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Center for Digital Thriving

The Magic Continues - Introducing Upgrade #4

Published about 1 year ago • 2 min read

Last time, we introduced you to 3 ways you can upgrade your conversations about tech:

  1. Acknowledge that our experiences with tech are multifaceted. Tech can be helpful, harmful, and everything in between…
  2. Use more textured metaphors. Saying that using tech is like using drugs doesn’t consider the social good that tech can offer…
  3. Don’t just ask about tech. Start with the person…

​View our last email for the full text.
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Now introducing the 4th upgrade to your conversations about tech:

Choose empathy over eye-rolling.

When it comes to chatting with teens (or anyone) about tech, one big game-changer is swapping eye rolls for empathy.
🙄 ---> 💓🫶

Instead of brushing off teens' attentiveness to group chats, Snap Maps or TikTok dances, try stepping into their shoes. Remember the thrill of fitting in and the sting of feeling left out? For teens, those emotions are in turbo mode! Their online presence is often integral to their social lives.

When you see the teens in your life using tech in ways that annoy you, and your eyes start rolling upward, pivot toward empathy. Check in and ask them what’s going on. Validation like That sounds like fun, or That must be tough builds connection.

Wait! What about those instances that seem to absolutely deserve the deepest, longest eye roll?
🙄😑🤨

Like when your child doesn’t look up once from their tablet during dinner to talk with you. Or when your student is recording a video in the middle of your lesson. Eye-rolling might feel justified sometimes! But just trust us…there’s power in the pivot from eye rolling to empathy. It opens the door for coaching about tech habits, and it’s a chance to bond over those universal needs for friendship and belonging.

We need empathy as adults, too. 💓🫶

The ways we use technology also help us meet some of our core needs - like connection, stability, safety, entertainment, leisure, and rest. There may be times when you roll our eyes at yourself - like when you spent another night giggling at reels until 2 AM after you told yourself you wouldn’t do it again. Your self-talk around your tech use could possibly use an upgrade as well. When you feel tempted to huff about how much you’ve been on your devices, kindly ask yourself, What’s hard for me right now? How is tech helping or hurting?

With this 4th upgrade - Choose empathy over eye rolling - you can begin having conversations about tech that strengthen rather than strain relationships with teens and yourself. These conversations can help replace shaming and annoyance with more support and understanding.

As you practice plugging the 4 upgrades into your life, let us know how things are going at digitalthriving@gse.harvard.edu. We’d love to hear your stories!

To better conversations about tech,
​Center for Digital Thriving

P.S. We have several big premieres this week! Our team will be debuting at SXSW for the first time. While there, we will launch our first app based on our Tech + Values work. We’ll also be releasing a gorgeous #empathyovereyerolling sticker (for now, its mysterious shadow is below to intrigue you). Follow us on our socials for more updates like these.

The Center for Digital Thriving is a research and innovation center based at Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Our mission is to create knowledge and research-based resources that help people – especially youth – thrive in a tech-filled world.

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