How GenZ is using peer mentorship to help their own “digital wellness.”
October 13th, 2023 was a day to celebrate progress for education. California had just passed Assembly Bill No. 873 which mandates “Media Literacy” into core curriculums throughout the state’s public K-12 schools. Eighteen other states were taking similar action. The momentum was building. For the generation of today’s youth that has been involuntary guinea pigs in the uncharted digital landscape, help was on the way, at last.
A year-and-a-half later – crickets.
In contrast to the amount of media literacy that has trickled into the educational system, the data substantiating the link between the current teen mental health crisis and social media use continues to cascade in, flooding today’s teens with even more apprehension. The laundry list of pitfalls starts with social media platforms preying on youth vulnerabilities, identified by the American Psychological Association as hypersensitivity to social feedback, use of youth data for tailored ad content, and underdeveloped impulse control. Combining those subcategories with the continuing issues of online bullying, algorithmic manipulation and racism, the ills of excessive gaming and the disproportionately affected female and/or and low-income youth have left educators with an overflowing to-do list.
Perhaps a tell-tale sign of the challenges that lie ahead of this educational field is the struggle for a consensus on a name. “What does critical literacy mean? What does digital literacy mean? Computational literacy? Algorithmic literacy? Not only do [teachers] not know what it means, but there’s a million different suggestions,” says Dr. Scott Moss, an academic program director at National University, lecturer at Long Beach State University and former K-8 teacher.
The problem, in many cases, is a narrow definition of what media literacy is, and what media literacy training should include. “Much of media literacy that has been successfully introduced in schools focuses narrowly on news media and detection (is this true or false?) or on the broad frame of ‘digital citizenship’ which prioritizes online safety’” says Dr. Alison Trope, founder of Critical Media Project – a program within the USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism – which enables undergraduates to teach CML by placing them in Los Angeles public high schools. Dr. Trope started Critical Media Project in 2011 to address the many gaps that remain significantly unaddressed within critical media literacy, such as educating students about the gluttony of unhealthy ingredients that are baked into the social media content they consume.
Yet notably, CMP’s method – relying on college students to deliver the lessons to high school students – also responds to the challenge of educating a generation of students about a world that only they really know. “They are more expert in social media than many of their teachers, and they do not respond well when they feel they are being talked down to,” says Heather Schwartz, a practice specialist at the Collaborative for Social Emotional Learning, or CASEL.” (Education Week, April 3, 2024)
Establishing Trust
Through Critical Media Project, student teachers like USC senior Blake Stauffer are able to effectively lower those barriers, establishing trust with the students. “It was very obvious that they valued guiding questions and a safe place to have those conversations – with someone who was not that much older than them,” Stauffer says, while also highlighting the potency of the confidential written assignments, “That’s when some of them really opened up.”
The idea for CMP came to Trope after she gave a lecture to parents of high school students about gender and sexuality representation in the media. Some in attendance asked how their kids could have access to this kind of education. A couple years later, she enlisted some of her undergraduates to help develop the program further by crowdsourcing additional media, writing annotations and questions, and creating a website.
“As time has passed since our initial launch, social media content and platforms have exploded,” she says. “This has forced us to think about how we might incorporate more social media content or find ways to help youth critically consume their feed or trends they’re following [or that their algorithm feeds them].” Stauffer says he eventually could feel his own impact by witnessing how empowered and culturally aware the students became about some of the big, underlying issues that surface when thinking critically about media. Trope says, “Early findings show students have gained a critical awareness in the impact of media stereotypes and critical reflection in understanding how their identities are seen in media and the way they see others.”
A number of other organizations that focus on peer-to-peer media literacy education have emerged in recent years. New York-based #Halfthestory, Silicon Vally-based Good For Media and My Digital TAT2 all partner with each other, offering multiple platforms to engage youth, by youth. They offer resources such as websites with pre-crafted curriculums to be used by schools, parents or youths on their own. They may host podcasts, blog pages, video channels and social media pages. However, central to all those elements are the in-person, youth-led workshops and teen ambassador/internship/advocacy groups.
