← Scrolling 2 Death
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:07]
B
I have Ava Smithing here with me. I'm so happy to see you again. So, for those of you who don't know, Ava is the advocacy director at Young People's alliance and a youth fellow at McGill University center for Media, Technology and Democracy. You are based in D.C. and you're advocating for safer digital spaces and ethical tech, which means tech that puts young people first. And you're a third time guest here on scrolling to death. And I am so happy to have you again. Hi, Ava.
- [00:34]
A
Hi. It's so good to be here. I love it here. Thank you.
- [00:38]
B
You have something exciting to announce and I can't wait to listen in myself. But let's just do the little intro piece. You know, you've been here before, but for parents who don't know you, what got you into this work? Can you kind of fill those parents in?
- [00:52]
A
Oh, yeah. So this work is deeply personal to me. I think that the line that I like to use for shock factors, I just like to say I was one of the teenage girls on Instagram with an eating disorder. I've told this story many times. I had the privilege of telling the story in front of the United states Congress in 2024. Last year, I was moved into the eating disorder rabbit hole on Instagram. They collected my data, they collected my frigging eye movements, and they got me from bikini advertisements to dieting content to just the most nasty eating disorder content. And I lived in there, I call it, at the bottom of the Internet with that eating disorder content for a very, very long time. It wasn't until I was in college and I began studying the history and philosophy of technology. And I always hated tech companies in general, I will say. But it wasn't until Frances Haugen blew the whistle in 2021 that I really connected my hatred towards these companies to what was happening in my life, actually. And I was able to connect those dots. Went through a lot of time recovering. And then I graduated from college and moved to Washington, D.C. a week after and started working on trying to pass some legislation at the federal and the state level to protect young people from what happened to me online.
- [02:08]
B
It's amazing. Ava, thank you for sharing that. And I, I think too, like, when you connect those dots between, like you said, like, their decisions and how you're being affected in your daily life. Tell me some examples of what you saw, like a decision that you realized they were making that was leading you down this rabbit hole or tell me about that connection a little bit more.
- [02:29]
A
Right. So I think that the most important decision there is a decision that they made to collect and store my data and then to decide to show me content based on that. So in 2016, I think it was Instagram went from a chronological to an algorithmically recommended feed, which means that it wasn't just the people I was following following and what they posted in order, but rather the feed became a hodgepodge of people I was following with advertisements and recommended posts. And essentially what happened is Instagram, or it started on Pinterest, really. So Pinterest clocked that I would look at these triangle bikini advertisements for a really long time. At least that's what happened. And then they said, okay, so we have this data on this girl, Ava Smithing. She looks at these for a long time. What other kinds of things do other people who look at these for a long time also look at?
- [03:25]
B
Right.
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A
Cause, you know, they're trying to keep me on for as long as possible. And that's a process called collaborative filtering. So they share, they compare my data to other people's data, like millions of people's data at a time. It's really happening on a scale that we couldn't even fathom.
- [03:37]
B
Right.
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A
But they realized that other people who looked at those advertisements for a long time also looked at this, like, extreme workout content. And then people who looked at the extreme workout content also looked at this extreme dieting content. And then the dieting content went to, like, the day in the life of the model and the day of the life and the model and went towards that thinspo and that eating disorder content. And I think the number one decision that they made where they really went wrong was, I mean, A, invading my privacy in the first place and doing something so nefarious as collecting my engagement data, but B, equating, like, what I wanted to look at with what I was looking at for the longest. Right. Because humans have a negativity bias, so we pay more attention to things that make us uncomfortable, and that triggers our fight or flight. So it was fundamentally wrong at the very beginning when they said, oh, she likes to look at these ads because she's looking at them for longer than everything else. That was never the case. I never liked to look at those ads. They were put in front of me, and I spent a long time looking at them.
- [04:39]
B
Yeah.
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A
Because all I could think when I saw this was, like, why don't I look like that? Why don't I look like that? Who are these ghouls? Why do they look like that?
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B
You know, I wonder, because I Get this comment sometimes, like, that's from parents or people that don't want to believe that, you know, it's the company's fault. They'll say like, well, that's just, just the algorithm doing what it's supposed to do and it's giving you stuff that you are interested in. So it's your fault because you showed interest in that type of content. Like, how would you respond to that person?
