characters with names, classes, backgrounds, and even signature outfits. And they asked dozens of questions about how this works, why, and what we can do with it.

Quests
In addition to administering a functioning blockchain, I also wanted this experiment to serve as the engine that drove my class throughout the 4th quarter. I designed a number of quests where students teamed up and used their characters to complete challenges. The first quest was essentially a creative quiz about the content we had been learning in this unit. Not only were students using our blockchain to design and modify their characters to succeed on this quest, but the questions that comprised the quest were about blockchains as well. For example, characters couldn’t get past a mythical wardrobe (and into Narnia) if they hadn’t made or verified a trade. And they couldn’t see the final boss in the mirror (from Alice in Wonderland) if they hadn’t shown creativity by writing their character’s background and by adding original work to their character card (to signify the NFTs they owned). If students succeeded, they had a chance to earn additional loot for their wallet and thus their character. Throughout the quest, I used different gamification elements to keep students engaged and challenged. One great thing about a gamified unit is students can fail at the game and learn from it without the fear of a bad grade!

The students were so engaged in the unit that they asked for more quests, more Garmans, and more NFTs. I overheard students trading Garmans for skittles at lunch. I had students emailing me throughout the day asking about a trade verification or seeking to purchase a new NFT from the Fox Shop (my storefront for selling new NFTs–also accessed via Google Sheet & Form). Though my class only met once a week, students interacted with our blockchain daily. As an educator, I harnessed this extracurricular energy, creativity, and collaboration for deeper learning. I sought other 5th grade teachers and asked them to share with me the content they were teaching. I turned this content into additional quests. Over the subsequent weeks, my Library-Tech class became a place where students completed quizzes for other courses all while learning the content and skills I set out to teach and refine at the outset of the unit–skills like creativity, collaboration, and resilience.

Examples
In the Math Menagerie, students had to apply their math skills to defeat their math teacher–an elf that lived in a tree that looked suspiciously like it came from the Keebler world. If they could calculate the perimeter of a stump, they could use it to cross a river (and they could use their NFT boots or gloves to climb or wade). In order to defend themselves from arrows coming from above, they had to know about isosceles triangles (and they could use their NFTs to return fire or heal each other if they failed the geometry questions!). And to get up into the tree, they had to know about greatest common factors. Clearly, this is a math quiz, but the students didn’t see it that way; they were questing, desperate to know what loot they could acquire upon completion.

Math Menagerie Quest Example

In the Church Championship, students used their knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic architecture to defeat a time-traveling cleric–their social studies teacher. If they got it wrong, they were locked in faraway churches and couldn’t help their teammates.

Church Championship Quest Example

I invited my colleagues to observe these quests, especially the ones with their class’s content. They couldn’t believe it. Students eagerly formed groups and sent their characters on quests seeking adventure and loot. It didn’t matter the subject-matter, this blockchain sustained teaching and learning for an entire grade level!

Creating these quests took skill, knowledge, and creativity, so I finished the unit by having students create their own quests about a topic they were passionate about from their 5th grade curriculum. The results were fun and exciting, but also insanely creative in a way that only 5th grade teachers will understand. They taught me new ways to use the blockchain that I created! This unit had something for all students to enjoy: teaching classmates about a passion, challenging friends with an evil (or nice!) boss, and doling out loot on the Garman blockchain. A seriously diverse group of students thrived on this project and many asked to create more!

Student Quest Example

Throughout the unit, I hosted brief discussions at the beginning of class before we started questing that encouraged students to think critically about the technology itself. The most illuminating discussion was when I asked, “what are Garmans worth?” and stepped aside. Inevitably one student would note, correctly, that this is all a simulation and Garmans weren’t worth anything. But another would point out that they were able to leverage their Garmans to get something they wanted, whether an NFT on our blockchain or Skittles on the playground. When students were waiting for trades to be verified we had a detailed conversation about bitcoin miners and the negative environmental impact of cryptocurrencies (my students were none too pleased). I also received a number of emails about a “scam” where one student took advantage of others via the trade Form. This led to a real conversation about how hackers and scammers take advantage of the anonymity of cryptocurrencies and also how they exploit the complexity of cryptocurrency and blockchains.

This game allowed students to experience sophisticated technological and economic concepts in a way that sparked engagement and provided a depth of learning that I didn’t know was possible with 5th graders.  

The game mechanics allowed students to take ownership of their learning. They felt empowered by creating and participating as unique avatars while they also felt like they were part of something joining up to defeat bosses and creatures in imaginary places! All of this was documented on a public ledger, which means that it transcended my individual classes and pervaded the whole grade. Conversation about our blockchain permeated every 5th grade classroom/teacher to the point where I had to address it at a team meeting; “if you are wondering what the Garman blockchain is, ask a 5th grader!” Students were all too happy to teach their teachers (and parents) about blockchains, cryptocurrency, and NFTs.

I challenged students with tough material–learning about blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs–while also challenging them in the individual quests in a way that would have yielded stress and frustration in a normal class with quizzes and grades. But I learned that when students engage with a simulation / gamified unit, excitement and creativity quickly replace stress and frustration.

