Episode 10 - Talking to YP


1	Episode 10 - Talking to Young People - Transcript
2	To listen to this episode online click here
3
4	Louisa	Hello. This is the online resilience podcast with me, Louisa Street and Professor Andy Phippen, we're discussing all aspects of young people's online lives and giving practical advice on how to
5		support the young people you work with.
6		Music is by Roo Pescod
7		Welcome to another episode of the Online Resilience podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about how you can have conversations with your children or young people about their online world. Now, the reason that I wanted to do a specific podcast about this is if you've listened to the podcast, you'll know that my constant refrain is "talk to
8		young people about their online world or about their online lives". And quite often people say, Well, I try, I try. I've tried talking to my son or tried talking to the young person I'm supporting or the children in my class.
9		And they don't answer. They don't want to tell me about it. So I thought, actually, perhaps having a bit of a discussion about how we can have those conversations with young people and our experience of doing so in ways that don't just make those young people completely clam up and want to never talk
10		to us again.
11		And have hopefully some short and simple advice about having those conversations. So Andy, you've done a lot of research with young people around their online lives. What what are your kind of go to ways of starting those discussion?
12	Andy	I mean, I must say, I think I'm in a privileged position here because I'm the guy who comes in from outside of the school setting or whatever else to talk about this thing. So they don't have a previous experience with me of me going, "You shouldn't be doing this or you shouldn't be doing that."
13		So I've never found young people struggle to talk about these sorts of things. In fact, once they warm up and I mean, it's something I've talked to a lot of young people about kind of like "But you said you wouldn't talk about this in class, but you just spent the last 90 minutes talking to a stranger about it."
14		They will generally say something along the lines of, "Yeah, but you're not judging us all. Yeah, but you're not telling us how to behave or you're answering our questions". I think that's a really important point, particularly when you're talking about say from Key Stage 4 and upwards.
15		Young people have experienced a lot of protectionist, prohibitive viewpoints on this sort of thing. And even if you sort of think back to, you know, I still walk into a primary school, I will still be told by the staff at the primary school that we don't talk about social media because they shouldn't be on it.
16		And yeah, but you have that legal discussion and you point out the error of their ways. If young people are used to within a school setting, being told you shouldn't be doing this or you should stop doing this or that's bad, you're you're going to be shutting down any chance of conversation.
17		Interestingly, I was in a college a couple of weeks ago talking to some sixth formers and saying, Well, what works for you? I'm here because I've been talking to the safeguarding lead and we want to do stuff in tutorials and it's actually useful what works.
18		And they also had discussion, and being able to ask questions is way more useful, way more important than being shown the video or being shown a powerpoint subject to groups that you will go through the PowerPoint in some due to groups that you too will go as a PowerPoint on the SharePoint.
19		Have a look at it if you want.
20	Louisa	Right.
21	Andy	And so I think sometimes we become a hostage fortune because if we are delivering these prohibitive messages, then why would they want to talk to us about?
22	Louisa	Yeah.
23	Andy	Because they kind of go, well, I had years of being told not to do this thing that I enjoy doing, like gaming. Or so, you know, there was a primary school a while ago and they're like, Oh, well, you know, we've got the key stage two oral presentation and we let them do anything they want as long as
24		it's not gaming.
25	Louisa	Right?
26	Andy	Why the hell have you separated gaming? Oh, because that's all they talk about. That's because they're interested.
27	Louisa	Yeah
28	Andy	And they're passionate about these things. And it was immediately. And then you get young people going, well, I get told it's stupid or I get told it's rubbish or something for, yeah. So I think I think again, like, a stuck record on this
29		We park our own value biases. We park our own nonprofessional views, shall we say, or things. We've opinions we formed as a result of our own digital experiences and talk to young people and listen to them. And I think that's probably the crucial thing is listening there.
30		You know, one of the things that comes up again and again and again from talk to you is you don't have to have all the answers. Know if you kind of go, well, what the hell is Among Us?
31		What you're talking about that for someone get the opportunity to to explain, well, this is Among Us is and you sit there and your first response to learning about because among us is an interactive video game. Your first response that shouldn't be ah sounds rubbish.
