Oct 24, 20233 min read

Teens that want to be tracked | Raised #12

Updated: Nov 8, 2023

9-year-old aspiring beauty influencers, Halloween science experiment to create gas, Compulsory education age in Finland

Welcome to Raised. The weekly update with 5 things to better understand our rapidly transforming digital world and help raise thriving children.

This week

🛜 Online: Teens that want to be tracked

⚡️Social: 9-year-old aspiring beauty influencers

🦉Learning: Halloween science experiment to create gas

🔍 Research: Raising of the compulsory education age in Finland

📚Education: Generative AI in education

If you have feedback, questions or topics you’d like me to address in a future issue, do get in touch at raised[at]edaith.com

Tina

1/ 🛜 Online

Teens that want to be tracked

Gen Z – representing those aged 11 to 26 - has grown up with location sharing technology and seem to see the benefits.

“Every generation experiences its set of traumas, but social media and real-time news—with vivid images about the pandemic, war and other disasters—have heightened these anxieties among young people. And lots of them are closer to their parents than previous generations have been.” Julie Jargon (WSJ)

The story currently circulating is by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) based on a survey published in August by the location sharing App Life360, which has 50million + users.

The survey had only 1200 participants, but it’s indicative of the broader mainstreaming of family location sharing. From the Life360 survey main ways location sharing is utilised by teens:

“Eighty-seven percent of Gen Z respondents said they use the technology for long-distance driving, 80% when visiting new or dangerous places, 77% when going to an event, concert, or festival, and 78% when they are going to party or on a date. Unsurprisingly, 72% of Gen Z women believe their physical well-being benefits from location sharing.”

🔗 Teens Want Parents to Track Their Phones and Monitor Their Every Move (Wall Street Journal)

🔗 For Gen Z, (Location) Sharing Is Caring (Life360)

2/ ⚡️Social

9-year-old aspiring beauty influencers

This bothers me on many levels. 9-year-olds are making content about beauty products and getting ready routines on TikTok. I’ll just rant a little for this one:

TikTok sign up age is 13+, which depending on the child’s capacity for critical thinking, maturity and self-restraint is probably still too young to even be on the app, let alone posting content.
This trend shows the young age girls are already conditioned to strive for impossible standards of beauty and to fear the ageing process (this isn’t new, I remember those thoughts creeping in from childhood). But worse by posting content on how to ‘solve’ these ‘problems’ girls are strengthening the apparent importance of these ideas at scale amongst their peers.
Part of the problem here is that there are so many adult women on these platforms building huge audiences with beauty content and potential role models posting content that could cultivate other interests aren’t seen.

What we can do: Besides modelling how we’d like children to deal with these challenges, let’s show support (like, comment, share, bring up in conversations) for people who are doing things that we’d like to see our daughters doing!

🔗 Get Ready With Me, 9-Year-Old Edition — Aspiring beauty influencers are getting younger (Glossy)

3/ 🦉 Learning

Halloween science experiment to create gas

Cute experiment demonstrating a chemical reaction that makes carbon dioxide. Just needs and empty bottle, white vinegar, a balloon and baking soda.

🔗 Halloween fun for your science class (Microsoft)

4/ 🔍 Research

Raising of the compulsory education age in Finland

In 2021 Finland raised the school leaving age to 18, aiming to ensure the population has the skills and education necessary for everyone in life and society.

This qualitative study explored student perceptions of the change amongst one of the first cohorts that experienced this extension. The findings highlight the need for quality study guidance to inform post-school pathways and to prioritise wellbeing for young people to help them navigate their learning journeys.

🔗 What do young people think about the extension of compulsory education? (Educational Research Journal)

5/ 📚Education