What will it be like for teenagers of the future?
Psychologist and author Dr Katherine Canobi explores how teenagers respond to technology at a time when social media can help them disguise, or even escape from, reality
CHRIS HATZIS
Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It’s where expert types obsess, confess and profess. I’m Chris Hatzis, let’s eavesdrop on experts changing the world - one lecture, one experiment, one interview at a time.
As any parent of a teen will tell you, those teenage years are crucial for shaping identity and forming authentic interpersonal connections. And today’s teens have to negotiate these challenges in the context of a digital and social media world that their parents could never have imagined when they were teens. As our online experiences get more complicated and our online personas assume greater importance in our lives, it sometimes makes us wonder, “What will it be like to be a teenager in the future?”
Dr Katherine Canobi is a cognitive developmental psychologist and an Honorary at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne. Katherine is also a writer of fiction for young adults and children, and her debut novel, “Mindcull”, was recently released by Ford Street Publishing. She wrote the book to explore how teens can work out who they are and develop authentic relationships in a context in which technology can be used to disguise, and escape from, reality. She sat down and spoke with our reporter Dr Andi Horvath.
ANDI HORVATH
Katherine, if I met you at a barbecue, what do you say that you do?
KATHERINE CANOBI
My background is in cognitive developmental psychology. So I'm interested in exploring how people learn from different types of experiences, so the way in which their knowledge and understanding changes.
ANDI HORVATH
So you actually study learning…
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right.
ANDI HORVATH
…and how our brains change. Tell me about the teenage brain.
KATHERINE CANOBI
The teenage brain is very interesting because it's a time when people are starting to work out who they are and wanting to form meaningful and authentic relationships and their brains are still developing in various ways though so for example executive function isn't fully developed yet and impulse control.
ANDI HORVATH
Right, so that's decision making and risk-taking behaviours?
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right and there's lots of vulnerabilities that teenagers have that perhaps are less so for adults who've developed further. So I'm really interested in how teenagers respond to technology in their lives.
ANDI HORVATH
Now you're also author of a book called “Mindcull”. So you've merged your love of cognitive psychology with concerns about teenagers. What inspired you to write this novel?
KATHERINE CANOBI
I've always loved reading for a start to go right back and always been drawn into the magic of books and stories. Within my field, I've discovered that when people read, they really do enter a fictional world in quite profound ways. So when we read - and this is research from brain scans, from experimental studies - when we read and we're kind of drawn into the story, we're vicariously experiencing the actions of the characters, we learn about empathy and interpersonal sensitivity. We're drawn into that story in ways that change us and make us think and actually cause us to respond in new ways to people in our lives.
ANDI HORVATH
So not only do we have empathy for the characters, but we identify with them and we also kind of rehearse in our brain what would we do?
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right, so for example when you read in a story about a character kicking, the parts of your brain associated with the action of kicking with light up and there's some really lovely work on the Harry Potter story and people entering into Harry learning how to fly for the first time as though themselves are learning how to fly. So that's a really wonderful way to engage with teenagers.
ANDI HORVATH
So storytelling is the oldest form of communication and it's the oldest form of learning, I guess?
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right. We've been teaching through stories for a very, very long time and I think that it's important if we want to engage teenagers in a particular issue and really develop the discussion, to think of a range of ways of getting them involved and to enter imaginatively into a future story is one way.
ANDI HORVATH
Tell me about your novel “Mindcull”.
KATHERINE CANOBI
So “Mindcull” is set in a future world. It's not too far into the future so it's - I'm imagining it to be maybe 20 or 30 years into the future so it's not too distant from where we are now, but it is different. In this world people rely on virtual reality headsets, the same way we rely on smartphones. So they use them all the time and if they are having a conversation with someone, want to call them, that person can appear to them in the room as a hologram and it will be as though the person was present with them. They will see them through their lenses of their headset and hear them through their earbuds as though they were present in the room.
I have a scene where my character's walking down the street and she's not enjoying the view so she just switches places and she can - it's as though she's experiencing a different street even though she's actually in the same place. She is a person who posts public virtual reality clips as a lot of teenagers in this world do and her clips are so successful that she is shortlisted for an international competition by a global tech giant. This involves her travelling to a mansion in England to try out a new virtual technology skin suit. So of course, being a thriller the plot thickens and law enforcement officers coerce her into spying for them…
ANDI HORVATH
No spoiler alerts though Katherine.