Our blockchain was self-sustaining, holding students' attention for a full unit inside and outside my classroom. The quests proved that these game mechanics worked in all 5th grade classes, not just my own. That left me wondering… what we could have done with this blockchain if every teacher designed a unit around these game mechanics/incentive structures. That would be something!

For the Boys: How Sports Gambling and Barstool Sports are Impacting a Generation

For many years, I’ve seen my students playing video games, messaging, and watching videos in school; but in the last year, I’ve noticed these pursuits have transformed from entertainment and socialization to that of side hustle. The apps have changed, the communities have changed, and so too have the negative externalities. Now when I catch my male students off task, I see them checking the balance of their favorite dopamine-inducing, risk-taking trading or gambling app (e.g. Robinhood or DraftKings). In a previous post, I wrote about the group of boys enamored with Robinhood, cryptocurrency, meme stocks, and the corresponding social media communities that impact them. This post is about the group of our boys that--thanks to legalized sports betting, a pandemic, and stimulus checks--have developed a side hustle in sports gambling.

These boys download gamified betting apps like DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesar’s, cash in on their promotional offers, and then simmer in toxic social media networks led by powerful and incivil influencers like Barstool Sports. These actions and this network have turned our boys away from the knowledge and values we hope to impart as educators and parents. And while investing and gambling poses a risk to our young men, the far greater risk is the habits and actions that are inspired by communities of like-minded risk takers.

Sportsbooks 

In 2018, the Supreme Court legalized sports betting. Since that time, 26 states have enacted laws allowing the practice. As a burgeoning industry, sportsbooks (sports betting applications), compete to build their user base. The promotions they offer range from ludicrously simple bets (bet $1 and win $100 if your team hits a three pointer) and free bets (if you lose the bet you get reimbursed), to giving away money (match deposits up to $1,000). Two of the most popular fantasy football platforms-turned-sportsbooks, FanDuel and DraftKings, lose money every quarter despite steady growth because of how much they spend on sales and marketing. It’s a race to the bottom for these competing apps, leading some users to sign up for multiple books to cash in on these juicy promotions.

The entire business model of a sportsbook is to keep a user betting. In addition to entry promos, sportsbooks find unique ways to nudge users to get them online and betting. For example, sportsbooks use microtargeting to send advertisements and promotions to users that follow certain accounts on social media. If you follow a number of athletes from a certain sport, or a number of teams from a certain city, the sportsbooks will know which ads to show you and when to show them to you. And if a user stops betting, the promotions reappear in your social media feeds and inbox.

Sportsbooks are also paying to get their brands and offers in front of sports viewers on television. In less than two years of legalized online gambling, advertising has gone from $10.7 million to $154 million on local TV spots according to Nielson. They’re reaching national audiences too; it was disorienting tuning in to the World Series and hearing Joe Buck--a man who has been calling the World Series for over 20 years--reading promotions for gambling and encouraging betting. Sportsbook executives have painted their logos in stadiums, rinks, and ballparks around the country, and they’ve also placed their logos side-by-side with major sports franchises like the NFL, MLB and NBA as “official partners.” This exposure on social feeds, in stadiums, and on television makes users more likely to visit their sportsbook and place a bet. And it makes these brands palatable to young men, erasing some of the stigma associated with gambling.

Barstool Sports 

For our young men, watching sports and betting on sports are just two legs of the stool. The third is talking about sports, and no brand is reaching more of our young men than Barstool Sports. Whereas ESPN represents the business of watching sports, Barstool exists to amplify locker room chatter and frat house basement shenanigans. Frequently criticized for its sexism and bigotry, Barstool content could never be posted by any other national sports brand like ESPN, the MLB or Nike, and that’s what makes it resonate so much with the young, male fans. An apt microcosm for the raw and edgy nature of Barstool Sports is the expression it popularized, “Saturdays are For the Boys,” which encourages young men to engage in risky behavior to impress their friends (and other barstool fanatics) at the detriment of others (mostly women).

The CEO of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy, whips up an army of loyal supporters, called “stoolies,” against societal and ethical norms. Portnoy’s outsized megaphone amplifies his strong cocktail of racism and misogyny and creates space for others to join his reactionary worldview. In 2015, he embraced Trump for president writing, “I am voting for Donald Trump. I don’t care if he’s a joke. I don’t care if he’s racist. I don’t care if he’s sexist… I love the fact that he is making other politicians squirm. I love the fact he says s*** nobody else will say, regardless of how ridiculous it is.” Like Trump, Portnoy is currently embroiled in several sexual assault scandals. And central to his appeal is his refusal to apologize or admit mistakes. Instead, he fights back, steering his army of stoolies--including a man he hired to wage harassment campaigns for him--at anyone who critiques him or Barstool.

Last year, Barstool Sports launched a gambling site, Barstool Sportsbook, to parlay its success attracting young, male sports fans to their brand. Whether our boys gamble with Barstool or not, the Barstool feed has emerged as a key soundtrack to sports gambling for a generation of our young men.

