In this drop we chatted to Romeo (16), Joe (17), Danica (17) and Cara (13) about what it’s like to be a young person today. We picked their brains through some quick-fire and long-form questions on everything from what they’re listening to all the way through to what they wish grown-ups would know.
For the full and unredacted conversation, listen to the podcast.
Quick Fire Questions
Name an artist you’ve been listening to recently.
Romeo: Bruno Mars
Joe: Joshua Bassett
Danica: Bryson Tiller
Cara: Destiny’s Child
What’s your favourite social media platform?
Romeo: TikTok
Joe: Instagram
Danica: TikTok
Cara: TikTok
What’s the best thing you’ve watched recently?
Romeo: Transformers One
Joe: Outer Banks
Danica: Outer Banks
Cara: My Life With The Walter Boys
Describe your experience of school/college in 3 words.
Romeo: Fun, draining, unexpected
Joe: Stressful, fun, crazy
Danica: Fun, nagging, hard-working
Cara: Boring, painful, can be fun
In one sentence, describe how you’d spend your ideal Saturday.
Romeo: Go to the zoo.
Joe: Sleep and have a take-away.
Danica: Spending it with family.
Cara: Going out shopping and seeing a few friends.
Long-Form Questions:
What’s something youth leaders do that’s cringe?
Danica: When they try to relate to your age as teenagers – it’s cringy.
Romeo: When there’s talking onstage and the youth leader tries to use childish or Gen Z humour; and the year 7, 8 and 9s are laughing their heads off and I’m just dying on the inside because it’s cringe. But, because so many people laugh, they keep doing it.
Danica: Also, when parents post photos of you on Facebook on your birthday…
People sometimes say that your generation is ‘chronically online’ – what do you think about this?
Romeo: [I think it’s] unfair but within reason, because I do spend quite a lot of time on my phone, but a lot of people spend the whole day, 6/7hours, on their phone. That’s like a third of your day gone and if you sleep a third of your day…that’s over half your day gone. Lots of people realise this and most of my friends aren’t really that busy on their phone, which is annoying because they don’t answer the phone. I think it’s a good thing to have online communities etc. but there’s a point at which it [social media] gets unhealthy.
Joe: I think it’s a fair accusation. I even find myself wasting days scrolling through Instagram and I realise it’s 3pm then go ‘oh no! I could’ve done so much more with my day.” You see it with younger kids too – my younger cousin is constantly on her iPad and I can’t imagine growing up that kinda way. The worst thing is when you look around and everyone is so focused on their phones that you can’t have a conversation with anyone anymore – it’s definitely a deprived part of our generation.
Romeo: I think it really comes from a time management issue. Since getting back into my interests, being more active and spending a couple hours a week on work, I’ve noticed I spend a lot less time on my phone. I have limits on my phone and now I never hit those limits. When you have 6/7 hours with nothing to do it’s easier to sit and go on your phone than text and ask friends to come out and stuff. Also, if you’re friends with people chronically online then they’re not really going to want to go out, are they? So sometimes it’s a bit of a last resort with nothing else to do.
Host: I think it’s often an unfair statement too, as lots of adults are also on their phones a lot.
Danica: People need to understand there are some teenagers who prefer to be out in the real world and experience things rather than being on social media too.
What are some of the main issues you think people your age struggle with?
Cara: Image is a big one. It’s all about having the right clothes and what hairstyle you’ve got and if you’ve got straight or curly hair or what perfume you use. It’s almost like you feel like you’re always getting judged, but everyone’s so worried about themselves getting judged that no one’s busy judging you.
Danica: People are quite judgemental and constantly have something to say on others and people need to work on if you don’t know the person then don’t judge cause you don’t know what’s going on in their life.
Joe: The biggest issue I’ve seen is the pressure of what success is. There’s a big push on getting the best grades in school and getting into a good Uni and being super rich and you scroll on Tik Tok and all you see is the ‘top 10 ways to get rich’ etc., but for some people this isn’t what success is for them.
What’s the biggest question you have about your faith/following God right now?
Joe: I think for me, in faith, there’s different seasons that you go through and it’s the season where God seems distant or quiet or even faith seems quiet and you’re not as active in your faith and you don’t see things happening that is the hardest part and the biggest questions I have is when that happens.
Danica: With getting baptised recently for me it’s wondering what the next step is now.
Romeo: I’ve recently had this question of ‘what is God’s purpose for me?’ I used to wonder this and now I’m confident my purpose is meant to be something really big. Because of this God has led me to start new habits, but my current question is’ what is God’s purpose with my friendships and relationships in life?’ I’ve met lots of friends in college but only hung out once or twice with them. God doesn’t give clear answers – it can be confusing to know what God wants out of the friendships and relationships in my life right now.
What’s one thing you wish grown ups/adults would know or you think they misunderstand about people your age?
Danica: I think that adults need to realise that not everything a teenager goes through they’re gonna relate to. It’s a different generation to what they were, so obviously what we go through is going to be way different to what they went through. Not everything is going to be the exact same.
Cara: What Danica said – they often think their life as a teenager is the same as our life as a teenager. We’ve grown up with social media and tech, and though they use it, they can’t relate to it. They’d go to school and come home and escape that peer pressure etc. Whereas now we go to school and come home and can’t escape that pressure.
Romeo: I wish parents would understand and know thatsome things have to happen to their kids in order for them to grow. For example, when I was a kid, my mom would always tell me not to touch the radiator when it was on, and I always wanted to know how much it hurt and wanted to do it. I did it, realised it hurt and then didn’t do it again.
Sometimes, [I think they] need to understand as much it hurts that their child needs to… say… get upset by their friends to understand who to be friends with or sometimes they’re meant to have that relationship and go too far with it and learn from it. If you go throughout life and don’t learn some things the hard way then you won’t be able to grow up and learn things. Like if you annoy your friend, they might get mad at you and then you might struggle having friends…
Sometimes parents won’t let children take certain risks. There’s obviously a certain point where parents should intervene though.
How best can people your age be supported by grown-ups around you?
Joe: Like Romeo was just saying, as children and growing up, we make poor decisions sometimes that have bad results and sometimes parents and adults can get in the space of being like ‘yep, I told you I was right and you were wrong’ and putting you down for it and it can stick with you. How parents can support us is saying “it was wrong but I’m going to help you with this mess”.
Danica: Parents need to support their kids more because they don’t know what they’ve gone through and don’t know how it’s affecting them so maybe listen to their point of view.
Romeo: Sometimes grown ups and adults can support by doing nothing but give them [young people] trust. Eg. For my course at college I sometimes have to handle animals but sometimes the animals don’t want to be handled. It’s the same with humans, we communicate our feelings better than animals can but if, as an adult, I was trying to console a child and they didn’t want my help then I’d let them know imp there to help but then give them time to come to me.
Cara: They need to understand that sometimes we don’t want to talk about everything and anything they’ve been through and even though they’re our parents that they don’t know every single thing we’ve felt or been through. And that’s a really big thing. They don’t necessarily know everything about us.
Word of the Month: Fire
Fire = when something is really good, eg. Dance moves
Example – Hannah’s singing was fire.