Here is what I’ve learned about my teens’ entertainment and media content—and what might surprise you, too. My teenagers don’t “watch TV” or “go to the movies” the way I did. Their entertainment is a fluid, self-constructed river. They might spend 20 minutes on YouTube watching a video essay about obscure video game lore, then switch to 15 seconds of a chaotic TikTok lip-sync, then pause a Netflix drama to text a friend a meme about the exact scene they just watched.
But here is the compromise we’ve found:
And sometimes, that someone is their dad, holding a blank cassette tape, telling a very old story about the time he had to wait three hours to record one song. They roll their eyes. But they listen. And that’s connection. No algorithm required.
Now, I watch my own teenagers navigate a digital universe that would have melted my 90s brain. It’s loud, fast, infinite, and deeply personal. For a long time, I worried their screens were walls. But lately, I’ve started to see them as windows.
I want them to know that a perfect TikTok dance is not the same as a belly laugh with a friend in your bedroom. A Fortnite victory is not the same as scoring a goal on a real muddy field. A curated Instagram feed is not a life.