Impact on our Young Men

For young men, sports are meant to be fun--a way to exercise and connect with friends--but nowadays (thanks in large part to sportsbooks and Barstool) sports have become a side-hustle. When you feel like your money and your identity are on the line, you act in ways that change your character and that can negatively impact your community. I’ve written previously about how our boys participate in sports for their own stats, highlights, and college signing rather than for camaraderie, community, and character building. The same thing is happening to watching sports. Our young men research players, stats, and games to place a bet, rather than to cheer on a team or be part of a great game. The same thing is happening when talking about sports. This generation watches sports with a second screen in hand (e.g. TV and Phone), which means that periodically throughout a game, one can place a new bet or hunt for off-the-field content that will enhance the watching experience.

What unites the changes described above is a powerful psychological trick exploited by gambling and social media companies alike called variable rewards. Psychologists discovered that when subjects receive intermittent rewards, they find it extremely challenging to disrupt a behavior. Whether pursuing promos in a gambling app, placing a bet, pulling to refresh your social media, or posting on social media and awaiting the likes, these actions release dopamine in the brain, signaling to your brain that something awesome might happen. The way our boys are participating in sports currently demands a tightening of the dopamine-infused feedback loops. Instead of betting on an NFL game, they bet on every single drive (more dopamine and more variable rewards). Instead of consuming Barstool content, they try to make their own (more chances for likes, comments, and shares). The slow and steady stream of sports betting invites riskier decision-making. Of course, the escalation of risk-taking behavior extends beyond the individual into our communities.

These changes to our boys’ behavior include a shifting of values. For example, when our boys get together over sports, their interests remain selfish as everyone has his own bet (his own side hustle). Even if your (or a friend’s) team lost, as long as you win the bet you declare victory. At the same time, there’s an agreement that groups of boys are bound together (For the Boys), and that they should feel empowered to make mistakes as young men, including harassment, peer pressure, bullying, and bigotry. Our boys call it anti-PC (political correctness), society calls it toxic masculinity. Egged on by Barstool and its CEO, young men resist acknowledging others’ feelings and refuse to make any apologies. Stoolies dox, they brigade, and they never apologize for acting how they’ve been told by Barstool that men should act.

Status and Side Hustle 

In sports and in life, this generation of boys seek to optimize their time and knowledge. If you’re going to be researching sports, watching sports, and playing sports, you might as well turn that knowledge into some cash. The same can be said for boys that are tuned into the conversations about which fan did something outrageous, which athlete has a beautiful girlfriend, or which broadcaster shared his politics. Being in on the joke, and being able to provide your “take” on what you consumed on social media bestows a similar kind of status. And if there’s an easy bet or a hilarious post that you miss, FOMO is a powerful motivator; you’ll be sure to be in on the next one as it reflects your identity and status.

When you bet on a game, friends ask for your “take” (in person and on social media). If you win your bet, friends view you as knowledgeable about sports, and a savvy side hustler. Many leverage their status to create personal brands by sharing their takes online or selling merchandise to follow in the footsteps of their favorite influencers. Those boys who can turn an interest into a side hustle gain status and respect. This status can get to one’s head. In a recent Insider piece that lays out the assault allegations against Portnoy, one 19-year old college student who was a victim of Portnoy’s advances attributed his predatory behavior to the fact that he felt emboldened by his status. Status changes behavior. As adults and mentors, we need to keep an eye on it.

Community & Values 

Not all of our boys who like sports are “stoolies” loyally following Barstool; many of them check in and out for the pizza reviews and the memes. But if you play sports in high school or college, you know someone who has “For the Boys” souvenirs, and you’ve heard someone deploy the misogynistic slogan to justify engaging in risky behavior and/or treating someone else poorly. Over time, the lines between social media and sports gambling become blurred. In the same way friends, FOMO, and the drive to optimize one’s time can convince young men to place a bet, edgelords and sh*tposters that populate social media feeds with Barstool-like content slowly make an impact (see Irony Poisoning).


Blurring the lines between online sports life and reality, Barstool uses its influence to normalize all the gut-level behaviors associated with being a manly man and a sports fan. They make it okay to objectify women, to make bigoted comments, and to peer pressure friends. For example, Portnoy and stoolies are infamous for the sexual harassment of female sports analysts. There’s not a lot of research or editing in their posts because the strongest push of the Barstool brand is to create content. To this end, Barstool, Portnoy, and stoolies are a responsive community, seeking to take and share content from their audience. They create numerous smaller brands including those that encompass different colleges and even college conferences (e.g. Barstool NESCAC), which inspires stoolies to try to do something on brand for Barstool that will get them featured on their local Barstool handle.

* * *

What scares me most about the sportsbook--Barstool Sports tandem is that despite one’s most egregious gambling decisions, and despite one’s most egregious behavior, there’s always someone to validate that person’s decision-making as long as it’s “For the Boys.” And there’s always someone who has done worse--just check the Barstool feed. In the same way that the sportsbooks are in a race to the bottom to hook users, our young men are in a race to the bottom to align themselves the most with the Barstool brand.