- [05:06]
A
I would just go back and be like, can we not look away from car garages because they're interesting to us? Or is there some deeper human instinct there that's causing us to be fixated? Right. Like, the negativity bias goes way back to when we were far closer to the actual instinct and drive to survive than we are now. I would say we're nowhere near that anymore.
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B
Right.
- [05:27]
A
At least as a Western civilization. But you're in the woods and there's a bear coming. You're going to stare at the bear for a long time because that bear poses an immediate threat to you. You're not going to stare at that bear for a long time because you like it and you think it's cool and you want to know what it's going to do. No, you're going to assess the threat that it's going to pose to you. And that instinct has gone through hundreds of thousands of millions of whatever. I mean, I'm not a scientist. All of these years of adaptation to get us where we are today. And humans are social animals. We want to fit in with the people around us. So it makes sense that it would have changed from like a life or death survival instinct to like a social cohesion and like fitting in and being a part of the in group instinct. So if the algorithm was doing what it was supposed to be doing, it would ask me what I wanted to see and then show me more of that. It wouldn't make those decisions on its own for me.
- [06:20]
B
And I think that some of the platforms are starting to maybe understand that. There's one platform called UP that is in development. I think the website is scrollhappy. Com. But it's like the first thing it asks you is how do you want to feel? And then you choose. And I feel like even I heard Adam Mosseri talk about adding some functionality like that to be able to customize your algorithm based on how you want to feel. Do you feel like that will be helpful if it's Instagram for the users not seeing the, you know, negative bias, bad stuff, fill their feed?
- [06:58]
A
I mean, I'm not going to say it's not going to be helpful, but Instagram's skin in the game is that you keep spending time on their platform. So maybe they'll show you 50% more pieces of content that are happy and would make you feel the way that you want to feel, but it's still going to show you that negative stuff because that's what keeps you coming back.
- [07:20]
B
Like, yeah, I don't know.
- [07:21]
A
I've been using We Are eight recently, which is also a new social media platform. Love it. It's only happy content. Like not only, but like the stuff that I look at on there. And the eighth stage is happy content. The recommended posts are happy. I open that app and I scroll on it for like three minutes and I feel happy and I want to move that happiness into the real world. So I close the app and I put it down.
- [07:43]
B
Yeah.
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A
Like it's all about that. The fact that moment of inflection where it's like, if you feel good, you're not going to keep. If you actually feel good, you're not going to keep scrolling. You're going to want to put down that phone and carry that goodness into doing something else. If you feel inspired, you're not going to want to keep consuming inspiring content. You're going to go want to act on that inspiration. Right?
- [08:06]
B
Yeah, totally.
- [08:07]
A
So I think for me, that's how I'd explain it. It's like there's a lot that they could do to these algorithms and I'm sure Mosseri is going to try to find a way to make increase happy content, whatever content consumed. But they're not going to take away the negative because we would. You know what I mean? Like what I feel good. If Instagram does the good job of making you feel happy, then you're going to use it significantly less. Yeah.
- [08:32]
B
And they won't do that. I totally agree. And I, I'm learning more about the things to pay attention to the things that they say Instrumenta, for example, and interviewed Marturo Behar last week and he's talking about like when you say maybe they. They'll serve like 50% more happy content. It could be 0.1% more content. That is whatever you want to feel. And they'll say you're getting more of that type of content. They just don't quantify it that and it could be 0.1% but they play around with the wording in like the marketing P and the top line messaging so that you think it's like more than it Is right.
- [09:09]
A
Yeah, they're really good at that.
- [09:10]
B
They are. They hired the experts. You talked. I want to just touch on, um, before we move on, like the data. You talked several times about Instagram and Pinterest using your data, collecting millions of pieces of data to serve you more things that will keep you on longer. And recently a friend asked me like, what's the issue with my kid, with these companies collecting my kids data? Right. And there's a stat like by the time your kid is, is it 13? There'll be 70 million pieces of data collected on them. A lot of it is through parents sharing their kids online or even through use of ed tech, like all these other aspects or even their video gaming. So can you talk a little bit? Like does that data that's getting collected say from parents posts, is that all going to inform the companies on how to keep your kid on longer when they get online? Like is that all connected in your opinion?
