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These middle school students have a warning about teens and social media – knkx.org

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The town of Rockwall, Texas, has a few claims to fame: Bonafide Betties Pie Company, where “thick pies save lives”; the mega-sized Lakepointe Church; and Lake Ray Hubbard, which is lovely until the wet, Texas heat makes a shoreline stroll feel like a plod through hot butter.

Now add to that list: Rockwall is home to the middle-school winners of NPR’s fourth-annual Student Podcast Challenge.

Their entry, The Worlds We Create, is a funny and sneakily thoughtful exploration of what it means that so many teens today are “talking digitally,” instead of face-to-face. It was one of two winning entries (the high school winner is here) chosen by our judges from among more than 2,000 student podcasts from around the country.

The team behind the pod

Rockwall hugs the eastern shore of the lake and got its name from a wall-like thread of sandstone that unspools beneath the town. “Every street name sounds the same: Lakeshore, Club Lake, Lakeview, Lakeside, and so on…” says the podcast’s narrator, 8th-grader Harrison McDonald. “If it sounds like our town is boring, that’s because it is. But let’s zoom into the center of one of those neighborhoods, on Williams Middle School.”

That’s where Harrison, fellow 8th-grader Blake Turley and 7th-graders Kit Atteberry and Wesley Helmer made the podcast, as part of librarian Misti Knight’s broadcasting class. Knight began teaching Harrison and Blake last year, when they would make videos for the school’s morning announcements. “But then I realized how good [the boys] were, and so I would say this year, I’m honestly more their manager,” she laughs.

Meaning, often Ms. Knight just gives the boys the roughest of ideas and encourages them to get creative. Which is why, when Harrison came to her with an idea for NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, she said, “Why not?”

Harrison’s interest in the contest surprised no one. He wears chunky headphones around his neck every day, like a uniform, and says he was raised on public radio. “[My family] have a system. On long road trips, we listen to This American Life. On shorter road trips, we listen to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.”

Kit also brought a love of podcasting to the effort: “My dad got me into listening to podcasts, and we would just listen to them in the car and listen to them in the house. You know, he never really got into music. He was mostly into podcasts,” Kit says, especially The Moth.

For their entry, Harrison, Kit and the team wanted to explore how students at Williams Middle School, and likely every other middle and high school in the country, interact on social media. Specifically, when they go on a platform like TikTok or Instagram and create anonymous accounts to share things about school and their classmates.

“People feel anonymous, so they feel like they can do whatever they want”

For example: An account dedicated to pics of students considered “hot.”

“My friend was on there,” Blake says, “and I texted him, ‘Hey, do you know that you’re on this Instagram account?’ And he’s like, ‘What?!’ ”

Most of these accounts “aren’t even gossip,” Blake adds, “they’re just pictures of people sleeping, eating, acting surprised, acting sad.”

One account was dedicated entirely to pictures of students sleeping in class. On some accounts, students are in on the joke, but often they’re not, Harrison says.

“Through the internet … people feel anonymous, so they feel like they can do whatever they want — and get likes for it without any punishment.”

The boys found at least 81 of these accounts at Williams alone. Then they got a bold idea.

Fake it till you make it

“After seeing all of these social media pages, we decided it would be fun if we just made our own profile and posted fake gossip to see the impact it has and how it spreads through a middle school,” they explain in the podcast.

Fake gossip is putting it mildly.

“We knocked on our school police officer’s door and asked if he would pretend to arrest one of our A-V club members for the camera. Surprisingly, he actually agreed,” Harrison says.

It was the first video to go up on their new gossip account. “We didn’t think it would actually get anywhere, but less than 15 minutes later, we heard people starting to talk about it.”

Williams Middle School in Rockwall, Texas.

/ Cooper Neill for NPR

/

Cooper Neill for NPR

Williams Middle School in Rockwall, Texas.

Next up: The boys staged a fight in the band room, hoping a shaky camera and sound effects added in post-production would convince their classmates it was bigger and very real.

“Some of us would have kids walking up to us daily to tell us how we got absolutely destroyed in that fight or how they didn’t know we were in band. We were having fun with it now,” Harrison says in the podcast. “It didn’t take long for our fake account to start getting more followers than any other gossip account we could find.”

“Our generation prefers talking digitally”

As a social experiment, these four middle-schoolers went from quiet observers of social media to the school’s master muckrakers – even though everything they posted was utterly fake. In that way, the podcast works as a warning about the importance of media literacy — at a time when Americans half-a-century their senior are being suckered by social media every day.

