Hey there everyone! Welcome to The Current, a podcast for parents of teens. I'm Cole and I'm excited to bring you another edition of this resource. This podcast is aimed to be a monthly resource for parents, primarily those who are currently parenting students of Generation Z. And on each episode we will take a brief look at current trends and newsworthy topics that have to do with Gen Z and we'll talk about them through a biblical lens. And we are certainly not experts on parenting or Gen Z, but we merely aim for this to be a way that we can walk alongside of you. So I'm glad to be here with you for another episode and glad to be here again with Tim. Tim, how you doing today? I'm doing wonderful Cole. And you were on the current episode one. I was. Now it's the current current episode. Yeah, you're currently on the current episode of the current. Probably should have thought about that title a little more. Well, but I like it. Yeah, it is fun. It means about 80 different things. I love it. Yep, and I hope you're having a good week. Start off to the summer. It's June already, which is wonderful.(...) And it is not even hot yet, which is kind of unusual. So a little bit of a bummer because our pool is definitely open, but it's way too cold to swim. And kids don't care. No, they don't. They'll swim. They do not care. Speaking of kids, speaking of teenagers specifically, we're here to talk a little bit about Gen Z today. I was talking to you a little bit ago and there was a trend, which kind of probably still a trend, but it hit really big in May on TikTok because you're on TikTok, right Tim?(...) Absolutely. Aren't you on TikTok? I hate TikTok. I'm not a huge fan of social media. I use social media primarily for marketplace to sell things that I don't want anymore. If it doesn't make me money, I'm not on it. Which will feed into the conversation later. Conversation here about luxury. So on TikTok there was a trend that really hit big in May called quiet luxury.(...) And really it's nothing that you're gonna see like in Walmart. Like oh, you know, like it's gonna be obvious that your teen is into this trend, but they're probably seeing it if they're on TikTok. And the whole idea of quiet luxury is basically to show off wealth without really trying hard. So it may be like really expensive clothes that look like maybe they came from Goodwill or really expensive, you know, things in your house that don't look designer. And there's this whole idea, this quote that says, "Money talks but wealth whispers." And I think if anything, Tim, man, it really just speaks to our hearts. And it's a really good time for parents to talk to their teenagers about why do you dress the way you do? Why do you choose the clothes you do?(...) You know, for example, I told you I've noticed something about Gen Z the last couple years. It's almost like it's trendy to dress, to try hard and dress like you didn't try hard to get dressed, you know? And that's different. And that's not necessarily bad, but like anything it goes to our hearts. So any thoughts there?(...) Yeah, I think, you know, gosh man.(...) Whether it's like, you know, there's a song, I can't remember this rap song, just talking about wearing all my favorite brands, brands, brands, brands. And so like, you know, you got the Nike swoosh or the Adidas, you know, thing or stuff like that. Yeah, it's like the pendulum has shifted a little bit. But all in all, I think,(...) man, it doesn't like,(...) you do have to check your heart. Like why am I doing the things that I do? And it's not just with dressing, but it's with everything. Like, you know, am I doing like, man, I picked out this flannel shirt today because I like flannel. I like to wear a lot and it's summertime. And you like to inspire Dave Grohl. And I like to inspire Dave Grohl.(...) I make all my clothing choices based on him. And so there's an idol in my heart. Yeah, there you go. Hey, it's what we do on this podcast.(...) No, but I think it's primarily about, you know, just asking yourself, why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I want to project something? And that's so much of a problem in our society. And it's displayed on social media. Like we want to project a product. We want to project an image that we can completely control.(...) And like really,(...) to be honest, just like wear clothes because you like them. And like, now obviously, like you can like close too much and it can become an idol. But man, like, are you doing it just so that others you can manipulate what, how others view you? And if so, then I think you have an idol of like, you know, wanting to, you know, seek the praises of men or like, you know, that perfect image in their mind of you is something that you're chasing after. Yeah. And what a good opportunity, especially in these years. Kara and I, have had some of these conversations working with teenagers and college students. But now parents, you know, really beginning to have conversations with your teenagers, it's probably more so with girls than boys, but it can happen with boys too, about why do you wear what you wear? And does it glorify the Lord? How can we glorify the Lord in what we wear? How can we help others in what we wear?(...) And so what a good opportunity with that. Yeah. And here's the thing, like two outfits can look completely the same,(...) but one can glorify the Lord and one can't just because of your heart attitude towards it. Right. And so, and I think too, like just practically, like, if you're working with a teenager that maybe has a job for the first time, you're teaching them how to like manage money for the first time as you're raising your teenager, like, what a cool opportunity to be like, Hey, like, can you look trendy and not spend a lot of money? Go, you know, like, and that's kind of neat, you know, there is goodwill, there's different ways to do that. And so you can kind of make even some fun opportunities, learning, learning opportunities, and maybe even learn some things about your teenager as well through that. So for sure. But in May, this past month as well, not only was TikTok had that trend we just talked about, but May was, I told you earlier, I believe it was a bad month for social media. And what do I mean by that? So in May, we had two statements that were kind of directed one directly and one indirectly, but both geared towards social media from the US Surgeon General. Really, one was in late April. And that one said from the US Surgeon General that he declared loneliness to be a public health issue. So that was really interesting. And then also in late May, he came back, the Surgeon General of the US and he issued a warning on the dangers of social media for teenagers.