- [10:04]
A
Like, I don't actually know.
- [10:06]
B
I know.
- [10:07]
A
Freaks me out. I don't know. I have always thought that like sharing children online can be done in a privacy enhancing way that wouldn't necessarily, I don't think be about like what kind of like the photos you're actually sharing of them, but rather what kind of information you disclose in the captions. I'm not as necessarily concerned about the averse impacts of what that data could down the road do to children as much as I am like what sharing information about your children gives them on you. Right.
- [10:38]
B
Like, okay, yeah. Interesting. Yeah.
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A
The more you share about your kids, the more they know about you and the more they can target you. Like I think that's also something really harmful. I mean we see these, these algorithms like very successfully predicting when women are pregnant because there's a huge shopping and habit change that happens when you're pregnant. Right. Or when you have your first kid because you're starting to shop for like a different version for another person.
- [11:04]
B
Yeah.
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A
And so it's, it's more like the different life stages of the life of your child. It's like what kind of targeting and predatory marketing can they do at you given that content? I don't know. I'd have to look up though, like look into what kind of data they're collecting from kids that are posted online. I think more that kind of data isn't necessarily from what I'm sure, I'm sure it is a thread given the world that we live in today. I'm sure it is, but I think so.
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B
Valuable. Right.
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A
It's So I think also that's more about like exposing children to like other actors on the Internet, not necessarily the companies themselves, but to like predators who, who use the Internet.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah. And there's like the identity theft issues and things like that. And I was doing NPR last two weeks ago, and this is like not on our topic, but it's. But they were asking some. Some caller asked. My phone served me this ad for this thing that I was talking about earlier in the day. Like, is my phone listening to me? My instinct was yes. I think there's so much tracking going on that you don't realize. Especially like things like TikTok that goes deep into all your. All your devices, across your user interfaces and logs, keystrokes and eye movements and things like that. But I was on with God. What's the main lobbyists that. The big tech funds. There's NET Choice, not NetChoice, but the other one. EE F. Okay. The other guy was. The other guy that was being interviewed was from EFF and he was like. Short answer is no. They're just. They just know you so well from other data points that they know you know where you're going with your mindset kind of thing.
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A
Do you have.
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B
Do you have input on that? I wonder what you would answer that.
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A
I mean, I try not to fear Monger, but I would go, even if they weren't listening to you, it wouldn't matter because they essentially are like, that's. It's like they know so much. Are they listening to where you're not? Doesn't matter because it's like they know enough. I just went on the App Store just for a fun exercise. Let's read a list of data that is linked to you on Instagram, health and fitness, financial info, which means your bank statements. That's another thing. It's like, did you just buy a plane ticket to Croatia? Did you just get a hotel? And then you were talking with your partner about needing a hotel and you thought that it was listening to you talking about the hotel, but in reality it's just tracking that you just bought the flight. You know what I mean? So it didn't really matter. Yeah, contact info. Use your content. So yes, that is what you post and then what they can collect from you based on what you post. Browsing history, usage data, purchases, location, contacts, search history identifiers, which has a picture of an ID next to it. So like where you live, what your religion is, and then sensitive info. It's crazy that there could even be a category called sensitive info. What does that mean? And they wouldn't have to disclose that any further.
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B
That's the thing.
- [14:06]
A
But. And here's the other way I explained to people, it's not necessarily about, like, what Instagram or what TikTok can do to you, given that they know your data, which is very clear predatory and unfair marketing practices. Right. And also just like clouding your view of what product you should buy. I get really frustrated with how much data they have on me when it comes to shopping because, like, I've been on this whole clear skin journey and trying to, like, get my acne under control and because they know how bad I'm feeding for that skincare. All of my advertisements, all of my sponsored posts are this about skincare. And it's making it impossible for me to find objective information about what skincare works.
- [14:49]
B
Right.
