How Teens really feel about Social Media and Parenting

ayecoachcam: 0:00

you ever wonder what's on the mind of a teen? Like actually wonder what's on the mind of a teen? I do. Sometimes I know that can be a little scary, especially as a parent on the go, lucky for all of you, I found two teens who were willing to talk to me longer than five minutes We have Glenn and Isabella from their teen up podcasts straight out of Taiwan, welcome to the show.

Isabella: 0:53

Thank you. Thank you for having us here.

ayecoachcam: 0:56

I just want to say, I like to do my flower segment early. I've listened to their podcasts. The two of them are very well informed, very well-spoken great ideas very very great chemistry that they have during their talks. And it's very intriguing and interesting. I'm going to ask the scary questions to the teens, to see if the teens can give us parents some answers and some guidance to help you guys out along the way. So do you think social media helps make or maintain friendships? Why or why not? And there is no wrong and I wanted to let you know, there is no right or wrong answer. Just, I love to hear perspective.

Isabella: 1:29

Yeah. I'll go first. So I think social media, it does help make friends like right now, I'm a senior and I'm going to college soon and I'm going to college in America. So I'm making a lot of friends through social media with my college friends. But I don't think that these friendships are honestly like verry true or very deep because I'm talking to a lot of different people on social media and I don't, I honestly don't remember like what they look like or what we talked about. So I think on that part, it's great to connect with people from all over the world like that, but does it make like good and deep friendships? I think Actual meetups, like person to person is, would be better. And the part about maintaining friendships. I think it does help. If we don't have social media, I don't think that we would like right now we would call anyone to, do like a meetup or anything. Social media is there to help us know like how's other people's life doing. And we could, like for Instagram example, we could reply to someone's stories. And I think that is super helpful when you want to maintain a friendship. Even if it's like a elementary. Schoolfriend it's been a long time. You haven't talked, but through replying like stories, I think that is not very awkward and it is a great way to catch up with each other

Glenn: 2:57

Same as Isabella. I'm going to the us for college this fall, and I'm also like meeting a lot of people on. Internet through Instagram or Snapchat, just like talking to other people. And I have to say I have met some very interesting people that some people who I really click with, but I think the main thing about social media for me is that social media is for making friends that you will have a real life interaction with instead of just like the whole friendship only exists on social media or online. And I think it's very important that friendships or relationships in general, like with people need to exist in the physical world, because there are a lot of things that you cannot substitute online like eye contact or some. body language or stuff like that. And I think they, they are very important in terms of making friends or having a conversation with other people. And as far as maintaining friendships, I would say it definitely helps. But if this is where I have a different opinion from Isabella it's like Isabella was saying that how you can still connect with. Of in the past, like elementary school something like that. But for me, I think those people if you will not meet them anymore, say you'll only meet them. Maybe in five years, I don't really see a point of connecting with them or knowing what's happening in their life because they're not in your life anymore. Keeping up this type of relationship or like this type of friendship, I think it's very time consuming and it doesn't really make sense to me at least. Cause you will not have a real world like meetup or something like that.

ayecoachcam: 4:49

Thank you to both of you very strong answers. And I'm going to play in the middle, as a teacher, right? I'm like the moderator right in the middle. I agree with you both the importance of eye contact, body language using social media as a way to start the connection. But not allow that to be the only connection is what I'm hearing from both of you. And also. sometimes you have some people in your life that you just want to check up on to see how they're doing and how things are going. For example us older people use Facebook, right? And we have some high school friends that we may have lost touch with. We reconnect and it's nice to see what they're doing in their lives and things like that. On the flip side, I do agree with Glenn there's a limit to how much of that you should be doing. You can check in, it shouldn't be no on your phone. Like looking oh, what are they doing now? What's the next move? What's the next move. What's the next move? And I think even though we need to check in on them, see how they're doing. I think there should be a time of okay, I still have to continue with my life. They can't be my life when. Everyone else is doing so I do both answers. I love both answers and I actually have some students who feel the same way as well. What I want to ask you is what has been the most challenging part of your life? Like after the pandemic as a team what's been the most challenging problem?

Isabella: 6:02

pandemic We, yeah, we do have it. Here in Taiwan. Like we experienced like the seriousness of the pandemic around last year where we went online for a little bit. And then during the summer we couldn't really go out and right now, actually it's getting also a little bit serious, like next week we're doing online school. I think most challenging part of my life right now. I wouldn't say about like maintaining friendships. I think like online school for me is really hard for me to focus, but I don't think that really matters now because we're ending our senior year soon next week as the last week. So

ayecoachcam: 6:43

I have senioritis just say it. I have seen, yeah, it is.

Isabella: 6:45

Yes. Yes. I think the pandemic, like I like going out sometimes I don't go out like very often, but I don't like how I have to actually think about where I'm going, because there might be too many people or I can't go on public transportations and stuff like that. Yeah.