32	Louisa	Yeah.
33	Andy	Which again, I've come across experiences where that sort of thing happens or chatting and shaking your heads and suddenly they're wasting their time. Yeah, they're not wasting their time. They're doing something they thoroughly enjoy and they're interacting with friends and then meeting strangers as well.
34		And there's some issues around risk there, but equally, this is a generally positive experience. Why wouldn't they want to talk about it and not be told they're stupid for doing it?
35	Louisa	Yeah, absolutely. And in the sort of classroom sessions that I do with young people, I'll ask them what they do for fun, what they enjoy, and gaming quite often comes up. And when you kind of give them that license to talk about it, they've got a lot to say about it.
36		And, you know, even the like older groups of young people that I see will say, Yeah, I love playing Minecraft. And you know, someone always says GTA it's my favorite. And that often sets professionals hearts, racing and panic.
37		Because, oh god, GTA is age restricted. They probably shouldn't be playing it, but actually just letting them kind of tell you that stuff in quite a relaxed way can open up a lot more that you wouldn't necessarily be expecting to come out of it because
38		computer games are... I think, gaming particularly, but I suppose a lot of stuff online is engaging, is made to be interesting and to reflect things that happen in real life or that might happen in real life, much like films and TV shows and books and radio plays, do so...
39		Yeah, I think we have to kind of have that awareness that if we shut down every conversation about anything online and then say, Right, tell me what you're doing when you go on the internet, you're you're going to get a one word response.
40		and it's probably going to be no.
41
42	Andy	It's interesting you say about, you know, sometimes you will get, particularly with the younger children, a little bit of boundary pushing. OK, I play GTA, then I look at you.
43	Louisa	Yeah
44	Andy	OK, what you do. And it was like, You're not going to tell me I shouldn't hang on a minute or the, you know, Oh, I play this game. And other people in this class aren't allowed to play this game, but you can end up having some quite sensible discussions around that.
45		Why do you think people might be worried about playing a game like this? I think that's one of the things is not to shut down these conversations and not to start from a position of harm. Yeah. So you know, oh, well, or you're talking about playing this game, I read somewhere that this bad thing happened with that
46		going wrong. So let it go. Or have you seen in the media people have said about this, what do you think about that? You know, that's that's again, one of the conversation starters I'll use a lot is if you see the other thing that's going on in the media at the moment, what you reckon.
47		And again, it'll give them a chance to speak freely and then realize that they're being listened to rather than being told to sit down, shut up and listen. While I tell you how dangerous being online is.
48	Louisa	Yeah.
49	Andy	That encourages a broader and more general discussion.
50	Louisa	Definitely. And I think the you know, if if conversations where online activity are brought into it naturally are sort of shut down and professionals or parents are saying to kids like, Oh, I don't want to hear about that, that's a waste of time.
51		It's not you're not going to have these light hearted conversations. But equally, you can have those conversations without needing to know anything about the stuff that they're talking about. The first time anyone a young person told me about Rocket League, I was like, What is it?
52		And they were like, It's where you play football with a car. And I was like. What do you mean, how does that even work? But by kind of allowing that and being open to, I learnt all about Rocket League and, you know, it's similarly a lot of the time.
53		If there's a new game that someone mentions, I'll get them to tell me a bit about it. And then, you know, a couple of weeks later, I'll be in another group and I'll mention that same game. Oh, Miss, are you into gaming?
54		And I'm like, No, I just got just been listening to what people are saying about it.
55	Andy	And I think I think that come back from a great deal of different aspects of what we broadly call online safeguarding is the telling someone it's dangerous or telling their stupid to be doing it or telling them it's boring them they're wasting their time isn't a good way of starting a conversation that might ultimately end up with
56		them disclosing some concerns that do happen.
57	Andy	You know, if someone is abusing them every time they go in the game or tell him to go kill themselves and they're upset about something, they're not going to tell that to somebody who's told me already that they're wasting their time and it's a load of rubbish and stuff.
58		I think you and I probably both experience the fact that once the floodgates open, it's very difficult to, you know, the bell will go for the next lesson like, can we carry on with this? You look at the teacher like, can we? that sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't.
59	Louisa	Yeah. And you know that that's obviously sort of in a group setting where you can get the rapport between the individuals in the group as well as kind of the questions that you might put out if you're doing one to one work.