As an educator, I wonder about the opportunity cost associated with sports gambling. What else could our young men research assiduously? From what other communities could they network and learn? And as an educator, I worry about the impact on surrounding constituencies. I worry our young men’s dopamine-fueled, risk-taking is leading to unhealthy relationships and unhealthy decision-making, which disproportionately affects our young women.

I recently caught up with a former student--now in college--who caught himself gambling on European basketball on a Tuesday at 9 AM in his religion class. To his credit, he quit. Unfortunately for him, it’s still in front of his face all the time. I recount this story to implore readers to reach out to the young men in their life. Ask questions, listen without judgment, and be a mentor.

Stealing from Our Boys and Giving to the Rich

"Seems like asking my friends if they have Robinhood on their phone is just as common as asking them if they have snapchat" -HS senior & varsity athlete

In the last month, journalists, intellectuals, and parents across the world have heaped criticism on Facebook, whose own research says that Instagram is uniquely bad for teenage girls. But teenage boys are also suffering at the hands of the online community, encountering the negative externalities associated with gamified apps and digital communities. While a generation of our young women are posting pictures in a space where they can see--down to a number--how their body performs on a digital marketplace of likes, comments, and messages, a generation of our young men are speculating in volatile assets in search of a similar dopamine hit of likes, comments, messages, and status.

Pandemic restrictions, stimulus checks, and social media drove many of our boys to develop a side hustle in investment banking. They download apps like Robinhood, purchase volatile crypto assets like Dogecoin, and enter intense communities led by powerful influencers like Elon Musk. It’s changing how our boys see themselves, to the detriment of the civic and character lessons we are trying to teach in schools.

$HOOD & Free Trading
The most popular of these apps, Robinhood, aimed to “democratize finance for all” by allowing everyone to trade. Rather than charging per trade like its competitors, Robinhood makes its money selling order flow to the big Wall Street firms. Robinhood makes more money selling options order flows than equity order flows, which means that the company’s business model depends on a high volume of risky trades.

To incentivize trading, Robinhood took a page out of the social media companies’ book and built an addictive, gamified application. When users signed up, they received essentially a scratch-off ticket that yielded a free stock! And when users completed a trade, confetti fell on the screen. Engineers designed trading to be as frictionless as possible to ensure the experience kept users coming back. And the app was designed specifically “to appeal to the video-game generation of young, inexperienced investors” (Forbes). The app encourages day-trading, and all the research on investing shows that day traders tend to lose money, and those who trade more, lose more.

With a pandemic shutting down all social events and--crucially for this age group--sporting events, young men opened free accounts at an astonishing clip (22.5 million users in 2021). One such young man, a 20-year old college student, Alexander Kearns, took his own life in June 2020 after mistakenly believing he had over $730,000 in debt to Robinhood for options trading (CBS).

The nascent company is already mired in legal trouble, including a lawsuit from Kearns’s parents, a $65 million fine to the SEC, and another $70 million to settle a FINRA investigation . More recently, in May, the financial press attacked Robinhood because it had to literally shut down crypto trading in the midst of a liquidity crisis sparked by its users' rush to buy speculative cryptocurrencies, specifically the satirical currency Dogecoin.

Dogecoin & Meme Stocks
In the first quarter of 2021, “Dogecoin accounted for 34% of Robinhood’s cryptocurrency transaction-based revenue, and 6% of the trading firm’s overall revenue in the same period.” (Scott Galloway). Nevertheless, no financial professional would recommend frequent Dogecoin trading as an investment strategy. Not even Dogecoin’s own founder wants people to invest in crypto, which he calls a “cult-like ‘get rich quick’ funnel.” Dogecoin is not a means of exchange, it’s not a store of value, and it will not replace fiat currency. But it’s lucrative, and it’s fun.

While the stimulus did bring a number of new investors into the markets, it also inflated a number of the most attractive pandemic-era stocks (like Amazon and Apple). In previous recessions, investors with money could buy great companies for cheap--not this time. As such, new investors, egged on by the Robinhood app, sought riskier investments. Young men investigated cryptocurrencies. Many take screenshots of their Robinhood app to show off their winnings on social media. In a similar way that likes on an Instagram post make users feel popular and attractive, good investments make young traders feel smart, savvy and even visionary.

The biggest driver of cryptocurrency trading is a cult-like and energetic community of evangelists, including Elon Musk. Musk, often referred to as the “Dogefather,” drives up the price of dogecoin with a single tweet. And when he hosted SNL, Dogecoin dropped 30%! Nevertheless this currency, and many others, have loyal followers that hold (or “HODL”) the assets at all costs and can find a million reasons why these assets will go “up and to the right.” Communities of like-minded young investors are gathering on Reddit pages, Discord servers, and Twitter hashtags. Not only does this community provide confirmation bias for our young men, but it also encourages additional trading and further investigation into similar products like coins or NFTs. Like how Instagram creates a poisonous FOMO in its users, young men in these social media communities experience an infectious FOMO, not wanting to miss the next big thing by continuing to trade frequently.