Glenn: 7:02

For me the pandemic, I know it's like a very privileged thing to say. It has never been like a very challenging part of our life. And I think that's because we were very lucky that our country controlled it. Great. But as for now, what I'm thinking a lot is what's going to happen this fall or in the future. And it's not necessarily like the most challenging part of my life, like right now, because it's not happening yet. It's just not the sense of not being sure what's going to happen in the future because we are both moving to a new country and we do not know anyone there and everything's going to be different and starting a new life at the same time. And just learning to be an adult at the same time. Like it's nerve wracking. Yeah, I think that's like the most challenging part for me now.

Isabella: 7:58

I agree.

ayecoachcam: 7:58

Yeah. You know what I appreciate that both of you stated that, it wasn't really you didn't really feel it as much because you felt like your country handle it correctly. And I appreciate that because over here, I'm gonna be honest it was a mess. What do you think makes your generation unique I want to hear your take on it unique from let's say my generation or know, or even a group, like a few years younger than you what makes your generation you need?

Isabella: 8:24

I would like to add this is like how tick-tock. Oh, my gosh, Tik TOK. Yes. Take talk makes it feel like Denzy is just like a lot of mental health issues children or kids, but I think it's not like it's a bad thing. Because like for our generation, our parents are more, I would say more hardcore, at least from my parents. Oh, a lot of people, my parents' age in Taiwan, they had to build their own business or start from a very low status in society. And they had to work their own way up in society. So there are definitely going to be a little bit more hardcore on their children. Like my parents always tell me to. Work hard and don't be lazy and make sure that I do the work that I'm supposed to. And don't take the easy route or anything like that. But I think this kind of, it does make. Our generation a little bit, feeling a little bit misunderstood because our parents don't know what we're going through. And they would sometimes say that our generation has it easier than they did. I do think that is true, but a lot of mental health issues, I think. I said to be like, have stemmed from technology, because of, like cyber bullying or stuff like that. And too much time spent on Tik TOK, for sure. Tik TOK is a very toxic platform, but it also could be very fun at the same time. Yeah, I think all of these added together it makes us who we are.

Glenn: 9:56

For me, I'm also thinking about like the internet in general. I think for us, we don't really have the internet when we are super young, maybe before we were 12 or something like that the internet just grows exponentially after that. In the recent years, like Instagram popped up and then we have like tik tok and YouTube also grew a ton because you, it used to be just like a platform where people share videos. So like maybe my dad would like, show me a funny video or something like that. And now YouTube, they're like a lot of YouTubers, people making contents, like what, like us. And I think we didn't have that when we were. Younger, but for people who are younger than us, they have this since probably since they have memory and I'm not sure, what that's going to do to them because they're using tik tok since they have like memory, since they can actually choose something for themselves. And I think where we're at right now is Interesting intersection where we when we were like very young, we did not have an Instagram or like YouTube, but now we're in like our twenties and not now, but like when we're in our twenties, we will have all of these technologies and this is what I think makes us different, like from other generations, because we. Grew up, with the internet we grew up as the internet grew. So I think that's like the most interesting thing

ayecoachcam: 11:31

How do you feel after consuming information in seven seconds and then right after consuming another piece of information in seven seconds without really having time to process it, it's just there.

Glenn: 11:45

So for me, because I'm a little different and I acknowledge that. I don't really use any social media. I actually quit Instagram last year because I think it's taking too much of my time. I'm basically on it all the time. And then during the time when we locked down, which is like may last year, I was on Tik TOK all the time. Like it's at the point where I think it's scary, cause I would just lay on my bed and then open tik tok and before I even noticed an hour has gone by and it's like a super scary, I would just spend the whole afternoon looking at Tik Tok so I just deleted the app. And I think for what you're saying, how do we feel after consuming an information after seven seconds and then, and that next thing just come. I think it, it really doesn't leave time for people to think about things. And I wouldn't like me personally, I would prefer to learn things or consume information in longer forms, say movies or books. That's what I prefer for it now. And I think social media and their algorithms, like they're really toxic. But they sometimes they're also really fun. So for me, it's like, when I want to use it, I would like download the app and use it for a day and then delete it. Yeah, I know I can contain it. So it's not. My whole week away.