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A
That's what's so frustrating. But even outside of, like, that kind of consumer being really aggressive and mean to consumers is on the meta skill, your data, as on your own, isn't that valuable. But your data can pair it against every single other person's data in the entire world. Now that's valuable because they can track, like, Nikki did this and then that and Ava did this, so she'll probably do that too.
- [15:20]
B
Across millions of people.
- [15:22]
A
Yeah. Wow. So they can identify patterns and they can identify network trends and they can make predictions based off of that. And what that can do is like, we were talking about earlier with the eating disorder content, it's like, really pigeonhole people into behaviors that they wouldn't do earlier and also just surface, like, quite an existential threat. Like, any of these companies at any point could decide that they want to be far more nefarious than they already are. Like, I'm just waiting for the day that Mark Zuckerberg wakes up and is like, I'm done wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a PR department. The people hate me. I don't really care that they hate me. I want to do bad things. Yeah. And then he has all of the information about all of us to, like, influence our politics, you know, influence the way that we talk to one another. And I hate to Fear Monger, but you gotta think about it, your data as one piece of information in the larger cloud of all of the data and just being able to understand, like, humans on that level.
- [16:18]
B
And like, yeah, it's scary.
- [16:19]
A
Even nature on that level, it's kind of. It's. It's quite scary. It's quite weird. And I don't mean to do that. In the way of like, there's nothing you can do about it because it is everyone. Rather, to reinforce that individual action is
- [16:33]
B
very important and to bring it back to like, teen use. One thing that stands out for me is one of the things Sarah Wynn Williams, the meta whistleblower, shared meta was tracking. Like when teenage girls would delete a selfie on their phone and then in that moment would give that information to advertisers. And then the advertiser would serve a beauty ad when the teen is like feeling bad about themselves, which shows like how deep they. They can get into your phone and track things that aren't happening on Instagram. First of all, that's so nefarious and taking advantage. Right.
- [17:08]
A
Like, that's under. I would imagine that would be under the usage data category of things that they tell you that they use on the App store. Well, and another interesting thing is there's all the data linked to you on Instagram. Lennon sent me this the other day. There's the data linked to you on. We are eight. Right.
- [17:27]
B
Okay. Right.
- [17:28]
A
Very different lists. Yeah. And they don't have to collect that data from you to.
- [17:34]
B
Yeah.
- [17:34]
A
To power a product that works at a very basic level. They only have to collect that data to power a product that also fuels the world's largest and most nefarious advertising machine. Like, it's not for you.
- [17:45]
B
And they know that people don't read that deep into it. They just sign up and agree to anything which is not informed consent. Like, we're not really consenting to this in a way that we understand what we're consenting to. Which like then is kind of illegal because it's. I mean, this is why I've like, with the kids use of ed tech. Like, why I filed several lawsuits against ed tech companies because maybe I checked the box saying the school can give my kids access to devices at school, but that I didn't know what I was consenting to. And the attorneys are like, that's not informed consent. These companies now have all your kids data and you didn't consent to that. So there's like legality here that I feel like.
- [18:27]
A
I mean, yeah, I, I go back to when I was testifying. I testified alongside David Brody who's like all star lawyer in the space is just so incredible and so smart. And I think that it was Representative Trahan asked us both, like, do you think that you could read the terms and conditions and tell what's going on? And David, who's a lawyer trained in this was like, No, I was like, if he can't do it, no way I can do it.
- [18:56]
B
Yeah.
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A
And they move terms and conditions around, like every couple of months they publish a new version of it just to confuse and prevent lawyers from being able to see what we're saying.
- [19:08]
B
Then they allow 13 year olds to enter these contracts and opt into these privacy agreements. Right. Which is a bigger problem that we could talk about another time. I want to start talking about your new projects. And so you set out on a big journey ACROSS what, the U.S. and Canada to talk to young people to find out really how deep this rabbit hole goes, how these people are being affected, these real stories. So can you tell us about this investigation?
- [19:36]
A
Yes, yes. Thank you so much for asking. So over the past year and a half, almost, I've worked with the Toronto Star in Paradigms, which is a nonprofit out of Canada, to do an investigation into online harms that we all know and hate so well. But trying to do it from the lens of there were two important lenses that we put on. First is how are young people themselves feeling about this? Because this conversation up to date has largely been about young people, but not necessarily centering the lived experience. Yeah.