Daniella Ivanir, Youth Engagement and Advocacy Manager for #Halfthestory describes the hardships Gen-Zers experience when social media literacy is addressed by Gen- Everyone Else. “I think the challenge is that people are operating out of fear – this constant yelling scary things, that kids are going to die and everything we consume in media is like doomsday. We understand that tech is here to stay,” she says. Whereas Critical Media Project was created by an academic in consultation with college students, #Halfthestory was created from the ground up by one very motivated teenager, Larissa May. “Larz” as she’s referred to by friends and colleagues started the movement when she was a freshman at Vanderbilt University and a social media fashion influencer herself. The stress and anxiety she experienced from constantly having to gauge her self-image took her to a mentally “dark” place. “She really started thinking about this connection of mental health and our digital habits – and that was 10 years ago,” Ivanir says, adding, “Larissa was open to telling her lived experience and it started off in storytelling circles, really. She would get on Zoom and Skype and start talking to people around the world, trying to understand in what ways [her experience] was a universal feeling.”
After that, May received a $250 grant, which she mostly spent on making #Halfthestory bumper stickers to put around her campus, encouraging other students to put the slogan on a picture to post along with their own story of who they really are, as opposed to how they are represented online – hence the other “half” of the story. Today, they receive funding from Oprah Winfrey’s Make-A-Wish foundation, Lady Gaga and Harry and Megan Markle to name a few. Recently, they’ve announced a merger with long-time youth advocates, Girls Inc.
The HTS team advisory board serves as ambassadors in their schools and communities. Regarding the benefits of teen mentoring, Teen Advisor Bao Lee says, “I have learned so much about digital wellness and how to advocate for digital equity in my school and local community. The #HTS opportunities have been impactful and empowering.” Ivanir cites a metric of their impact by noting that recently, one of their teen advisors managed to bring the education she received as a #Halfthestory teen intern into her own school and create their first pilot program in a school curriculum.
Dr. Vicki Harrison, Program Director of the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing and founder of Good For Media, highlights the importance of a “safe space” for young people to have more in-depth exploration of questions like, “What do you love about your phone? What’s hard about what you’re seeing online? What do you wish was different? What strategies do you use to have a better time and not feel bad about yourself after you’ve used your tech?”
GFM’s youth advisors developed and implemented a deck of “conversation starter cards” which consists of 48 questions which are available on their website. Harrison cites increased engagement with GFM’s web resources as evidence that the peer-to-peer “safe space” doesn’t have to be created in person. She also adds that their success is perhaps reflected in their lasting impression on their teen advisors. “The young people who started this with me who have now moved on to college and graduate school still come back [to participate]. It’s been five years. I think they feel really passionate about the mission,” she says.
Some parents have taken note of the advantages of embracing youth’s better understanding of social media. Two of them – Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet, a social worker and Dr. Erica Pelavin, a child psychologist – partnered to create My Digital TAT2 (which recently merged with Health-Connected). Omar Rivera, My Digital TAT2’s Program Manager of Teen Empowerment Initiatives concedes that their program has been most successful in engaging high school students through internship groups. “In addition to offering stipends to help [teen mentors] from low-income communities participate, we became virtual, so it was easier for people to become part of the program outside of Palo Alto. We now have participants from Nevada to Spain, China and India,” he says.
Although these organizations may differ in implementation, they all have the same two components: First, internal youth-driven programs for teens to develop their own ideologies by engaging in honest, nuanced discussions during their member meetings. #Half The Story teen advocates meet once a week. After an icebreaker-style check-in, the majority of each meeting is spent focused on discussing a key digital technology topic or dilemma, followed by an interactive activity that allows teen advisors to have a more hands-on experience. My Digital TAT2 starts their youth advisory board meetings by reviewing what issues other teens have posted on their MDT2 blog. Within those virtual meetings, they use the data collection platform Mentimeter to facilitate honest and transparent discussion by enabling participants to answer highly personal questions anonymously – then discuss the graphically displayed results in real-time.