One particular investor community on Reddit called Wall Street Bets snatched the financial spotlight in January when investors flocked to “meme stocks” like Game Stop and AMC, running up these stocks for the investors willing to risk wild fluctuations investing in languishing companies. Many succeeded, celebrating their capitalist spirit by posting their winnings online. One key aspect to this movement (in addition to nostalgia for the mall and movie theaters), was a desire to “stick it to the man”: in this case, institutional investors that had shorted GameStop. While the movement exposed the short-sellers, ironically “the man” still ended up ahead, buying the order flow and playing the same pump and dump game as the Redditors buying meme stocks.

Impact on our Young Men

That our young men are studying finance, currency, and technology is positive. Disruptive technologies are worth studying; I’ve been teaching cryptocurrency since 2014, and I added a smart contracts unit last year. It’s worth critically considering the complexities, challenges, and opportunities of new technology. I am no luddite. “Democratizing finance” seems good. But manipulating users with a controversial business model and app design is bad. The egalitarian, libertarian movement towards cryptocurrency could create positive changes in our society (e.g. banking the unbanked and creating new financial instruments like smart contracts). But the majority of our young men are not studying disruptive technologies, they’re trying to “get mine” while “worshiping a crowd” of believers and we need to evaluate the negative externalities associated with that behavior.

Get Mine
The “get mine” philosophy comes from the fact that everything in our students’ lives has been metricized. It starts not online, but at school, with GPAs and SATs that increasingly drive our students’ behavior. In order to succeed within this structure, our students spend time performing for a teacher, a coach, a standardized test, or an admissions committee. In the past, teens have blown off steam with risky behavior like sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but those behaviors are declining, and the pandemic has catalyzed the decline. So Robinhood serves as a substitute.

Another key driver of the “get mine” attitude is that the path to financial stability available to previous generations is just not available to the current generation. Our culture and our economy drives college graduates to go get another degree, to take on more debt. Beyond college student loan debt is the crippling cost of a mortgage, especially in cities and suburbs where knowledge-based work is best available. Given these realities, it’s no wonder our students are feeling disillusioned. It’s no wonder many are embracing volatility as a way to make money, and fast, while also gaining status as a successful investor who understands complicated concepts in economics and in technology.

Worship the Crowds
That sense of disillusionment makes it easy to find belonging in a community that mixes fun and easy money, especially when that community has your back. They’ll stick together to shut down and drown out anyone trying to rain on their parade. As much as cryptocurrency evangelists celebrate successes, they spend as much time dismissing critics to mitigate the cognitive dissonance. Many tech journalists have documented the “crypto bros” with matching NFT avatars brigading critics. Once in the community, the worship of the crowd and the confirmation bias that comes with it makes it hard to critically consider these nascent technologies. Trying to understand cryptocurrency and its impact on the world requires more than an avatar, a slogan, or a meme. Nevertheless, it’s far easier for our boys to reify their identity within the group by telling outsiders they’re “Not Gonna Make It” (NGMI) and to “Have Fun Staying Poor” (HFSP). And it’s more fun to try to get in early on the next big thing to gain wealth and status in the community.

The most prominent member of the movement, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, acts as if he were a rank-and-file member of this crypto community--one who defies conventional wisdom, takes on established institutions, and remains worthy of praise no matter what. On Twitter, Musk provoked the SEC when he infamously threatened to take his company private at $420 a share (a weed joke), he infuriated $TSLA stockholders when he said the stock was overvalued, and he attacked senator Bernie Sanders (VT) and Ron Wyden (OR) when they asked him to pay more in taxes (one of which was so offensive I won’t link it here). Because of these tweets, Musk is a hero to crypto fans. He’s in on the Dogecoin fun, often tweeting memes in support of the cryptocurrency. Those tweets make Dogecoin spike. When Elon Musk spars with citizens, the SEC, or Congress, he sends a message to his followers that when you are rich, you make your own rules--that we don’t need to treat people with respect, that we don’t need an SEC to create a healthy financial industry, and that we don’t Congress to legislate (despite the fact that Congress literally bailed out Tesla in 2009!).

* * *

Trading cryptocurrency on Robinhood ensures your portfolio sits in your pocket all day, everyday, 24/7/365. My students check their account during class. I worry about what this does to a young man’s psyche and sense of place in the world. On Instagram, our girls are optimizing their looks and their posts for social status; and they’re depressed. Meanwhile, our boys are learning that everything is economic and their self worth is connected to their portfolios. And our boys are in need of help too, as we’re seeing negative mental health outcomes, a decline in romantic relationships, and a drop in interest in higher education.

This generation has definitely been dealt a tough hand, a number of America’s prized institutions (e.g college and Congress) and markets (e.g. the stock market and home ownership) are not working for them. The lasting challenges facing this generation are massive. There are sophisticated political and geographic challenges like the polarization of our electorate that will surely be exacerbated by the “worship of the crowds” approach (see QAnon and January 6). Our climate is in a state of crisis. Ironically while Musk’s company is helping with that, his crypto evangelism is making matters significantly worse (most cryptocurrencies are incredibly energy intensive). Solving these challenges requires sustained engagement, coalition building, and innovation and they cannot be reduced to lolz, memes, and money.

