Coming of Age in a Digital World with Devorah Heitner

The Preamble

Sharon McMahon

Government, History, Storytelling, Education

4.9 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon sits down with Dr. Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World and Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World. At a time where every minor detail, fleeting thought, and potential misstep can be publicly documented and scrutinized online, how are parents, teenagers, and mentors expected to navigate growing up in the digital age? We all want the “right” answers, and have valid questions such as, when is it ok for a kid to have their own phone? How does one safely help their child navigate texting and social media? And where is the line between allowing someone to make mistakes, learn from them, and move forward, versus having controversial posts haunt them the rest of their lives? Let’s dive in together, with radical empathy, for kids who are growing up in a digital world.

Special thanks to our guest, Devorah Heitner, for joining us today.

Host/Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Devorah Heitner

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you with me today. Oh my gosh, today's conversation
0:09.9	is one that we need to have so badly. I am chatting with Deborah Heitner, who is a new
0:15.6	book out called Growing Up in Public. And this is all about kids in the digital age. Now, don't
0:23.7	worry. This is not going to be an episode where she tells you how terrible you are for letting
0:28.7	your child use social media. And this is also not an episode that is only for parents,
0:34.6	because what children are doing online today impacts all of us. And it's going to continue
0:40.9	impacting all of us for decades to come. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon. And here's where
0:50.4	it gets interesting. I am very excited to be joined by Deborah Heitner today, who has written
0:57.7	a very interesting book about raising kids in the digital age, growing up in public. And even if
1:04.5	you don't have young children, even if you don't have kids that are approaching the age or are
1:09.2	currently have cell phones or access to the internet, this is still a topic that impacts the culture
1:15.2	at large, because what kids are doing online actually matters to the entire country. And we're
1:23.1	going to get into why that is. But I think this is a very, very timely and important conversation
1:28.9	to have. So thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to talk with you. First of all,
1:33.4	can you tell us a little bit more about your background? How you are interested in this topic?
1:38.5	What made you feel like I need to write a book about what it means to grow up online today?
1:44.4	So I was a professor for years of media studies, and I taught 18 to 22 year olds right as social
1:50.2	media was becoming a thing. So I taught the first Myspace generation into when Facebook came out
1:55.9	on campuses. And I was really mentored and taught about social media by my students, which is a
2:03.4	great way to learn because they were the early adopters. They were the supposed digital natives,
2:08.2	although I don't use that term as much anymore. And I really appreciated what I learned from them
2:13.9	about what was fun and awesome about it and what was challenging. And then I used to teach a class
	...

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