- [20:07]
B
It's been like parent led, I think. Right.
- [20:10]
A
Yeah. Which is so incredible and is the reason why we are as far as we are today. But right now, because the movement's blowing up and it has been paraled up until this point, I think it's time that we hear some young people come in and say, happened to me. And the second lens that we put on, and this was like, so fun and challenging for me because you know how I feel about these platforms. To me, it's black and white, good and bad. But the other lens we put on is what are the benefits of these products? And when we're regulating, when we're holding these companies accountable, when we're moving as a culture away from these exploitative models, what are the benefits that we need to hold onto? And what kind of good can these products bring into people's lives just so we can understand the full picture of Humans want to connect so bad. And we've been given this new way of connecting. Of course we're not going to want to let it go. Because my frustration was, we see how bad this is. Why won't we get off of these platforms? I wanted to go and talk to my generation who's really on the front lines of it and say, like, what is. What about this serves you? And if it doesn't serve you, what happened? What did you do about it. Right. That's a lot of what we wanted to ask too is like, okay, so this horrible traumatic thing happened to you. Now what. And what you meet is these really freaking bad A young people.
- [21:30]
B
Yeah.
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A
Who are involved in litigation, who are starting movements, who are even just standing up and posting things online about what, what went wrong with their stories. So, so yeah, we just, we wanted to tell this story from, from the angle of the young people and from the angle of nuanced. There's up and downs. I think the Toronto Stars one liner on it was a new investigation from the front lines of 21st century childhood. And I love that because that's what it is.
- [21:59]
B
So good. Amazing. And it's a podcast, right? Is the main format?
- [22:03]
A
Yes, it is a podcast. So it's a 10 episode series that comes out everywhere. You get podcasts and it's not your traditional interview based podcast. So I don't have 10 people on. We interviewed a lot more than 10 people, a couple dozen people. And we weave their stories together to try to answer some bigger questions. Interesting. The first episode, for example, is us grappling with the question, can technology be addictive or not? And we talk to researchers, we talk to young people who have been addicted to technology and have done something about it. They started an Internet Technology Addicts Anonymous meeting in their town and have this meeting once a week to host community for other people who can't use technology in non addictive ways. And then the next episode, we talk to somebody who's had a very positive experience with the algorithm and somebody who had a nearly life ending experience with the algorithm. You know, just as a question of like, instead of asking are these technologies addictive? Yes or no, are these technologies good or bad? Yes or no, ask like, what does a good use case look like and what does a bad use case look like?
- [23:09]
B
Yeah, right. And not every user is going to have a, you know, horrible experience. But we can't sacrifice the good, the bad to get the good. You know, it's like gotta be good. And maybe outside circumstances caused the bad, but not the actual company's choices. But you know what surprised you through this, through these conversations? Because you've had your own experiences. But was there something that like, surprised you?
- [23:33]
A
There was a lot that surprised me. Honestly, I think that something that really surprised me is a lot of the people we had on to talk about their lived experience. So we spoke with victims of extortion, we spoke with victims of eating disorders like me. We spoke with young people, people who were Incredibly addicted to technology. And all of them are so beautifully hopeful that we can build out digital products to sustain digital community. And even though they had the worst of the worst happen to them, they still believe in what the promise of the Internet is. And I think that is so beautiful and so refreshing because for me, I have a very difficult time believing in the promise of the Internet. Right. Like, I call myself a delusional optimist because my optimism is oftentimes forced because I don't really see any other way around it. You know, it's like if I was honest with how I felt about the Internet, I probably wouldn't come to work every morning seeing these young people who just know deep down in their heart that we can make, we can make these online spaces, places that are productive for finding community and being creative. So eye opening and beautiful. To me, I really loved that a lot. Love that a lot.