60		I think exactly the same thing applies having those conversations asking about the online world in the same way as you ask about the real world for want of a better word. If they tell you that their favorite Instagrammer or YouTuber posted a video will also make watch it.
61		Awesome to show it to you because you're going to get a massive insight and you're going to open those doors. And it's very easy, I think, as adults, but I don't want to watch YouTuber that an eleven year old is interested in.
62		But in the same way as if you're a one-on-one worker, you would talk to them about their friends and about the activities that they do and about what teachers they like and all of that kind of stuff. Similarly, we need to be including regular conversations about their online world.
63	Andy	I agree, conversations is the important thing to have them, you know, just reflecting on a couple of weeks ago. The group of young people who are all 17 were tired of the online safety speech or the Online Safety Assembly or whatever they they wanted to ask stuff and you know, we had a major conversation about the legalities of sexting
64		because it's like, well, last year, a copper came in and told us it was legal and then but but what is this all you know? So ultimately, what we want to do in this whole area is have young people be critical thinkers about these sorts of things and to understand risk and know how to mitigate risk and
65		if harm is occurring or the potential for harm to occur, they are confident they can disclose it and get help and support. That is ultimately what we want. Now this whole, this whole area, you know, as much as politicians are talking about stopping racism online or whatever at the moment - ain't going to happen.
66		That's not the way you go about these sorts of things. But what you can do is provide a far more supportive, critically thinking environment for young people, which is which is our ultimate goal. And that doesn't come from one conversation that doesn't come from an assembly in September.
67	Andy	Anything bad happens to you online this year, talk to us about it because, you know, it's an ongoing narrative, it's an ongoing discussion, and it can happen across all sorts of different curricula.
68
69		It doesn't have to be just in PSHE you know, English is a good place drama. History, politics, they've all got online dimensions to them.
70	Louisa	Yeah, absolutely. I have to confess, I'm one of the millennials that got into tech stocks during lockdown, and I recently found book talk where people talk about books on TikTok. And it's like, Yeah, that's great. Like, that's really interesting.
71		And if you're an English lit teacher and you want to start including elements of the online world and making it relevant to young people in your lessons, then looking at book talk and finding out what people are saying and what you know what, what, what famous TikTokers have got to say about the grapes of wrath or
72		whatever it might be that could actually add an element to your lessons. That again, could mean that that young person who perhaps is having a hard time online thinks that teacher's the person I'm going to talk to because they know, because they understand, because they've shown an interest in it.
73		And I think that that's about being a little bit congruent and being honest about who we are and saying, like, yes, I have an online life as well as everybody else, and I'm I'm okay talking about that. I don't feel like I have to model this, you know, impossible.
74		What's the word? Pinnacle.
75	Andy	Yeah.
76	Louisa	I didn't have to model not having any time on my phone or on my computer like that, that's unrealistic and we wouldn't necessarily be good role models if that was what we were trying to say to young people.
77	Andy	Just just bear in mind that you're not going to come across as cool. If you do say you've been on TikTok to young people these days. Lockdown has ruined young people. Obviously, they refer to anyone over the age of 20 as a boomer anyway, but it's full of boomers now.
78	Louisa	Oh yeah.
79	Andy	Yeah. The the idea that oh no, we're adults, therefore we have no online life. Therefore, because we think it's all ridiculous rubbish. Definitely not, you know? Professionals of all different sectors that I work with will all bring their own personal experiences of online life to professional judgments, which is, you know, one of the challenges we face
80		. I do it like this. Therefore, everyone should do it like this as well. This is a rich, varied world and you know, we can learn from each other. And I guess one of the other things we talked about in passing is is the fact that we hear this word addiction, a great deal within the within the professional
81		space as well. And that can be quite problematic as well, I think.
82	Louisa	So is is Tick-Tock addictive? Is gaming addictive?
83	Andy	It's well, it's.
84		It's a really interesting one. Obviously, we now have internet addiction and gaming addiction within DSM5, which is the designated manual for mental health disorders. But that doesn't mean that anyone who does gaming for about an hour or anyone who spends on our online is addicted to it.
85		Just because there is now a mental health definition for it doesn't mean, oh well, that that proves it. I've been saying to the kids in my class, these are all addicted to Instagram, but no, no, you have to have a clinical diagnosis of this sort of thing.