Educators and schools would be wise to catch the Robinhood-using, stock- and meme-trading, Musk-loving, boys. Our ability to serve as mentors and further the character education of our young men depends on us understanding their activities and their needs. Our ability to graduate quality citizens depends on meeting them where they are, teaching them ethical decision making, and guiding them to moral communities. And, of course, we must design curriculum and projects that inspire our boys to pursue worthy and authentic causes beyond school.

Sometimes I wake up at night and think about the fact that everyone who has ever downloaded Robinhood and invested in cryptocurrencies has never experienced anything but a bull market. What happens when that changes? Who will be holding the bag on these risky assets? When that earthquake shakes, how do we (re)embrace our young men?

Snapchat, Instagram, & Twitter Drive Controversial Conversations in Schools

This post was published in NAIS Independent Teacher Magazine (link)

Image via Unsplash

Social media, not schools, has emerged as the place where students discuss controversial events and ideas, a trend that teachers and parents need to address proactively. From politics to school discipline, from sexual harassment to racism, when our school community stumbles into disagreement, our students debate in polarizing spaces without adults present. As educators and school leaders, we have to accept that we cannot graduate responsible citizens without directly addressing the problems created by social media.

As a teacher who wants to be there to help students through social and political strife, I frequently find that my students have already expressed their opinions and aired their differences on social media before they arrive in class, and I'm never privy to the details. This fact makes those controversial topics hard to cover in my classroom for a number of reasons. First, we’re not all starting from the same point. Some students know more than others in terms of what’s been posted, and all of them know more than I do. Second, it means that many of the students have already publicly taken sides on any given issue via those online posts. When students have already voiced support for a side and know they’re not alone, it’s harder for them to listen to others, compromise, or change opinions. And other students are less likely to engage a student who has already staked out a position.

Fundamentally, I believe that students should have as many controversial conversations as possible face-to-face and—if we can swing it—with an adult present. I feel fortunate that that’s how I learned how to articulate opinions supported by evidence and how to disagree civilly. Through conversation, I figured out how I felt about contentious issues. Productive conversation incorporates body language, and face-to-face conversations promote empathy and understanding. And it’s crucial to have an informed mediator present to help facilitate a fair, civil, and factual conversation. If those conversations take place in the classroom, a teacher can push students to use evidence and to find common ground. An educator can help students see and consider the additional nuances and complexities of a controversial conversation. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening.

Instead, students are using Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter to discuss controversial issues. Here’s how that tends to go when something controversial happens at school or in the world. A student (or group of students) takes a stand on the issue in a public setting or in a public post. Then, other students react to it by responding to the individual directly or indirectly by posting their own commentary online. On Snapchat, that can happen semi-publicly with a story or more privately with a “private story.” On Twitter, that often happens via “private Twitter”—smaller Twitter networks where students connect only with their close friends and where students rant about things that irk them. Frequently, when controversy arises in these spaces, students screenshot the altercation and send it to group chats for further discussion (often leaving out the initial participants).

During a community meeting, a campus club did a presentation on Flint’s water crisis where they mentioned and explained the term “environmental racism.” Before students arrived at my next class, not 10 minutes later, there were already memes circulating on Twitter and Snapchat by students who ridiculed the concept of environmental racism (and their classmates who worked to raise awareness) by posting an image or emoji of a tree and writing “the trees are racist” and many variations of that message.

When this happened, I was incredibly disappointed. I was upset with the content of the post, as it showed that students were ill-informed and unwilling to listen to their peers. And, I was upset by the us versus them mentality that resulted from the meeting and was exacerbated by the posts. Before anyone had considered the topic thoughtfully, each student had staked a position by “liking” a post. It’s hard to get students to understand context and reconsider a position through instruction and discussion once they’ve already connected themselves to a cause on social media. I was also upset that this all happened digitally rather than face-to-face. Digital interaction allows students to confine themselves to their own polarized network with friends who are more likely to support them. And finally, I was upset that no adults in the building were aware of these posts. If they’re not aware, they can’t create the time to host a conversation to help students articulate their opinions (in more than just a meme-style post) and respond to each other civilly.

The event described above made me wonder how frequently these topics and responses emerge online among our students without adults having any idea that it’s happening. Spoiler alert: It’s common! Unfortunately, there are a number of triggers that result in students gravitating toward digital spaces with networks of like-minded peers to address contentious issues. And all of these issues hurt teaching and learning in our classrooms and erode the values of our school community.

Sometimes our school rolls out a policy that students disagree with, and they post about it online. Our school has shut down student T-shirt ideas, modified themed dress-down days, and opposed national political decisions. These actions have resulted in angry, uncivil posts where students attack the school or blame other students (directly or via subtweet) for being the reason something got changed or shut down. Other times, these controversies come from national politics or current events, which our students often encounter through these same social media apps.

When the President ended DACA and committed to building a wall on the southern border, students fought it out digitally over who was welcome and who was not welcome in the country and, by extension, the school.