KATHERINE CANOBI
No, just at the beginning and underground activists reveal a murderous plot. So she's surrounded by lies and deceptions and she's trying to work out what the truth is, who she can trust and how far she's willing to go to protect innocent lives.
ANDI HORVATH
Well, gripping, and I've heard you've had great reviews with this novel. This is a futuristic teenager but you are clearly inspired by today's teenager. Let's talk about the teenager and today's online world.
KATHERINE CANOBI
I was inspired by today's teenager and I think the issues are the same except I've taken them to an extreme and kind of extrapolated them into the future. So my main character is 16 and her name is Isla and Isla's problem is or one of her problems is she's not really sure if people are who they appear to be. People communicating with her and she doesn't really know exactly who they really are and she herself is an interesting case because she presents one version of herself in the virtual world which she feels is quite different from the real her.
So her virtual reality clips come across as though she's spontaneous and fun loving and relaxed and in fact they're very carefully rehearsed and produced and put together. So when people love her clips, on the one hand that gives her some warmth and makes her feel good and on the other hand she feels like they haven't really connected with the real her at all.
ANDI HORVATH
Right. So she's kind of feeling like that's only one side of me - it's a constructed side of me.
KATHERINE CANOBI
Constructed, exactly.
ANDI HORVATH
It's an identity that I've constructed but she also feels like a fraud because it's not authentic her.
KATHERINE CANOBI
I think that we all do this, I mean if you think about how it's not just teenagers, how all of us use perhaps social media, we will present a version of ourselves that we would like the world to see. You know we would present pictures of things we would like people to celebrate with us and the darker side of ourselves, the more vulnerable side of ourselves we keep private and we keep safe. What that means is that when people interact with us via social media, there is a level at which they don't connect with us and there's a level in which it can be quite a lonely experience for us. From the other side, you are seeing the best of me. You're seeing all the things about me that I'm sort of aspiring to and all the happy moments and that actually doesn't leave you feeling great about yourself always. You may…
ANDI HORVATH
No I feel depressed.
KATHERINE CANOBI
You feel depressed. You get on Facebook and you see all these happy families and happy people and you think oh gee…
ANDI HORVATH
I'm a loser [laughs].
KATHERINE CANOBI
…my family's not like that.
ANDI HORVATH
No [laughs].
KATHERINE CANOBI
[Laughs] I'm not like that, look at all their achievements. Yeah, and you do, you think I'm a loser and that is exactly the reaction that a large proportion of researchers are arguing that that is the reaction that a lot of teenagers feel from social media so there are associations between social media use and symptoms of depression and anxiety.
ANDI HORVATH
It's also addictive. You'd think that something that caused you to feel kind of less than fabulous wouldn't be so addictive and we know now today there's a lot of - there's a gaming disease identified by the World Health Organisation as well - the addiction of social media and gaming.
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right. So recently the World Health Organisation has introduced a gaming disorder into its international classification of diseases and the idea of this is that this is a use of gaming where it takes over in the sense that other aspects of your life are not functioning as well because of the gaming. So other things are suffering because you can't seem to control how much you are gaming. You can't seem to stop your gaming. You let other things in your life go and other relationships and opportunities go.
ANDI HORVATH
What's going on there? Is it - I mean it's different to social media where you're constructing an identity that you'd like to be seen as - gaming kind of gives you instant gratification and challenge and that sort of thing, so explain to us more from what cognitive science tell us?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Well it actually - on one level the explanation could be that peoples' behaviour in both of those gaming and social media is being reinforced in various ways. So when you're gaming, you're gaming for a certain period of time and you get rewards along the way and that makes you feel good. That lights up the pleasure centres in your brain and so you want to keep going.
When these rewards are scheduled in such a way that a person keeps going for a while and then they'll get a reward and then maybe they'll get another one. It makes you continue and it's actually not that dissimilar with likes and things like that and social media where you get the reinforcement of someone said something really nice about me, you know I've got all these love hearts appearing on my screen and that made me feel really good. Then the next time you use it that doesn't all happen but if you keep going you might get that reinforcement again.
What we're talking about here is persuasive design because the designers of the game are actually constructing the online environment in such a way that users are drawn in in the first place and then are kept there. They want to keep going there. They're using behavioural techniques to help to encourage people to stay in the same or in the social media. So they're trying to increase the time. So it's not a neutral environment in that way, it's an environment that's constructed to actually draw you in and keep you in by experts in the field.