86		You know, it's a bit like people who say that their chocoholics, it's like, you're a chocoholic yes yes I'm addicted to chocolate are you OK? Well, how much chocolate. Oh, you know, one mars bar a day. Or, you know.
87	Louisa	Yeah.
88	Andy	I can remember talking to a young person a few years ago because I was saying, you know, adults can be worried about you being addicted to technology. Does anyone here think you're addicted to technology? And this is a key stage to grab it?
89		Yes, it is. Yes, I am. Really? How don't you spend a day online about an hour? Well, that doesn't sound like a lot. I'm sure there's lots of other people here that spend way more. Why do you think you're addicted?
90		Because my mom told me I was like, Well, there's a projected parental anxiety there from a parent who's read about this sort of thing and decided this is the thing. But on the whole, for the vast majority of people, addiction is not a problem.
91		Yeah, that can be compulsive behavior. They can be people sort of staying up late, you know? I've spent a lot of time recently looking at legal cases around vulnerable adults and questions around capacity. And you're seeing quotes from a court hearing where one of the reasons why the care team is proposing withdrawing access to being online is
92		because they're up to four in the morning online. You go, OK, but do they have a job? No Do they have anything to get up for in the morning? No. Why wouldn't you if you're not tired? If you're getting up at two in the afternoon, maybe that's just your circadian rhythm has shifted.
93		That's not an excuse to demonstrate that they are addicted to technology. They're using digital technology because it's quite entertaining. And I think, you know. There was a survey done by a charity a while ago saying that kids who are addicted to social media are twice as likely to be groomed and being the tenacious so-and-so I am, I
94		did a lot of digging on that and discovered it was based upon a survey where the question was, Do you think you're addicted to social media? Now I've not met that many 13 year old who a clinical psychologist who can diagnose that
95		Can we be a little bit more careful with the language we use because it does bring a connotation and it does bring an anxiety that perhaps isn't justified?
96	Louisa	I yeah, and I think that's really important because when we talk about addiction, it's it's one of those clinical psychological conditions that people very often will talk about very light heartedly, quite flippantly in the same way as when someone tidies up they'll be like, Oh, I'm really OCD, and it's like, No, you're not OCD, you're you're just
97		being particular. And I think, you know, people can say, Oh, I'm addicted to my phone because when they have a moment of downtime that everything state, the first thing they reach for is their phone or when they get to the bus stop or wherever it might be, when we have those moments when nothing's going on.
98		We want our phones. And if you forget your phone, you can feel really disorientated because you don't have that thing to reach for. But that's not the same as, you know, stealing money from your loved ones in order to fund your heroin addiction, which, you know, that's a very different series of behaviors, which would be a lot
99		more concerned about if we were in a young person than just that. Between lessons they like to check their phone or, yeah, they they like, they like to play on games. And if they didn't have any rules, they would probably just play on games all night.
100	Andy	Yeah.
101		Absolutely. Which is why rules are important, why boundaries are important. But it's a term that is incredibly problematic because it sets off alarm bells. There's another really famous survey where I think the news headline was 'loot crates and games are causing gambling addiction'.
102	Andy	And this seems quite serious. We have to look at this. And then it turns out that it was a survey of young people where the question was, do you think loot crates might create gambling addiction? Yes,/No
103		So you could talk about compulsive behavior into behavior if someone is coming into school really, really tight every day and they've been up till five in the morning playing video games. That is an issue.
104		Probably other issues in the home is what is the fact that they're playing video games til five in the morning and the conversation needs to be had, but that doesn't mean they are addicted. Probably means there's no boundaries at home and they're allowed to stay up til 5 in the morning playing video games..
105	Louisa	Yeah. And I think in the online resilience tool, one of the behaviors that we've got in the youngest age group is this idea of device dependance, meaning that when the device is taken away from a child, you know, up to sort of four or five years old that they have a very emotional or aggressive response beyond what
106		is normal for them. And I think that 'beyond what is normal' is really important. If you're not offering a child anything else to do, but you're taking away the one thing they're interested in you, you know, perhaps you shouldn't be too surprised if they then have a meltdown, whereas if you say, Hey, we're going to go and
107		do something really fun and exciting, do you want to come? And they're like, No, I'd rather stay at home doing this thing in the dark on my own that that's going to be more of a concern than just going going to be like, turn this off and come and sit with me and.