(...) And then also in the month of May, adding on to all that, the American Psychological Association issued an advisory when it comes to teens social media use. So Tim, I was telling you earlier, man, it seemed like really 2017, 18, a lot of the data on social media use, specifically when it comes to teenagers,(...) females, things like that as well, really started coming out all the data started coming out. But it was mainly from like private organizations, people who had maybe even worked in the tech world, guys like Tristan Harris,(...) and people like that. And Cal Newport is another great resource in that area. But it seems like just now in the last two years, the government is finally getting involved in saying, Hey, this is really bad. And so now it's just not like these guys who used to be in Silicon Valley. But now that it's the US government doesn't necessarily mean we should listen more just because it's them. But now they're on the bandwagon saying, Hey, this is detrimental for broad reasons. So what do you make of that news that came out in May? Yeah, I mean, I think social media used in excess is not really good for us. You know, there's a book Wendell Berry wrote, called Jayber Crowe, you've read it. It's good. It's a good book. There's a line in it when he talks about, you know, it takes place in the early 1900s and goes on into the 80s. But there's a section in it ways talking about, you know, the development of the interstate system in the United States. And he says what the interstate did was it made far away things close and made close things far away.(...) In the sense that, you know, now you had two farms where you could just walk across the street to your neighbor, but now you've got to go down and like get on this exit ramp and then go back and like, you know, it just, it makes it far away. But it also makes like, you know, things that were once super far away super close because travel is easier with the interstate. And I think social media has kind of done that too. It's made far away things close,(...) meaning that we can have relationships,(...) quote, unquote, relationships or like communication with people across the world. And it's a great resource and tool for missionaries and, you know, grandparents and grandkids who don't live close or, you know, friends to keep up, you know, after college or high school.(...) But at the same time, I think it's made some close things far away, like relationships. And so I think it has a tendency to encourage isolation from actual relationships that are in front of you and around you and instead make you focus more on relationships that really you may never see the person a day in your life.(...) So that's what,(...) that's what I would say is that I don't find that surprising.(...) I think that a lot of people have been seeing, you know, those things that the government reports have put out for a while. And I'm, I'm thankful that they're finally coming out and saying it. But I think, yeah, like social media, it can definitely be a breeding place for loneliness because of those things. It causes us to not focus as much on the here and the now, but rather the far away and those who really don't have a natural place in our everyday life. And what's wild about social media is each generation handles it differently.

In that, you know, your 70 year old, you know, boomer, aunt, is probably gonna be on it a lot and try to embarrass you on Facebook, things like that. And then maybe your Gen X or millennials are gonna be sharing tons of stuff about their kids. And then you have Gen Z that handles it completely differently because they've grown up knowing it. They haven't grown up not knowing it. And the whole idea of a computer or a smartphone or whatever, they've always known these things, especially when you get 16, 17, 18 years old, right?(...) And so what's wild is they're gonna approach it very differently. And so I,(...) you know,(...) showing my cards here, when I taught the social media class for our Equip time back in January, I showed my cards, I tried to hold them till week three, but I said, you know, I'm not a big fan of social media, you know, personally, but it doesn't mean that it's all bad. And so it's one of those second tier, third tier, way down things. It's not a first tier Biblical issue. However, I would like to take this time and just encourage parents in light of this news that came out in May, in light of us talking about it right now, if you have a teenager that has a smartphone and is on social media in any form or fashion and you've never had a conversation with them about it and like you found yourself and this is not uncommon and I don't parent a teenager. I do work with teenagers and so I see this. It's not uncommon for maybe a parent to look up after a couple years and like, whoa, they're in this full bore. They're all over social media and we've never had a conversation about it. I just let them get an account and that doesn't mean that they're doing bad things on it. Yeah. But if you've never had a conversation with your child about how do we regulate this? How does it affect you? How do we handle social media and smartphone use in our family? I'd encourage you just to start. You don't have to change the tides in 24 hours, but just start little conversations. Yeah. So I know I think that's a good point because sometimes like we can view, okay, a major change needs to happen and we just get kind of crippled because like we don't know where to start. But you know that first conversation is gonna be a huge step and then it makes it easier to have the next conversation and easier to have the next conversation. So yeah, I think it's something that we definitely just have to have conversations with our teenagers about because like you said, they grew up in a world where social media always existed and so like we can try to shun them, but I'm not sure that that's the right option because one day they're gonna be independent of us and have their own life and so then you know but I think instead what we need to do is have conversations with them and say, hey, how do you steward this responsibility well? Yeah, and that's like anything I appreciate you said like, hey, we can often cripple us if we think, oh, this is a problem because I think you know there may be a parent out there that's thinking this right now like, oh, man, my child is on their phone all the time and they don't know what to do and their loss is like, hey, just start, you know, my wife when I was in seminary she would ask me all the time because I was trying to quit like every day and she would say, how do you eat an elephant? I'd say one bite at a time and it got to the point where she would ask me that, how do you eat an elephant? I'd get mad, you know, it's like one bite at a time. I think this is like so many things in life, but this is one of those things. Sure. As we look at the last thing we're gonna look at today,(...) something that has really been going on for a long time but I thought was worthy on talking about today is an article I read this week from Newsweek really just prompted in my mind or remind me that Gen Z is rethinking work or thinking about going about work in a way that no other generation in our country has done before.