Political quarrels like this one can lead to long Instagram threads where students attack each other’s politics, race, socioeconomic status, and more. These disagreements disproportionately hurt our most vulnerable students. Behind screens, it’s easier to express disrespectful, unsubstantiated feelings, and it’s easier to dismiss opposition. It’s also easier to post something inappropriate and then claim you were joking if others call you out on it. This happens all too frequently in the digital spaces our students occupy.

In society at large, and in our schools, we’re seeing a rise in echo chambers—spaces where people learn from and exchange ideas only with like-minded individuals. Unfortunately, many of these spaces do not value the things schools and teachers do when it comes to discussion and collaboration: things like veracity, civility, humility, and empathy. Nevertheless, when controversial conversations begin online, our students retreat to their smaller, more private digital spaces—whether that’s a group chat, a Finsta or a private Snap story—to unload their most controversial opinions. And these echo chambers breed conformity, diametric thinking, tribalism, and, at their worst, radicalization.

One day, two students shared with me that they spent the last evening sitting together arguing back and forth with classmates about mass shootings, school safety, and gun control. While one student researched information, the other tweeted their opinions bolstered by this information. It went on for hours.

In addition to the problems of echo chambers online, it’s clear that our students are also suffering from confirmation bias, carefully cherry-picking facts to “win” an argument. Unfortunately, both in our schools and nationally, conversations have become zero-sum games in which one party “wins” and one “loses.” They’re trying to score points, measured by likes and retweets, and they are using simplistic tactics like memes and hypotheticals, which are exacerbated by the superficiality of much online conversation, to persuade passive onlookers.

No matter how these controversial conversations start, having them online polarizes our school community. Both locally and nationally, online disputes result in the loudest, most extreme voices being amplified. Bystanders promote extreme voices with “likes” even if those liking the post don’t agree with it in its entirety. And, those upstanders who disagree, or want to better understand the complexities involved before speaking up, often retreat into smaller networks or offline entirely. After all, these online conversations are antithetical to complexity.

The conversations incubated in echo chambers and waged by extreme voices equipped with confirmation bias lead to a number of assumptions about who is on which side of an issue and why. There is no context. Instead, tribe members attack a projected worst version of an opponent.

Finally, it’s important to understand that even after these debates occur online, it doesn’t drive students to meet and talk face-to-face the next day. On the contrary, they will literally walk past someone in the hallway that they were arguing with online the night before without saying a word. The next day, these disputes will move through the school via hearsay or screenshot, but rarely do the actual participants seek to clarify or further discuss, face-to-face, what was typed. As a result, these exchanges affect the learning in our classrooms for several days—and not just with the students involved.

Proactively addressing the problems described above requires us to pay attention to digital disagreements and endeavor to bring these issues into our classrooms for face-to-face conversations. Classroom conversations are a vital counterpoint to online echo chambers. Students are unable to confine their discussions to their preferred networks. Teachers can head off confirmation bias. And with face-to-face conversations—even with like-minded individuals—extreme statements get tempered by the group, by facial expressions, by tone, and by additional information (and space for more characters). These face-to-face classroom conversations highlight the seriousness and complexity of an issue. They promote empathy and they provide the space and support for participants to evolve their opinions as they learn more. Finally, and perhaps most important, moving these conversations off of social media and into the classroom teaches students citizenship via consensus and coalition building, which will help us graduate leaders equipped to move people and solve problems.

Dear Parents: YourKids are on YouTube, what do YouDo?

 

In the best-case scenario, YouTube represents a fulfilling space for learning, for connecting and for creativity. As contributors, users can creatively share passions and connect with a global audience eager to collaborate and provide feedback. As consumers, users can learn from a network of experts and professional organizations. Whether that’s studying for a physics test, learning a new song on the guitar, keeping up with current events, or auditing a college level course, YouTube’s versatility makes it a valuable tool for our society--one that encourages us to be active, informed citizens ready to teach, learn, and improve our world.

In the worst-case scenario, YouTube transforms us into passive, entertained, consumers where we watch endless videos from an algorithmically curated playlist. YouTube’s algorithm--which certainly does not share our values--is famous for pushing extreme content including misinformation, conspiracy theories, and hatred.  

As a parent, how do we ensure our children use YouTube in the best-case scenario--as active, informed citizens--and not in the worst-case scenario--as passive, entertained consumers? Well, in the same way that the examples above depend on “how” children use YouTube, as parents, “how” we respond to our children’s use of YouTube will determine our success in moving them towards the best-case scenario. 

How do our children use YouTube?
Unfortunately, we can’t count on YouTube to promote consumption and creation in line with our values. YouTube has consistently failed to moderate content, so that our children aren’t exposed to inappropriate, vulgar, and hateful content (YouTube has also been busted by the FTC for storing data of children under 12). For example, they won’t control content on the YouTube kids app, and they refuse to make tough decisions about inflammatory content on YouTube. YouTube’s bottom line depends on a metric called “time on site.” Therefore, YouTube’s algorithm--which accounts for 70% of its views--either feeds us entertainment or a steady stream of fear and outrage because that’s what yields clicks, shares, and engagement. It nudges users towards more and more extreme content understanding that "time on site" skyrockets when users fall down a rabbit hole of sensational content. And its been effective: Users watch over 1 billion hours on YouTube a day and researchers have proven that both flat earthers and the alt-right have expanded their reach thanks to YouTube’s algorithm. 