108	Andy	Read the paper.
109	Louisa	read the paper. Yeah.
110	Andy	And also, you know, whether it's kind of like there's a difference between ten more minutes on the gaming and then we're going to have to go to marching into the room, switching off the console and going, you've been on that too much because they could be just about to finish a level that they spent the entire day
111		trying to complete and you just cook for them. So yeah, so you know that there are ways of doing it where there is, you know, a duration set and a warning that it's going to happen rather than just going right now, I'm the adult.
112		I'm switching these off now because in the middle of something that while we might, might not view it as important they're viewing it as really important because then they get all the major kudos at school the next day because they're on a different level to everybody else.
113	Louisa	Yeah.
114		Absolutely. And I think that kind of in the like, thinking about talking to young people, about technology or about the online world, generally, a good rule of thumb is that. Lay down the law without expectation, sorry, without explanations like you tell them, I'm I'm going to set a new rule that we all put our devices away 9:30
115		10:00 or 7:00, whatever it might be, because we shouldn't be looking at devices just before we go to sleep, because it's bad for our eyes and it's bad for our brains. That's a really good way of explaining that.
116		And if you've got an older child, then you might also want to explain how the blue light affects your brain and how it messes with your circadian rhythm. And tells your brain It's time to wake up, whereas with a younger child, you might not go into that level of detail.
117		But giving that explanation, it doesn't mean that it's a weak rule. It just means you've been really clear about why you're doing it. And have you just come in and say, right, no more gaming after 7:00. That's that's going to feel very unfair and out of the blue, particularly if it's a new rule.
118	Andy	Why? Because I said so, yeah.
119	Louisa	Yeah.
120	Andy	That wonderful adult response to me.
121	Louisa	Yeah.
122	Andy	Yeah. Which I think brings us very neatly back to where we started, which is, you know, sitting down and having conversations and listening. Rather than deciding that we know best, even though we probably know less than they do about the things that they're doing at the moment.
123	Louisa	Absolutely. And I think my kind of my kind of key messages would be, don't only talk about it when there's something you want to say because that's going to really come across as I'm not going to listen to you talking about what you're interested in, but you have to listen when I want to tell you something and
124		kind of linked to that, If you ask out of the blue what they what they're spending all of their time online doing with no kind of build up and no sort of sharing of your own concerns or thoughts or experiences, then that's going to feel like you're setting them up to tell them off for spending too much
125		time online. So I think, yeah, taking a sort of more slow approach to regularly just chatting about it, and you might need to start that way of sharing your own experiences. And you know, if you're if you're friends with your child on Facebook talking about, well, I see Auntie So-and-so wished you happy birthday.
126		Did you get many birthday messages like that's quite a nice, open-ended way of like starting making it a regular part of your your conversation?
127	Andy	I think that, you know, that equally ties into RSE and all those sorts of things. Well, the first time you talked to a young person about sex is probably not when, right? Let's go down the shops. We need to buy you some condoms.
128	Louisa	Yeah.
129	Andy	I did hear of one on truly appalling example once where a young man was sat at the dinner table with his sister, his mom and dad. His dad got out his laptop when your mother had to look at your internet history last night.
130		I'd like to go through this with you, and you can explain to your mother and your sister why you like looking at these women. That's that's the wrong way to go about doing that, and I'd suggest that was possibly abusive.
131	Louisa	Yeah, that doesn't feel like a good way to open up the conversation.
132	Andy	No. No. Appalling. Yeah. Don't don't do it like that. Listen, listen. Show an interest. Those sorts of things.
133	Louisa	Yes, definitely. Excellent. Have we got anything else that we want to add?
134	Andy	I don't think so. I think we've we've covered it quite well, I think.
135	Louisa	Excellent. Well, I would be referring people to this podcast regularly when they say I tried, I tried talking to my own person about this. Hopefully there's some useful ideas in here that you'll be able to use and look out for more podcasts from us
136	Louisa	soon
137	Louisa	That's it for another episode of the Online Resilience podcast. If you liked it, please tell someone you know who might also enjoy it. You can share on Facebook, Twitter, or even just pop a link in an email.