The second component is the external advocacy of their learned perspectives in creative ways. Good For Media created an activity for their local events called “conversation booths,” using their “conversation cards” for participants to rotate amongst. Their youth leaders also make personal testimonial videos and post them on their websites. Critical Media Project implements a video creation activity into their in-school curriculum to enhance the students’ reflection on their new perspectives on social media and identity. Rivera also emphasizes the importance of using his own peer-mentoring workshops to also gain information from the students on trends, slang and any other information that DigitalTAT2 can then incorporate in the future.
Limitations
Although Critical Media Project could gauge how many people visit their website, how many schools they are teaching at and how many students they reach, it gets murky beyond that. “We often don’t get a complete picture. Due to ethical concerns about data privacy, we have necessarily limited access to a comprehensive picture of our users,” Trope says.
Ivanir addresses the issue of finding Gen-Zers who are willing to work full-time for low wages or as a volunteer in the face of the high cost of living. “It’s difficult to impact a lot of young people as one’s passion, wanting to really make a difference in the world, but also realistically, figure out ways to pay their bills and make rent,” she says. She also cites “emotional burnout” as a factor, based on May’s experiences. “How do we make sure young people feel protected and don’t get burnt out from having to constantly re-tell their story, sometimes causing them to get re-traumatized?”
Rivera pinpoints what may be the most formidable limitation of them all: time. “I always want more time with the teens. We get into deep discussions. I recently was scheduled to do a 30-minute talk about cell phone bans [in school] and it turned into an hour. I couldn’t even get to my next question and thought, ‘Darn, we need more time because these issues are complex.” Harrison agrees, noting the “conversation starter” cards at their summer event elicited such deep conversation, participants didn’t even get time to move on to the next conversation “station.”
Another consensus is the constant issue of funding. “We are always applying for grants and continually re-apply,” Rivera says. Trope contends that despite having operated for over a decade with the resources of a major university and funders, CMP is still forced to work with “a shoestring budget.” All these organizations are overseen by academically trained advisors, which experts agree is crucial, emphasizing the enormous distinction from (for example) a self-educated, TikTok influencer’s opinion. Scott Moss says, “[Peer-to-peer mentoring] is an excellent way to go, but I do think the peers must have some kind of training.”
A Multi-Dimensional Movement
Although there are plenty of opportunities within these programs to be impactful as peer educators, there are also a number of organizations that center on youth-led coalitions for change. Harrison also serves as an advisor for Design It For Us – a Washington D.C.-based organization with a mission to provide a cohesive youth voice to influence big tech and legislators. DIFU Co-Chair Ariel Geismar says, “Young people, post-grad, college and high school students are taking time out of their lives to be advocates on this issue that means so much to us. Having a coalition of 250 young people who are in the same ‘space’ is really meaningful.” Last fall DIFU launched a campus tour engaging college students to reflect on what improvements they would like to see in their digital spaces. They used the collected data to form a document entitled “The Users Bill of Rights.” Geismar released this explanation: “This new product sheds light on what young people care about the most when it comes to social media use: privacy, safety, and agency. As more and more decisions are made by tech executives and legislators without input from those who experience its harms the most, we’re proud to create this bold new step.”
In March, DIFU used this platform to endorse the bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN act, which was passed in the House of Representatives on April 28th of this year.
Dr. Jeff Share, Professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Media Studies and author of the book, Media Literacy is Elementary, feels that the key to implementing valuable CML education lies in the reorientation of education as a whole. “I see tremendous possibility in the notion of empowering kids to be the subjects of their learning, not the objects. We need to break down the hierarchy where the teacher ‘knows everything’ and kids ‘know nothing.’ It’s about humanizing learning.”
Although some might feel “humanizing learning” sounds more poetic in the face of such a complex, evolving issue that nobody really has all the answers to, at least GenZ has become clear about their own needs, from parents, educators and Big Tech. As declared in the “The Users Bill of Rights:”
“The prevalence of addiction, scams, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sextortion, and suicide heightened and maintained by Big Tech’s addictive algorithms is a major threat to our futures. We deserve to shape our digital future. Enough is enough.”
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