Hopefully, our children aren’t watching sensationalized, controversial content or getting sucked down a rabbit hole of extreme content. But it’s easier to get sucked in than we might think. Watching a video about Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump during the 2016 election led users to conspiracy theories about the government. Typing in “Federal Reserve” leads users to conspiracy theories about the Fed and follows with more about the Illuminati. Frequently, our children arrive at YouTube when sent a link by a peer in group chat or by a user on a message board--locations where extreme voices ring the loudest while introducing our children to “edgy” or offensive content that--should anyone be offended--is immediately labeled just a joke. That algorithm and these preconditions mix for a toxic binge.

The most direct draws to YouTube for our children are interests and influencers. Whether they want to hear political opinions, learn about video games, or practice new make-up techniques, on YouTube, our children enter tight-knit communities led by individual creators rather than professional organizations or civic leaders. In the last year, all of these YouTube communities have faced intense public outcry for offensive content. YouTube stood by the homophobic content of a political contributor; YouTube’s top account encouraged gaming viewers to watch anti-semitic videos; and racism rocked MUA (make up artists), one of YouTube’s tightest communities. YouTube’s algorithm links like minded accounts. Therefore the actions of a handful of creators (or users) will determine the videos recommended to our children. Clearly, we can’t count on YouTube’s content creators and leaders (or their loyal followers) to teach the algorithm to recommend quality information and highlight civil, intelligent leaders.

YouTube’s most powerful, yet esoteric, draw is the potential for a creator to become an influencer. In today’s economy, every child wants to be an influencer because top influencers make millions just by producing content (selling or reviewing products, teaching, or recording your daily life). It’s incredibly challenging to become an influencer and many who do so burn out. Fans demand access and content. As a result, influencer’s lives and videos become more extreme with the demands of their fans. Nevertheless, our children rarely see the darker side of being an influencer from mental breakdown, to drugs, to bankruptcy (see Justin Bieber or James Charles). It makes sense that young people want to aspire to that life, especially when they only see the positives.

How do we respond to how our children use YouTube?

We have to do two things 1) rethink the assumptions we make about YouTube and 2) ask better questions when our children use YouTube. 

Generally, adults write off YouTube as an entertainment app or a strange voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of strangers. But if we trivialize the app or whatever content our children may be consuming, we will not find common ground and therefore we won’t be able to steer them toward that best-case scenario mentioned above. Instead, we need to change our assumptions. 59% of Gen Z users cite YouTube as their primary learning tool. YouTube is not a collection of videos, it’s the information system for our children. We must engage our children with those stakes in mind as we seek to listen, to learn, and to empathize. Start with a “help me understand...” so that our children will lead the conversation about their interests. Then, we can evaluate where they are and how we can try to steer them towards the best-case scenario.

Currently, when we ask our children about YouTube we say, “what are you doing?” or “what are you watching?” This results in an instinctive dismissal because the majority of the time, they’re watching something we don’t understand. Instead, we need to enter conversations looking to ask, “how does this video/this creator make you feel?” And, “what do you intend to do with the information you’re learning?” These questions get to the heart of YouTube’s impact on children, and they get to what children take from the platform and how they use it in their lives. This will help our children understand when they are on YouTube as a passive, entertained consumer, and not an active, informed citizen. And, again, it will help us use their words to steer them towards the best-case scenario.

As we investigate our children’s mindset and actions, so to must we investigate YouTube’s. We should have honest conversations about YouTube’s goals of ad revenue via user generated content, user data, and an addictive algorithm. The best way to fight back against YouTube’s thousand coders is to get online with a strategy--know what you seek and know what you will do after acquiring it. That way your “time on site” is clearly defined by your interest and goals and not those of a billion dollar corporation. To help your child learn this skill, ask, “how (in what state of mind) did you get on YouTube? What were your goals?” That way, we can determine what extent of time online was intentional rather than algorithm-driven. This strategy helps create active, informed citizens. There’s a handy browser extension called DF YouTube that eliminates all algorithmically generated content from YouTube. Start here!

Finally, if your child strives to become a creator perhaps with ambitions of being labeled an influencer, support them. More often than not, it’s just a phase and not worth the disagreement. YouTube is great for learning and being creative. Embrace it. In all academic pursuits, hopefully your child is researching, iterating, emulating, and showing resilience. This process allows them to see that best-case scenario even if they may be striving for it in a time, place, and area of interest that likely won’t endure. And of course, if you have privacy concerns (which you should), ask them to start posting “unlisted” or “private” content using a pseudonym (and read this article for additional suggestions about controlling the data Google mines on all of us). 

  

Let’s commit to preparing our children to use this wonderful application as active, engaged citizens, ready to learn, connect, and create. You’re a parent, so you know It’s hard to change a child’s habits, but with an app as powerful as YouTube the stakes are high. So, listen to understand, ask the right questions and--as in all things--act as a role model in your life online and off!