Isabella: 13:19

For me I don't know. I actually stopped using, TIk Tok for about a week. Like I don't, I'm not on it very often right now. But I was on it like all the time and. I think the seven second thing it's it has shortened, like my attention span, for sure. I have realized I could not stay as focused in class or I can't even finish one YouTube video. the YouTube video has to be about five minutes for me to finish it. If it's more than 20 minutes, I would have to like open it and then watch it for three minutes and then stop and then come back to it. After a while. I don't, I, yeah, I think that is a bad thing. And I honestly don't remember much of what I watched on Tik TOK. Yeah, I think it's very toxic and I should definitely cut my time on Tik TOK. But sometimes it's just a fun, like I send a lot of like funny tik tok to my friend and it's just like for a good laugh. And I think that is a very good thing because I could just, I could also talk about it with my friends and some of the Tik Tok that I watch are like informational. They, would tell me some facts, like for the day or something. And it would just be a fun facts for our friends too. But I think that's the only good part that I've been from it really, otherwise, I don't like how it shortened my attention span for sure.

Glenn: 14:48

Wait I want to add something. So one thing good about tik tok that I recently noticed is that there are some very good musicians on Tik TOK, and I think we should give, take talk that It lets a lot of really talented people to be discovered. And I think that's a good thing.

Isabella: 15:07

Yeah, I agree. This one. I super agree.

15:10

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ayecoachcam: 16:06

What is something you wish adults understood about kids or teens today?

Glenn: 16:10

I think for me is that they adults need to know that we are B can do more than they think. I think like in general, Maybe it's like a culture thing, because I think in our culture they tend to set a path for everyone to go through instead of letting us explore our own path. It's not, it does not necessarily apply to my parents very likely. But I think. The way our school works it's that they set a path where everyone, and they did not give us any freedom to explore different things. And I think that's very, that's a very sad thing because. One thing that I think is very important is to, as far as to learn responsibility, and I think what the school, or like the whole system is doing is not letting us to learn responsibility enough because they are doing everything for us. They're planning out our time. I think it's very important to just let us know the consequences. Let us know that actions leads to consequences and we need to. Be able to handle the consequences ourselves or think before we act. And I think that's like the that's, that should be like the biggest lesson the school teach us, or just because it's very important in life and it applies to any stage in life, in my opinion.

Isabella: 17:40

Yeah, I agree with what Glenn says. And I also want to add that this is a little bit like towards my parents. I think it's to give us time, like sometimes. We can't rush the things that we want to do, or we can't rush we need to take time to maybe understand a situation or take the time to understand how to do something. I think it's also a cultural thing how parents are a little bit. Controlling sometimes. I think they should just give us the time to understand it ourselves and try to also, yeah. Give us the freedom to do ourselves instead of telling us to do what, like right now, or you should. Or sometimes they would say why are you so afraid of this situation? It's nothing to be afraid of. Just go do it. But sometimes it's really important for us to take in like the surrounding and understanding there what situation we're put in order to process anything. Instead of just pushing us and cramming information into us, My mom is a little bit like, it's not a totally bad thing. It's yeah she's just a little bit controlling sometimes and I think, be able to see, give me the freedom and time to do the things that I want. But it's not like I'm saying she stops me from anything that I want. It's just, it has, I have to go through a lot of persuasion, a lot of conversations to be able to reach the point that we both are in agreement. And I think that also. Maybe, yeah, maybe it's also a cultural thing. Like they're a little bit like more traditional. It's hard for them to sometimes accept our point of views or they would think that we're not mature enough because of the, like the way we act or the way we think. They have to understand that where we're also like growing up and it's sometimes okay. To let go and let us try things out.

ayecoachcam: 19:48

So what I'm understanding is that your mom does give you pushback, but the she also allows you space. Half conversation, they have a little sense of persuasion. She allows you the space to to help her with her understanding of you. And then there are at times that it works and then sometimes it does. Yeah. But at least, yeah. At least she gives you that space, which is very important. Very important because this culture is over here. That, it's what I say, this is what you're doing. And then that's it. There's no conversation. There's no persuasion. In that process you've worked on, you've worked on your communication skills, right? You've worked on problem solving. And you've also worked on the audit persuasion, which is something that, is key. I made it, it sounds funny, but it's key, right? Sometimes you just have to, you have to help people see your side, just for understanding, just for a fresh perspective. That's something I think we do not enough of it's always this is my side and this it. And I don't care what you have to think about. Okay. What you got to say, but it leaves no room for conversation and nobody can grow from that. Her giving you that is I love to hear things like that. So thank you. Sorry. My teacher brain came on.

Isabella: 20:55

No, it's

ayecoachcam: 20:57

okay. Glenn, what you got from me?

Glenn: 20:58

It's going to be sound a bit weird. I think for me, okay. With anything. Cause my, at least like at this point in my life, I'm just thinking that everything will work out for the best and that I'm, I don't mean to offend anyone I'm not religious or anything, but I feel like it's not like necessarily God, but like the world works in its own mysterious way that whatever comes next, I'll just deal with. So I wouldn't say anything bad about my parents, because I think it is what it is. And I can't really change, obviously I can't change my parents. So I can't say, oh, I'm done. I want a different parent. No, I can't do that. So I guess it's just it's just like how you do things with anyone actually just like conversation and.

ayecoachcam: 21:50

And I can't change who you are, but I can gain my outlook of you. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you, you're a person who rides the wave. We call them the Carmen. You ride the wave, what's going on. You handle things as they come along. You never really up or down just stay as even as possible. And that's what that sounds like. Am I getting it right here?