But the podcast isn’t just a scold about fake news. It’s also about how, for kids their age, this is communication.

“We don’t pass notes, we send texts with our phones hidden under our desks,” Harrison says. “We don’t tell people about incidents that happened in class, we post it on TikTok. Our generation prefers talking digitally with each other from a distance, [rather] than communicating with each other in the real world.”

The boys named their podcast, The Worlds We Create.

Ms. Knight, a veteran teacher, says she’s seen these changes in students over the years.

An interior view of Williams Middle School in Rockwall, Texas.

/ Cooper Neill for NPR

/

Cooper Neill for NPR

An interior view of Williams Middle School in Rockwall, Texas.

“I just think there’s a lot less talking and a lot more, you know, swiping through their phone instead of saying, ‘Hey, guess what I saw today?’ ”

Knight has even seen it in her own family. “I would talk to my husband about, ‘Oh, did you see our eldest daughter?’ She lives in California. ‘She did this or whatever.’ And he would say, ‘How do you know this?’ ”

Her answer: “‘Because I’m following her social media and her friends’ social media.’ Because if you don’t do that, she’s probably not going to pick up the phone and call us and tell us.”

Is that inherently bad? Knight says, no, not necessarily. She does get to see more of what her daughters and her friends, far and wide, are doing.

The boys’ views are similarly complicated. All this “talking digitally” can be a real “curse” for teens, they say, especially when it hurts or excludes others. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

After all, the boys say, the whole purpose of technologies from radio to the telephone, TV to the internet, has always been to help us feel less alone and more connected – by helping us create worlds – and build communities – bigger than the ones we’re born into.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Sutherland House Experts Book Publishing Launches To Empower Quiet Experts

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Sutherland House Experts is Empowering Quiet Experts through
Compelling Nonfiction in a Changing Ideas Landscape

TORONTO, ON — Almost one year after its launch, Sutherland House Experts is reshaping the publishing industry with its innovative co-publishing model for “quiet experts.” This approach, where expert authors share both costs and profits with the publisher, is bridging the gap between expertise and public discourse. Helping to drive this transformation is Neil Seeman, a renowned author, educator, and entrepreneur.

“The book publishing world is evolving rapidly,” publisher Neil Seeman explains. “There’s a growing hunger for expert voices in public dialogue, but traditional channels often fall short. Sutherland House Experts provides a platform for ‘quiet experts’ to share their knowledge with the broader book-reading audience.”

The company’s roster boasts respected thought leaders whose books are already gaining major traction:

• V. Kumar Murty, a world-renowned mathematician, and past Fields Institute director, just published “The Science of Human Possibilities” under the new press. The book has been declared a 2024 “must-read” by The Next Big Ideas Club and is receiving widespread media attention across North America.

• Eldon Sprickerhoff, co-founder of cybersecurity firm eSentire, is seeing strong pre-orders for his upcoming book, “Committed: Startup Survival Tips and Uncommon Sense for First-Time Tech Founders.”

• Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, a respected cardiologist and professor of medicine at Queen’s University, is generating significant media interest with his forthcoming book, “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support.”

Seeman, whose recent and acclaimed book, “Accelerated Minds,” explores the entrepreneurial mindset, brings a unique perspective to publishing. His experience as a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and academic affiliations with The Fields Institute and Massey College, give him deep insight into the challenges faced by people he calls “quiet experts.”

“Our goal is to empower quiet, expert authors to become entrepreneurs of actionable ideas the world needs to hear,” Seeman states. “We are blending scholarly insight with market savvy to create accessible, impactful narratives for a global readership. Quiet experts are people with decades of experience in one or more fields who seek to translate their insights into compelling non-fiction for the world,” says Seeman.

This fall, Seeman is taking his insights to the classroom. He will teach the new course, “The Writer as Entrepreneur,” at the University of Toronto, offering aspiring authors practical tools to navigate the evolving book publishing landscape. To enroll in this new weekly night course starting Tuesday, October 1st, visit:
https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/4121-writer-entrepreneur

“The entrepreneurial ideas industry is changing rapidly,” Seeman notes. “Authors need new skills to thrive in this dynamic environment. My course and our publishing model provide those tools.”

About Neil Seeman:
Neil Seeman is co-founder and publisher of Sutherland House Experts, an author, educator, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He holds appointments at the University of Toronto, The Fields Institute, and Massey College. His work spans entrepreneurship, public health, and innovative publishing models.

