What IS IT AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Our teen advisors told us we needed to widen our lens if we truly wanted to understand the connections between tech and mental health. That advice led to a national study Unpacking Grind Culture in American Teens: Pressure, Burnout, and the Role of Social Media, developed in collaboration with Common Sense Media and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Read the study to learn more about the pressures teens face, the impact of burnout, and how adults can help. Scroll on for a lesson plan designed to help teens identify the various pressures (aka “grinds”) they experience daily.
“[I think of burnout] like an overused machine in a factory … You’re just doing the same thing over and over, and you don’t feel like you really have a purpose.”
— Eleventh grader
LeSSON PLaN
To encourage classroom conversations that promote ways to manage these different grinds, explore this free Grind Culture lesson plan we co-created with Common Sense Education.
In this lesson, students will:
- Identify ways to practice self-care to alleviate the negative social pressures we feel.
- Identify different pressures (aka “grinds”) that they may feel on a regular basis.
- Reflect on how social media can both amplify and reduce the social pressures we feel.
aSK TEEnS aBOUT THEiR GRiNDS
It’s important to make space for youth to talk about their grinds in their own words. With that in mind, we invite you to read a blog post by one of our teen advisors, Eli H., The Grind: My Teen Experience of LGBTQ+ Misrepresentation Within Social Media, for a personal reflection on the unique challenges social media may present for some LGBTQ+ teens.
We were also grateful to highlight study findings on The Today Show, where a teen also shared her experiences with Grind Culture. Tune in below!
