A new digital wellness festival has spun up to rally teenagers behind the idea that they do not always have to be online.
At Toronto’s Meridian Hall yesterday, Rally hosted thousands of young students, parents, teachers, experts, policymakers, and cultural leaders to unpack how the next generation of Canadians can build healthy relationships with and without technology.
“We want to help schools figure out solutions and help teenagers know that it’s okay to be unavailable.”
Keith Wallace,
Rally
While a significant portion of the population rely heavily on their smartphones, Rally co-founder Keith Wallace highlighted that the emergence of social media and other tech platforms has coincided with a growing youth mental health crisis.
“There’s a real issue, and if we don’t start helping the teenagers today [with] managing this, by the time they’re in the workforce, there’s going to be real issues for all of us,” Wallace told BetaKit in an interview.
Wallace, the former general manager of the tech-focused Collision Conference, and his wife, entertainment host and content creator Brigitte Truong, teamed up to launch Rally as a means of putting teens and their support networks in the same room to connect and learn how to better manage their tech diets. One of the goals, Wallace said, is to “make being offline cool.”
Wallace said many teens today feel the pressure to always be online. Through Rally, he hopes to remind them that they do not have to be.
“We want to help schools figure out solutions and help teenagers know that it’s okay to be unavailable,” he added.
He credits Truong for coming up with the idea during the pandemic, while the couple was locked in their apartment doom-scrolling and facing their own struggles with screen time. After years working in tech and cryptocurrency, and feeling manipulated by platforms geared towards monetizing human attention, he said he wanted to do something “with a bit more purpose.”
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The goal with Rally’s first one-day event—which was free to students—was to prove out the concept and break even, something Wallace says it is on pace to do thanks to support from partners like Bell Let’s Talk, CAMH, Canada Health Infoway, CIRA, Digital Moment, Meridian Credit Union, Snapchat, Telus, and the City of Toronto. The longer-term vision is to build Rally into an annual event.
Yesterday’s programming featured a live DJ who took requests and a wide array of speakers who gave bite-sized talks and presentations and interacted with attendees. Themes up for discussion included mental health and digital wellness, media literacy, self-expression and identity, the future of work, and social impact.
Proceedings kicked off with hosts urging attendees to turn off their phones, and the audience was loud and engaged, with fewer lit screens than are traditionally found at an event this size.
Motivational speaker Sam Demma, who took the Rally stage with a big red backpack, argued to BetaKit that everyone has a giant invisible backpack of stories, thoughts, and beliefs about themselves. He stressed that teens need to curate their tech and social media diets to ensure they have the best stuff in their backpacks, reach out to others for support when theirs get too heavy, and regularly check in on the people around them.
Tonya Johnson, head of communications for Canada at event partner Snapchat, thinks events like Rally are important. She said Snapchat’s goal in participating was to be part of the online safety conversation.
While Snapchat is a particularly popular among Canadian youth and teens, the company’s focus yesterday was on educating parents and teachers about how its app works and the tools it offers to ensure young people using its platform are doing so safely.
Grade 12 student and Youth Advisory Committee member Simran Sodha told BetaKit she believes that social media can be a great place to foster offline connections, but said it can be easy to define your self-worth based on Instagram or TikTok likes, follows, and comments. She noted that it can easily become overwhelming.
“It’s really hard to catch a break and create healthy boundaries,” Sodha said.
Simran Sodha,
“It’s just important that we’re not all speaking this language that isn’t ours. If we’re all talking behind AI’s voice, then we’re not really communicating.”
Grade 12 student
Constantly viewing “perfect, idealized”versions of other people’s lives, especially as a woman exposed to unattainable beauty standards and online toxicity, can take a toll, she said. To address this, Sodha said she and her friends have implemented their own screen time limits and have found setting these sorts of boundaries effective.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has created some new headaches, she noted. Sodha argued that while many of her peers are using it, teens ought to remember that there is a key difference between using it to help with their work versus replacing their own efforts.
“It’s just important that we’re not all speaking this language that isn’t ours,” Sodha said. “If we’re all talking behind AI’s voice, then we’re not really communicating.”
Sodha is wary of her peers increasingly turning to chatbots as a friend or therapist. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested an answer to the loneliness epidemic could be AI personas. While Wallace does not have a child yet, he said he does not want chatbots to represent the future of friendship.
Wallace and Sodha think there should be strong age restrictions and greater regulation around this sort of tech.
Demma experienced his own mental health challenges after major knee injuries thwarted his full-ride scholarship and ambitions of becoming a professional soccer player. He had a tough time going on social media and seeing his friends realize their dreams when he could not. While Demma believes that it is healthy to celebrate the success of others, he argues that it can be really unhealthy if that is all you do and it makes you feel less worthy.
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He credited a teacher who channeled his passion towards social impact and a full-year detox he took from social media at 21 for helping him through this difficult period.
“I was so afraid that my life was going to fall apart … and the opposite happened,” Demma said. “I built deeper relationships in real life [and] I booked more events than I thought I was going to book that year, despite the fact that I wasn’t on everyone’s timelines and feeds.”
Grade 11 student and Youth Advisory Committee member Ash MacArthur grew up with an iPad in his hand and said he and many of his friends have tried to develop a healthier relationship with tech. Some have no phones at all, while others have either implemented screen time restrictions themselves or have parents who have done so, he told BetaKit.
MacArthur echoed Demma’s message. ”Just put the phone down. As hard as it might be, you’re not going to be missing out on anything online when you’re engaging in real life.”
Feature image courtesy Rally. Photo by Roberk Okine.