ANDI HORVATH
Persuasive design it's been used in advertising but now it's pervasive in front of you, in your face with social media and I guess gaming. The underlying thing of persuasive design, is it trying to extract money from you?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Well I guess if you've constructed a game or a social media platform, what you - the end result you want is lots of people using your game or your platform. I mean that's where the profit is, isn't it, if your game is really popular. You want them to use it for a long time. You don't want them to find it easy to switch off and so - I have teenagers of my own, and when my son is playing Fortnite and he can't switch off, I try to remember that it's a fairly uneven competition or battle in some ways because he is a 16 year old boy who's up against experts in technology and behavioural techniques who have constructed this environment to make it hard to switch off.
ANDI HORVATH
And he has a teenage brain.
KATHERINE CANOBI
And he has a teenage brain so that makes it even more difficult. I mean it's hard enough, many adults have this response as well but teenagers are particularly vulnerable for the reasons we talked about before.
ANDI HORVATH
This addictive effect has had negative consequences, is there any pluses to the social media world that science has identified?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Yes, there's lots of pluses and in fact perhaps I've been presenting the research in a less than balanced way because I should say that there is a lot of controversy over these issues. So it's - the field is very disparate and there's lots of people measuring outcomes and the independent variables in different ways. So they're looking at how do we understand gaming or social media use or screen time, how do we measure that? Then also, how do we measure various outcomes like wellbeing or anxiety and depression? Everyone has different cut-offs and different ways of measuring these things and therefore there's a range of studies with different outcomes.
It's probably fair to say that there are links between extensive screen use and symptoms of depression and anxiety but not every study has found that and some studies have found positive results for social media for a sense of connection with people and things like that. I think that we need to have some more fine-tuned research which is looking at kinds of use of these either games or social media and more fine tuned outcomes but that's a very difficult thing because the researchers are struggling to keep up with the changes in technology. You know so now the studies that are coming out about Facebook, that's very interesting but most teenagers don't use Facebook anymore. So it's very hard for the researchers to actually not be responsive to the changes in technology but to actually be getting ahead of the curve and thinking about the effects into the future.
ANDI HORVATH
Sure. I've encountered apps myself which are about positive psychology and wellbeing and healthy eating that have made me laugh that I enjoy connecting with each day that have had a positive effect. So I guess there is of course a range of things that to teenagers as well that perhaps reduce social isolation. Let's talk about social isolation. Social isolation is seen as one of the biggest mental health crises that we're going to be facing. Whilst social media connects us, it doesn't really.
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's a really interesting issue. I think that's one thing I've really tried to explore in my book because you are certainly able to connect with people that you wouldn't be able to connect with. So for people with particular types of for example disorders or difficulties, for them being able to connect with similar people around the world is a lifeline. So we wouldn't want to you know be saying that technology is a bad thing. I think that I want to be saying let's look at how we use technology. In particular, let's think about the vulnerabilities of young people and think about how we can use it well and be discussing this and finding ways to reflect on this. So technology is with us and it does many, many wonderful things but we also need to be aware and on top of the risks.
ANDI HORVATH
That awareness is really important. I mean it's physically changing our brains I believe as well. Are teenagers involved in the discussions and debates about where some social media is actually pure exploitation extracting you from dollars and that sort of stuff? Is that discussion going on in the teenage community?
KATHERINE CANOBI
I think so. I think that they're pretty savvy in lots of ways and that schools are doing their best and parents are doing their best but it is a very quickly changing area and very difficult to keep up with all of the permutations and combinations and all of the trends and possibilities and so as you know, the gap between what appears to be real and what is real which comes to you via the internet via social media, is a dangerous place.
So it can be a place where bullying occurs, where grooming occurs, where all sorts of problems happen and that teenagers are particularly vulnerable to but it's important to consider this space between what is real and what we are perceiving through the internet and through social media and through our online environments and actually be aware of that and teach our teenagers to be aware of that.
ANDI HORVATH
In some ways you've made me think that even real life is just a perception [laughs] let alone a virtual reality goggle thing.
KATHERINE CANOBI
Well that's right actually. I mean we - you and I may look at the same object and perceive it differently because of our beliefs and our context and our background. However, I think we also do understand that there is a real objective object there that we are both perceiving differently. With perception kind of becoming enmeshed into technology, the way it is in our world and also in my future world in the book, I think that then we become even more suspicious of what we're seeing and hearing and whether that is real or not real.
ANDI HORVATH
Is that the moral of the story?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Yeah, what is real is a key question.
