Youth health content

Healthy content that truly meets the growth needs of teenagers is never a "no touching" negative list, nor is it a rigidly instilled dogmatic template, but a dynamic content system that can fit the cognitive levels of different age groups, respect teenagers' desire for expression, and at the same time maintain the physical and psychological safety boundaries. This is the most straightforward conclusion after I have been engaged in youth media literacy education for 7 years, visited more than 20 provincial and municipal key and ordinary county middle schools, and talked with nearly a thousand children aged 10-18.

When I was stationed at a suburban middle school last year, I encountered something that left a particularly deep impression on me: Three girls in the second grade of junior high school had only eaten half a piece of corn for lunch for three months in a row, and their menstrual periods had stopped. The teacher checked for a long time and found out that they were following the "girl group weight loss" program in a private group. method", I first searched for "how to lose weight" on the public platform, and all I found was correct nonsense about "teenagers should have a balanced diet." I thought it was too fake, so I turned to the "private guide" shared by netizens, and even dared to stuff "weight loss candy" with diuretics in it into my mouth.

Speaking of this, some people must think that all content related to weight loss, early love, and emotions should be blocked for teenagers to prevent them from learning bad things. This is also the most mainstream "strict control" view of many schools and parent camps. The core logic is that teenagers have weak discernment, and it is safest to create a completely sterile content environment for them. This is not unreasonable. After all, the prefrontal lobe of the brain does not fully develop until around the age of 25. Adolescent children are inherently impulsive and follow trends. If they are allowed to view content that induces self-harm and school bullying, the probability of problems is indeed high. But don’t tell me, the side effects of this method are also very obvious: I have seen some schools set “depression” and “suicide” as search block words. As a result, a child with moderate depression wanted to find a self-help method, but couldn’t find it. Instead, he went to the dark web for self-harm tutorials, and almost had an accident. Just like if you put an airtight plastic film on the flower to prevent it from being bitten by insects, the insects can't get in and the flower will be almost stuffy.

There is also the "literacy school" that is now more advocated by the academic community. They believe that blocking is worse than sparing. Instead of keeping all risks out, it is better to teach children how to distinguish between good and bad content and learn to avoid pitfalls on their own. The direction is right, but there are a lot of pits when landing. Last month, I went to attend an open class on media literacy in a key middle school. The teacher stood on the stage and read a PPT: "Don't trust strangers on the Internet, and don't believe any false information on the Internet." The child sitting below raised his hand and said, "The physics questions I didn't know last week were taught to me by a netizen. Is he also giving false information? ”The teacher was so choked that he couldn't speak for a long time. Many so-called literacy courses are essentially preaching in a different shell. Children don’t even know what they are talking about or playing online now. The content they teach is all correct words that are divorced from reality. Who wants to listen?

What’s interesting is that last year I came across a Bilibili UP owner, who is a pediatric nurse and specializes in popular science for 12-16-year-old children. He talked about how to deal with acne, how to relieve aunt’s pain, and whether to confess your crush to others. The first sentence at the beginning is always “I know you don’t like to listen to parents and teachers, so I won’t talk nonsense.” Each video has been played over a million times, and the comment area is full of children checking in and saying, “Finally, someone doesn’t treat me like a fool.” There is also a blogger who graduated from a physical education college. He specializes in stretching for 10 minutes for junior high school students to avoid protruding lumbar discs after sitting for a long time. He also specially changes the movements to a range that will not be mistaken by teachers for slapstick. Now many middle schools are showing his videos during recess. You see, no one forces them to watch this kind of content, and they are willing to pursue it themselves, which is much more useful than sending ten ban notices.

The survey data just released by the China Youth Research Center in 2024 can also support this: 68.7% of the teenagers surveyed said that as long as the content "is not condescending" and "conforms to my current needs", they will actively pay attention to health-related content. On the contrary, nearly 70% of children will directly swipe away content marked "Must-see for students" and "Recommended by parents".

To be honest, the longer I work in this industry, the more I feel that there is no absolutely unified standard for "youth health content". Ten years ago, we were afraid that our children would be addicted to Internet cafes. Now we are afraid that our children will watch short videos. In another ten years, there may be new media forms. We cannot rely on "blocking" to solve the problem every time. The core is actually two words: look straight. Don't always put people down with the attitude of "I'm doing this for your own good." Squat down first and see what they are concerned about and confused about now, and then incorporate the truth you want to say into what they are willing to listen to.

Of course, I am not saying that there is no need for content review at all. Content that clearly induces crime and harms the body should be deleted and controlled. Just don’t go too far and treat children’s normal curiosity and growing confusion as “unhealthy” things across the board. After all, the ultimate goal of what we do is not to raise children in a greenhouse, but to enable them to protect themselves and live a good life in the real world.