- [24:46]
B
And I bet that you came to them, gave them some hope too, because it's like someone's listening and someone's interested. And actually there's tons of organizations who are working on trying to build safer spaces through legislation, through lawsuits. And then there's responsible entrepreneurs like Zoe@weare8 who is taking input from people like you to build something. I mean, even with me and what I'm worried about with younger kids use like to build something responsible and safe and happy and really truly bringing people in to push them back out, you know, to push them back out into the world with more inspiration, like feeling even better and cause you have companies like Snapchat says that's what they want to do and says that's what they're doing. Like they want to inspire people like through SnapMap. That was like their justification is like trying to get people together in person more. And I'm like, we like, this is such a bad, like lie. Like don't pretend that you want people to be together in person when all we know all you want is to keep them on there longer so you add more functionality to connect them with more strangers and content that's going to keep them longer.
- [26:00]
A
A lot of the companies didn't even comment on this. Like we did a lot of investigating and we heard a lot of first person accounts and Meta came back and was like, we don't have anything even to say about that. Which is just like so great.
- [26:14]
B
It shows how like little they care about these individual stories. And you know, recently you saw the new Arturo Behar research on teen accounts and how 2 out of 3 of the functions with teen accounts like doesn't work or has been discontinued. And I was actually happy to see that they responded. Like they tried to negate everything, but when you get them to respond, it shows you a little bit of a. Like we're actually pushing them to pay attention and maybe make some changes.
- [26:45]
A
Yeah, we'll see.
- [26:46]
B
And then there's some new research coming out tomorrow, so it'll be out by the time this is live. But Heat initiative actually surveyed a bunch of teens about their experience on Instagram teens and it matches up to the independent research by Arturo that they're also seeing bad content getting connected with adult strangers and things like that. So I'm happy to see so many youth coming through. Like youth voices coming through and heats research in your project. Your most recent protest at Apple in New York City was youth led. Was so cool to be surrounded by young people that have been directly affected by these platforms because I can say I came into it like as an adult and I'm okay, but you guys didn't even have a chance. And that's not freaking fair.
- [27:30]
A
Yeah, it's quite frustrating. But it's cool to see that things are going to change for people younger than us. Like, it's. It's really beautiful to see that it will. Like for kids who are really small now and can't even walk around on their own. Like, I know I. I believe that things will be better and greater for them.
- [27:50]
B
Yeah.
- [27:50]
A
Without a doubt. And that's what makes me feel really good about it. But it's like it really pisses me off. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I've actually been thinking about that some recently to have been born in that 30 year gap.
- [28:01]
B
Yeah.
- [28:02]
A
Where the. Not even like 10.
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B
10. I know. For real? Yeah.
- [28:05]
A
Like the 1995 to the 2015, you know, in that gap where it was just so bad. It really. I feel like it's so unfair. And I get really. When I hear about these kids and I commented on Alexa Arnold who's from. With the tag team.
- [28:19]
B
Yeah.
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A
She made a great post about like a landline pod for kids who have landlines. And that made me so happy because I grew up with a landline. I was probably one of the last folks to grow up with a landline. We got rid of it when I was like, it's actually my cell phone number now is our Stanley's landline. Really is when we lost our landline. Wow. Which is so funny. But I saw about these communities with these kids who get to grow up and they, they look so happy. And I can't believe that I'm so jealous of children, you know, like, yeah, I'm sorry. Wow, that would have been so nice. But it makes, it just makes way more than I am jealous. I'm just really, really, really, really so grateful because nobody should have to go through that for no reason.
- [29:05]
B
Yeah. Laura Marques Garrett recently said in an interview we did about chatbots, the only difference between my kids and the kids that have died is they were born later. Like I am lucky because my kids were born after these other kids because these parents were believing a lie, they were sold a lie and they did everything they knew to do and they were unknowingly exposing their kids to situations that took their life in the end. That's devastating. And I feel I've been feeling so jealous about like, or not jealous. Cause I had the chat like my schooling experience and maybe even yours where we didn't have devices and didn't use devices for everything, education wise. And also the phone problem. And that's just for my kids now. Like how hard it is to try to find a classical kind of school experience has been the next phase that we're taking on, I think.
- [29:59]
A
You know, when I was in, when I was a kid, the laptop, the laptop cart had to come to our classroom.
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B
Right. That's how it should be.