(...) And we were talking earlier today in our prep time about the in the last year or two there have been trends on TikTok and other social media about quiet quitting from Gen Z and really that's a whole, whole quiet quitting movement is if I don't like my job I'm just gonna do the bare minimum, you know. I'm not gonna do any more than I'm asked and you know I showed an article or blog that I read last month I was telling you about where it's different with Millennials looking at jobs 10 years ago where we would have said hey we will we want to work for this company yeah name the brand name whatever we want to work for this company even if it means that we don't get to make a whole lot of money at first we want to do it and Gen Z is looking at that differently and they're saying hey we don't really care where we work we just want to make a good bit of money and we want to have very little responsibility outside of the workforce. And so another thing with that too that I read this week was that a lot of Gen Zers are saying rethinking do we have to work an eight-hour day? Can we work a six-hour day? Do we have to work a normal 40 hour week? So I say all those things that that's not necessarily a bad thing yeah it's not Biblical to work a 40 hour a week. Like you pointed out earlier I thought was funny you're like if that's the case then a lot of retired people are sinning so it's not it's not Biblical that you have to work a 40 hour week but I think it was interesting for us to realize that this generation that is starting to enter the workforce in the last couple of years is gonna be thinking about work way differently than their parents did. Yeah. Way differently than maybe some of their older siblings did or cousins or whoever and so parents should start realizing that and having those conversations. So yeah I think it's more about like parents having a conversation with their teenagers and saying hey like let's talk about what it means to have responsibility. Yeah. And I mean that's part of what we do as parents is you know from the time that they're born until the time that they leave our house we gradually introduce them to more responsibility you know and it moves from like you know feed yourself like you know hey here's like a fork and spoon you can do this I don't have to do this for you anymore to hey you know share your toys or hey you know cut the lawn or hey you know drive your brother to this place or that place to hey you're gonna have to start paying for your own cell phone you're gonna have to start paying for you know all this other stuff so we gradually increase responsibility and so I don't think it's a issue to not desire to work a job 40 hours a week but what I think is an issue is is that a heart symptom of just wanting to shirk responsibility because if you're wanting to say man I want to you know only have a 10-hour work week because I want to spend as much time as I can you know out serving other people or out you know doing you know eternal things because yeah there's some friends I have across the the states who you know they've made some very wise choices and got in on some things early and now they don't really have to worry about money instead they spend most of their time doing stuff like serving their church or you know serving at soup kitchens or doing other things like just serving other people but if you're just saying I really want to limit as much responsibility as I can on my life well that's an issue and so that's why I think it's more of a conversation with our teenagers about hey what does it mean to be responsible what does it mean to have things like you know it's not bad for people to depend on you yeah in fact if you hope to have a family of your own one day then that's a very big part of it right just a little bit right yeah just a little bit yeah and it's and it can glorify the Lord to work hard yeah God made work you did it's not bad like people I think sometimes think work is a result of the fall is definitely not like it's like kind of messed up and we toil and for the thistles on the ground yeah because of the fall but it existed before yeah it did responsibility and like cultivating and like putting our hands to things and creating like all that existed before the fall but you know we have a tendency to just think that well when we get to heaven we'll just be able to lay around all day and like number one that sounds kind of boring yeah but number two I don't think is biblical yeah and not to set off not to be an alarmist that's the last thing we want this resource to be trust me but you know I remember you know I'm a millennial and I remember people saying all millennials you know don't want to work or they're not gonna work hard I think we're turning out okay there's some of those for sure I think we're turning out okay I think 50% of the people in this room we're turning out okay yeah that's right and there's only yeah well we can decide we'll let the listeners decide yeah but at the same time like you you've got you know maybe you’re a 45 year old that works 60 hours a week and neglects their family because they idolize their job and sometimes you got to do what you got to do I get you got to do what you got to do but it can go the other way too you know yeah yeah you can like work but you can love it and you can idolize it and so it like you said it all comes down to a heart check like pretty much everything we've talked about today so for sure well I appreciate your time man and thanks for everyone listening if you have any questions that you would like for us to discuss on future episodes of The Current please email those to me at cole@northsidebc.org and The Current is a resource of North Side Baptist Church and can be found on Apple or Spotify by searching North Side resources and you can also find us on the North Side Facebook northsidebc.org or the North Side app so thanks for listening everyone have a great day