ANDI HORVATH
You've been a cognitive psychologist and an author, what has surprised you in this journey?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Well one thing that's really interesting is since I've written the book, I've been going in and visiting students in schools and talking about the issues raised in the book. Although I know that the book is a thriller called “Mindcull” so that may raise some alarm bells with the students in terms of what this future world is going to be like, when they haven't read it, I talk about the world in a very positive way and say, what do you think it would be like if you could just see and hear different things and you could transmit what you're seeing and hearing to your friends and you could talk to them via a hologram and I sort of go into what the world is like. Then I say, who thinks that that would be a good world to be in? Would you rather be in that world and they all say no [laughs]. They all say…
ANDI HORVATH
Do they?
KATHERINE CANOBI
They're all suspicious and they all say, no, we don't want to be in that world. I would really love to do some actual empirical research on that now and probe what's the basis for their suspicion. Why is this an unease about where technology is going or where we are now with technology? So yeah, that's really interesting.
ANDI HORVATH
Dr Katherine Canobi, next time we're on our phones and we realise we've been there for a little bit too long, what would you like us to think about?
KATHERINE CANOBI
Well, I would like you to think about the things we have been discussing about persuasive design I guess, that that app is designed to actually pull you in and get you interested. I would like you to think about how you can extrapolate from that experience to discuss these issues with - in society and with young people in particular. Being a writer of fiction, I think that it would be great if we could use stories and ideas to kind of bounce around these issues and talk them through.
ANDI HORVATH
There's also evidence that storytelling is healthy for you. It's healthy in the way you make social connections as well.
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right. I mean there's some lovely elegant studies where people have read like they're actually kind of quasi-experimental controlled studies where people have been randomly assigned to groups and one group has read a particular text and then like a week later they've had an opportunity to perform an empathetic act and the people that have read the text that is promoting kindness and empathy actually are more likely to do that kind act. So I love that sort of research, I think that's really interesting.
ANDI HORVATH
I've always found the truth stranger than fiction but that's a type of storytelling as well in the sense that these stories are like or close to what really happened.
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right and it's really interesting you say that because in my own personal journey as an academic who's then written fiction, I've seen a lot of parallels between thinking about a really important idea, going out and collecting data, analysing it and then constructing a narrative around that data telling a story about what the results mean and it's still something that's really important to you that you're telling a story about. With science you're constrained by the actual figures and the actual data and with fiction you have this wonderful freedom to sail off into possible worlds but it's still telling a story about something that really matters in a way that you hope will affect people.
ANDI HORVATH
We remember stories. We don't necessarily remember facts.
KATHERINE CANOBI
That's right. That's true, yes.
ANDI HORVATH
Dr Katherine Canobi, thank you for your story.
KATHERINE CANOBI
Thank you so much for having me.
CHRIS HATZIS
Thank you to Dr Katherine Canobi, author and cognitive developmental psychologist at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne. And thanks to our reporter Dr Andi Horvath. Katherine Canobi’s book “Mindcull” is out now through Ford Street Publishing.
Eavesdrop on Experts - stories of inspiration and insights - was made possible by the University of Melbourne. This episode was recorded on October 8, 2019. You’ll find a full transcript on the Pursuit website. Audio engineering by me, Chris Hatzis. Co-production - Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath. Eavesdrop on Experts is licensed under Creative Commons, Copyright 2019, The University of Melbourne. If you enjoyed this episode, review us on Apple Podcasts and check out the rest of the Eavesdrop episodes in our archive. I’m Chris Hatzis, producer and editor. Join us again next time for another Eavesdrop on Experts.
The teenage brain is very interesting.
According to Dr Katherine Canobi, author and cognitive developmental psychologist at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, it’s a time when young people are starting to work out who they are, as well as looking to form meaningful and authentic relationships.
“During this stage, their brains are still developing in various ways, for example executive function like decision making isn’t fully developed yet and neither is impulse control.”
Combining novel writing and research, Dr Canobi is interested in how teenagers respond to the technology in their lives.
Her novel Mindcull, explores how technology can be used to disguise and escape from reality.
“It’s probably fair to say that there are links between extensive screen use and symptoms of depression and anxiety, but not every study has found that. Some studies have found positive results for social media for a sense of connection with others,” she says.
Dr Canobi says we need to look at how we use technology. In particular, think about the vulnerabilities of young people and how we can use technology well.
“Technology is with us and it does many, many wonderful things but we also need to be aware of the risks.”
Episode recorded: October 8, 2019.
Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.
Producer, editor and audio engineer: Chris Hatzis.
Co-production: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.
Banner: Getty Images
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