Glenn: 22:09

Yeah. Yeah,

ayecoachcam: 22:10

definitely. It's not weird. You're not weird. It doesn't sound weird. It's your perspective. And that's awesome to have seen the positive outlook on things, knowing and accepting that things will change and that you will eventually grow from it and have to move on. There's nothing wrong with that at all. So your take is just as great as Isabella all no, that let's see here. Let's see what what is something that bothers you about school? I was just asked that anything that bother you about school, like teachers, what teachers can do their perspective, their take, how they handle certain situations.

Isabella: 22:49

I think, school is almost done. Yeah. I guess teachers our teachers could, I don't know, like I, okay. When students don't do the things that teachers expect them to do, I don't think it is necessarily the best way to just get. Because if we don't know what, where your expectation is set, we, how are we supposed to do things the way that you expect us to do? So I think if it's better to communicate or like what the teacher is expecting from students or for students to ask more questions about what they are, they want us to.

ayecoachcam: 23:43

Yeah, that's a priority, right? That's more important. So how can I live up to your expectations if I don't know your expectations, you expect me to do something and be a certain way, but you tell me. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's that, I'm a teacher, I'm an adult. You're a kid you're just supposed to listen to what I say. And then that's okay. But how would, what is it supposed to look like? You want me to figure it out? So I love that Glenn.

Glenn: 24:10

I am actually going to say the exact same thing that Isabella just said. I think teachers should also learn how to communicate with students because some teachers, at least for us, they just assume, or like they think that we should just listen to them no matter what. And that is just wrong because, we're still people and we still need our own opinions and our own ways of doing things. Yeah, I think conversation is key.

Isabella: 24:39

Oh, and wait on, add something. One thing that I find that teachers probably shouldn't do as often is to bring in their emotions. From other classes or from their own personal life. I it's like they walk into the classroom and they're mad already and we don't know why. And yeah. I don't think that is a great relationship between the teachers and the students, for sure.

ayecoachcam: 25:07

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I fall victim to that. This is right the human side. I feel that sometimes I teach PE. So if a class before me gave me a hard time, I've already had this little thing with me. So when the next class comes in, it's, on them extra, and sometimes it doesn't require that. And that's something I know I need to work. Just finding that downtime in between classes to just take a deep breath, even though we have a one minute break between classes. So as one class is leaving the other classes rolling in and as a teacher, I'm telling you like the human side of, trying to recollect our thoughts while something else is popping up can be difficult. And I know, like I said, I speak for experience personally. That's something I need to work. Because I've had cases come in and they're like, what happened? Oh, you had the class before us. Okay. But co okay, go drink some water and come back. I'll take the water, because it also the human side, they know that I'm not that person all the time. So obviously something happens. It's the recognition it's recognizing right. Having that. The communication back and forth, that acknowledgement of self between teacher and student, that we should all have. My kids would come in and make a joke and I'm like, all right, whatever we get out of here. But but it's, building that relationship because now what I've done is I left the door open for them to come to me with something. They feel more comfortable sharing, some of the issues and things going on. If I'm a little bit more open with my emotions and okay. As opposed to being dictator teacher. So I believe what you guys are talking about is very important. And thank you for bringing that up. And hopefully more of my teacher friends are listening to this to get that. So what projects are outside ventures that you have going on outside of school?

Isabella: 27:00

Mainly for us is yes, our podcast teen up. We basically talk about teenagers. Thoughts on the wonders of the world questions? Like where did the universe come from or what is success? And currently we are talking about dreams, like what are dreams or what do they do to our like mental issues?

Glenn: 27:24

We don't really have any other projects going on. It's mainly our podcast. And it's called teen up again and you can find that on basically any platform

Isabella: 27:36

you could also find us on Instagram at teen up dot podcast. We're also on Tik TOK with the same handle and yeah, that's basically it.

ayecoachcam: 27:48

Awesome. I will be sure to put those ways to find you in the show notes. So you can link up with Glenn and Isabella. Thank you so much for joining me. You are now considered a villagers And helping us as features, helping us as parents, helping out other teams, helping us as people. And I appreciate your time. Be sure to subscribe. You can find out village stories, newly branded our village stories, parenting through passion and grit. You can find it on YouTube, apple podcast. Good pods cause I prefer a good pods, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts, I always like to end with a quote, any and everything you do with passion and grit. Find your passion and get to it as a coach. Can I see y'all later.