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Concord-based LookUp.live, in partnership with The Social Dilemma and the Children’s Screen Time Action Network is pleased to present this special Mental Health Awareness Month event:
Your Brain on Social Media: Gen Z Activists and Allies Examine the Promise, Dilemma, and Future of Being Born Digital
If technology’s promise to keep us more connected is real, then why is Gen Z considered the loneliest generation in America? Why is youth anxiety, stress, depression, and suicide increasing at alarming rates? What role did and should big digital media companies, governments, and schools play in reversing these trends?
Join Julia Hoppock (The Social Dilemma), Bob Wigley, (Born Digital), Jon Gedney (MTV News), and youth activists CCHS-student Lars Bjork (17), Hannah Chung (17), Maddie Freeman (19), and Aliza Kopans (17) for a lively and candid discussion about what Wigley says this generation is doing to “mount a revolution against harms from technology and create the future that they deserve.”
As MTV News recently posted, “The quantification of popularity on social media exploits our natural tendency for social comparison to create addiction for profit. It can make you the perfect target for advertisers… at the expense of your mental health and free will.”
LINE UP
Moderated by Julia Hoppock, Impact Producer, The Social Dilemma
Julia is a filmmaker and campaign strategist with over a decade of storytelling experience in journalism and the non-profit sector. She has spent her career finding, pitching, writing, and producing stories that connect audiences to the issues that impact their lives. Her videos have been screened for White House officials and exhibited at presidential libraries.
FEATURING GEN Z ACTIVISTS
Lars Bjork, Student Advocate, Chase Bjork Foundation
A high-school student at Concord Carlisle High School, Lars is extremely passionate about mental health and how social media is affecting his peers. Having seen so many of his peers struggle, Lars wants to help take a step in the right direction and fight against social media standards, mental health stigma, and youth social media use. #BrainHealthPledge
Hannah Chung, Student and Co-Founder, On Our Terms
Hannah is a high-school student in Santa Clarita, California, a LookUp Social Innovator, winner of The Social Dilemma grant competition, and co-founder of On Our Terms, a multimedia advocacy campaign. She is a problem-solving activist that demands an end to the euro-hetero-patriarchally-capitalist conquest of the world. Through many mediums ranging from photography, digital design, and architecture, she seeks to amplify the stories of our most vulnerable groups and challenge the leaders in our world to do the same.
Maddie Freeman, Student and Founder, NoSo November Challenge
Maddie is a 2021 LookUp Social Innovator, who after experiencing countless suicides in her Colorado community (including 4 close friends) and seeing social media’s impact on them, started the NoSo November Challenge for high school students. She is working with Colorado school districts to change the conversation and believes social media’s impact on youth mental health is a good place to start. With funding, mentorship, and advisers, Maddie is turning her idea into a program that will be rolled out to high schools nationwide this fall.
Aliza Kopans, Student and Co-creator, Dear Parents
Aliza is a Digital Wellness Youth Activist from the Boston area and a rising freshman at Brown University. A founding member of LookUp’s Teen Leadership Council and a youth voice on Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s Action Network Advisory Board, Aliza is passionate about facilitating healthy screen-time conversations and moving towards a human—not screen—focused world. She is the co-creator of “Dear Parents,” a digital well-being resource for parents, and has reached thousands of people through written publications, webinars, podcasts, and community involvement.
WITH SPECIAL GUEST ALLIES
Robert Wigley, Author, Born Digital: The Story of a Distracted Generation
Bob backs young entrepreneurs in cutting-edge technology businesses and Chairs UK Finance. He is also the author of Born Digital: The Story of A Distracted Generation, which distills the mountains of available research on the subject and brings to bear his wealth of institutional experience to present a road map for society to radically and urgently reset its relationship with technology – for the sake of future generations. He spent a career in finance rising to be EMEA Chairman of Merrill Lynch and a member of the board of the Bank of England during the 2008 financial crisis. He has been Chairman of the Green Investment Bank Commission and wrote the seminal report Winning in the Decade Ahead on the future of London as a Global Financial Centre, for Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute.
Jon Gedney, Impact Producer, MTV News
Jon is a leading expert on today’s national youth political movements. After running national press campaigns for non-profits, grassroots movements, and major record labels in the run-up to the 2016 election, he dedicated the next four years to MTV, helping the network evolve its political voice, amplify youth activists, and launch two historic 2020 campaigns: Vote Early Day and Power the Polls. As the Impact Producer for MTV News, his brand-defining coverage of youth movements shaping U.S. politics has helped activists end facial recognition in schools, elevate indigenous rights, and protect the 2020 election. Armed with industry-leading insight into Gen Z and Millennial voters, he brings to every project an eye for pushing issues and policies into the national zeitgeist by bolstering young leaders on the frontline of today’s biggest crises.