Follow Neil Seeman:
https://www.neilseeman.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeman/

Follow Sutherland House Experts:

https://sutherlandhouseexperts.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sutherlandhouseexperts/

Media Inquiries:
Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com

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What to stream this weekend: ‘Civil War,’ Snow Patrol, ‘How to Die Alone,’ ‘Tulsa King’ and ‘Uglies’

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Hallmark launching a streaming service with two new original series, and Bill Skarsgård out for revenge in “Boy Kills World” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Alex Garland’s “Civil War” starring Kirsten Dunst, Natasha Rothwell’s heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone” and Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts.

NEW MOVIES TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is finally making its debut on MAX on Friday. The film stars Kirsten Dunst as a veteran photojournalist covering a violent war that’s divided America; She reluctantly allows an aspiring photographer, played by Cailee Spaeny, to tag along as she, an editor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a reporter (Wagner Moura) make the dangerous journey to Washington, D.C., to interview the president (Nick Offerman), a blustery, rising despot who has given himself a third term, taken to attacking his citizens and shut himself off from the press. In my review, I called it a bellowing and haunting experience; Smart and thought-provoking with great performances. It’s well worth a watch.

— Joey King stars in Netflix’s adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies,” about a future society in which everyone is required to have beautifying cosmetic surgery at age 16. Streaming on Friday, McG directed the film, in which King’s character inadvertently finds herself in the midst of an uprising against the status quo. “Outer Banks” star Chase Stokes plays King’s best friend.

— Bill Skarsgård is out for revenge against the woman (Famke Janssen) who killed his family in “Boy Kills World,” coming to Hulu on Friday. Moritz Mohr directed the ultra-violent film, of which Variety critic Owen Gleiberman wrote: “It’s a depraved vision, yet I got caught up in its kick-ass revenge-horror pizzazz, its disreputable commitment to what it was doing.”

AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

NEW MUSIC TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— The year was 2006. Snow Patrol, the Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock band, released an album, “Eyes Open,” producing the biggest hit of their career: “Chasing Cars.” A lot has happened in the time since — three, soon to be four quality full-length albums, to be exact. On Friday, the band will release “The Forest Is the Path,” their first new album in seven years. Anthemic pop-rock is the name of the game across songs of love and loss, like “All,”“The Beginning” and “This Is the Sound Of Your Voice.”

— For fans of raucous guitar music, Jordan Peele’s 2022 sci-fi thriller, “NOPE,” provided a surprising, if tiny, thrill. One of the leads, Emerald “Em” Haywood portrayed by Keke Palmer, rocks a Jesus Lizard shirt. (Also featured through the film: Rage Against the Machine, Wipers, Mr Bungle, Butthole Surfers and Earth band shirts.) The Austin noise rock band are a less than obvious pick, having been signed to the legendary Touch and Go Records and having stopped releasing new albums in 1998. That changes on Friday the 13th, when “Rack” arrives. And for those curious: The Jesus Lizard’s intensity never went away.

AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

NEW SHOWS TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— Hallmark launched a streaming service called Hallmark+ on Tuesday with two new original series, the scripted drama “The Chicken Sisters” and unscripted series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert.” If you’re a Hallmark holiday movies fan, you know Chabert. She’s starred in more than 30 of their films and many are holiday themed. Off camera, Chabert has a passion for throwing parties and entertaining. In “Celebrations,” deserving people are surprised with a bash in their honor — planned with Chabert’s help. “The Chicken Sisters” stars Schuyler Fisk, Wendie Malick and Lea Thompson in a show about employees at rival chicken restaurants in a small town. The eight-episode series is based on a novel of the same name.

Natasha Rothwell of “Insecure” and “The White Lotus” fame created and stars in a new heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone.” She plays Mel, a broke, go-along-to-get-along, single, airport employee who, after a near-death experience, makes the conscious decision to take risks and pursue her dreams. Rothwell has been working on the series for the past eight years and described it to The AP as “the most vulnerable piece of art I’ve ever put into the world.” Like Mel, Rothwell had to learn to bet on herself to make the show she wanted to make. “In the Venn diagram of me and Mel, there’s significant overlap,” said Rothwell. It premieres Friday on Hulu.

— Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise and Betty Gilpin star in a new drama for Starz called “Three Women,” about entrepreneur Sloane, homemaker Lina and student Maggie who are each stepping into their power and making life-changing decisions. They’re interviewed by a writer named Gia (Woodley.) The series is based on a 2019 best-selling book of the same name by Lisa Taddeo. “Three Women” premieres Friday on Starz.

— Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts Sunday on Paramount+. Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a mafia boss who was recently released from prison after serving 25 years. He’s sent to Tulsa to set up a new crime syndicate. The series is created by Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame.

Alicia Rancilio

NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

— One thing about the title of Focus Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 — you know exactly what you’re in for. You are Demetrian Titus, a genetically enhanced brute sent into battle against the Tyranids, an insectoid species with an insatiable craving for human flesh. You have a rocket-powered suit of armor and an arsenal of ridiculous weapons like the “Chainsword,” the “Thunderhammer” and the “Melta Rifle,” so what could go wrong? Besides the squishy single-player mode, there are cooperative missions and six-vs.-six free-for-alls. You can suit up now on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Likewise, Wild Bastards isn’t exactly the kind of title that’s going to attract fans of, say, Animal Crossing. It’s another sci-fi shooter, but the protagonists are a gang of 13 varmints — aliens and androids included — who are on the run from the law. Each outlaw has a distinctive set of weapons and special powers: Sarge, for example, is a robot with horse genes, while Billy the Squid is … well, you get the idea. Australian studio Blue Manchu developed the 2019 cult hit Void Bastards, and this Wild-West-in-space spinoff has the same snarky humor and vibrant, neon-drenched cartoon look. Saddle up on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Nintendo Switch or PC.

Lou Kesten

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Trump could cash out his DJT stock within weeks. Here’s what happens if he sells

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Former President Donald Trump is on the brink of a significant financial decision that could have far-reaching implications for both his personal wealth and the future of his fledgling social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). As the lockup period on his shares in TMTG, which owns Truth Social, nears its end, Trump could soon be free to sell his substantial stake in the company. However, the potential payday, which makes up a large portion of his net worth, comes with considerable risks for Trump and his supporters.

Trump’s stake in TMTG comprises nearly 59% of the company, amounting to 114,750,000 shares. As of now, this holding is valued at approximately $2.6 billion. These shares are currently under a lockup agreement, a common feature of initial public offerings (IPOs), designed to prevent company insiders from immediately selling their shares and potentially destabilizing the stock. The lockup, which began after TMTG’s merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), is set to expire on September 25, though it could end earlier if certain conditions are met.

Should Trump decide to sell his shares after the lockup expires, the market could respond in unpredictable ways. The sale of a substantial number of shares by a major stakeholder like Trump could flood the market, potentially driving down the stock price. Daniel Bradley, a finance professor at the University of South Florida, suggests that the market might react negatively to such a large sale, particularly if there aren’t enough buyers to absorb the supply. This could lead to a sharp decline in the stock’s value, impacting both Trump’s personal wealth and the company’s market standing.

Moreover, Trump’s involvement in Truth Social has been a key driver of investor interest. The platform, marketed as a free speech alternative to mainstream social media, has attracted a loyal user base largely due to Trump’s presence. If Trump were to sell his stake, it might signal a lack of confidence in the company, potentially shaking investor confidence and further depressing the stock price.

Trump’s decision is also influenced by his ongoing legal battles, which have already cost him over $100 million in legal fees. Selling his shares could provide a significant financial boost, helping him cover these mounting expenses. However, this move could also have political ramifications, especially as he continues his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race.

Trump Media’s success is closely tied to Trump’s political fortunes. The company’s stock has shown volatility in response to developments in the presidential race, with Trump’s chances of winning having a direct impact on the stock’s value. If Trump sells his stake, it could be interpreted as a lack of confidence in his own political future, potentially undermining both his campaign and the company’s prospects.

Truth Social, the flagship product of TMTG, has faced challenges in generating traffic and advertising revenue, especially compared to established social media giants like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Despite this, the company’s valuation has remained high, fueled by investor speculation on Trump’s political future. If Trump remains in the race and manages to secure the presidency, the value of his shares could increase. Conversely, any missteps on the campaign trail could have the opposite effect, further destabilizing the stock.

As the lockup period comes to an end, Trump faces a critical decision that could shape the future of both his personal finances and Truth Social. Whether he chooses to hold onto his shares or cash out, the outcome will likely have significant consequences for the company, its investors, and Trump’s political aspirations.

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