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A
It wasn't love, you know, the, or the iPads. I remember when we got the iPad cart, I was in sixth grade, they had those thick, those thick iPads.
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B
Yeah.
- [30:13]
A
We used to go crazy when those iPads would show up. Like it was the best day ever. We thought it was so cool. And that novelty. I just, I feel so lucky to have experienced that like that excitement about technology because I don't even think, like, I wonder what kind of product it would take to get a 12 year old today just like screaming and jumping up and down, that they get to use it for like an hour in the middle of the school week as opposed to every day. Yeah, yeah. The ed tech is, I don't know, it's interesting. But that's again why we wanted to use the podcast to tell this story right now is I think a lot of people are waking up to this and a lot of people are starting to see what's going on and, and there's definitely a larger cultural movement growing of people who feel resentment towards tech companies and people who just feel really nostalgic for analog technology.
- [31:02]
B
Yeah.
- [31:02]
A
And we wanted to give them a backstop and we wanted to give them a place to Go. Because as we spoke about earlier, this movement up until now has been largely spurred and pushed forward by parents.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah.
- [31:13]
A
And that's so important. But kids, especially 16, 17 year olds, don't like it when their parents tell them what to do. They get quite defensive.
- [31:21]
B
Yeah.
- [31:22]
A
So to hear it from somebody who went through it and from somebody who is still, like, I would consider myself at this point to still be young and hip. Right. Maybe that's what these. Maybe that's what these younger people need to hear. So, yeah, it's a really good way to introduce young people into the world of online harms without overwhelming them and making them feel hopeless and taking agency away from them. I think it's cool. It could even be something that, like parents and kids, like, podcast, book club together. You know, like, let's listen to this episode about tech addiction and then let's come back as a family and let's talk about it.
- [31:59]
B
That so much.
- [32:00]
A
Hope it's not prescriptive. You know, I do try to be a journalist in this. Like, it was definitely something out of my comfort zone because, I mean, you know me well enough, Nikki. Like, I like to be prescriptive and I like to say attack is bad. So this was such a cool exercise for me to really be objective and unbiased and like, try to explore these issues with nuance and just go on a fact finding mission. The facts tell the story. I don't have to say this is good or bad. The facts do.
- [32:27]
B
Right.
- [32:27]
A
So I think it could be a really cool tool for parents who are trying to open up these conversations with their kids.
- [32:33]
B
And it's called left to their own devices. I don't know if we said that
- [32:36]
A
yet, but yes, left to their own devices. Anywhere where you get your. Your vodka.
- [32:41]
B
And would you say it's for like teens and up or is there anything that parents should screen for beforehand?
- [32:47]
A
Screen for. So I give content warnings at the beginning of episodes where we talk about heavier stuff.
- [32:52]
B
Okay.
- [32:53]
A
I mentioned my eating disorder pretty. I think in most episodes I say the occasional curse word. Okay. In it. Okay. That's what I would screen for. Like, as far as content goes, I will give the heads up when the content is deep and I say like a couple curse words. Maybe like one every other episode. But it's nothing bad. My producer was very.
- [33:14]
B
He was like, no F words. Okay. Thank you for that heads up and thank you for doing this. That you are right. That parents are like, they'll even say to me, like, my teen will listen to you when you say it, and I'm just like a mom, like them, but going back to getting them, getting them in front of other youth, telling these stories and giving teens and agency because they don't like being taken advantage of. And they get it, and they just want some empowerment and some hope. And so I love this whole project. I'm so excited about it. I'll link to. Is there. There's a website or it's like. Just go straight to the podcast platforms.
- [33:52]
A
You can go straight to the podcast. I think that there's a receiving page on the Toronto Star that I'll send you as well, but.
- [33:57]
B
Okay, okay, perfect. I'm gonna link to all that. Make sure everybody you subscribe so you get an alert from your favorite podcast platform when a new episode drops. And I can't wa see what you do next. Ava, I'm always your biggest fan. Anything you say, I repost it. So thank you for everything you do. Thank you for having me.
- [34:15]
A
Niki, I love it. I love coming on here and talking to you.
- [34:18]
B
We'll talk soon.