TEENS ARE TALKING, ARE YOU LISTENING?

TEENS ARE TALKING, ARE YOU LISTENING?

Anxiety, Career Choice, Isolation… Young Adults Are Podcasting What’s On Their Mind

Kamini.Mathai@timesgroup.com

07.02.2021

In 2020, amid the noise of the pandemic, the ensuing lockdown, the shutting of schools, and the sudden upheaval of their lives as they knew it, some teens managed to collect their thoughts and find their voice. Then they did what most teens do — grabbed a pair of headphones and turned up the volume. Only it wasn’t to shut out the world, but to stream into it.

Enter the teen podcaster. They’re talking about everything — what it’s like to be a teenager, mental health issues kids their age have to grapple with, career choices and how the lockdown has taken a toll.

Thirteen-year-old Kaveri Deepak from Chennai started her podcast ‘Young Spirit — Tween to Teen’ in May when she realised she was staring at an entire year of no school. “I was bored and then I figured so were others my age. So, I began to explore what teens were doing in lockdown,” says Kaveri, who set off on her quest of ‘unboredom’, and over one season of nine episodes spoke to kids from around the world. “There was a 15-year-old from Jersey, a Channel Island near England. She is an environmentalist, dancer, swimmer, and she opened my eyes to a different world of quarantine,” says Kaveri, who has garnered 1,000 listeners over the past eight months.

Now that the lockdown is more or less over, Kaveri has shifted focus for her second season and is now talking to teenpreneurs as well as helping kids learn to navigate social media. “For one of my episodes I spoke to a child artist in the movies on how she manages an anonymous Instagram account,” says the class 8 student, who podcasts on Apple, Spotify, Google.

From her living room in Gurugram, 15-year-old Aarushi Gupta begins her podcast ‘When I was 13…’, which she says has helped her collect more than 35 life lessons. “Dinner table conversations would always begin with my parents telling me how life was different when they were teens,” says Aarushi, who decided to talk to people across generations and different walks of life on what it was like when they were 13. “I’ve interviewed CEOs, dancers, artists and entrepreneurs. I realised that a lot of teenagers were anxious about ‘what next’. These interviews gave us food for thought,” says Aarushi, who has around 1,000 listeners across various platforms.

Although she kickstarted her podcast two years ago, during the lockdown her episodes focused on reconnecting with family. “I brought families together in conversation on how they were staying emotionally connected though physically distant,” she says.

Podcast mentor and coach Bijay Gautam says in the past couple of years he has given several teens masterclasses on podcasting. “Many have been influenced by YouTubers. But unlike videos, the effort involved in podcasting is minimal. You just need an internet connection, a microphone and headphones,” says Bijay. “And you’re a mini celebrity among your friends and family.” Teens, he says, most often want to podcast on career choices or issues they are grappling with, such as anxiety. “It helps them build their communication skills and ups their confidence levels,” says Bijay.

Kaveri, for instance says she wanted to be an actress and her parents weren’t gungho about it, but becoming a podcaster has put her in the spotlight. “Podcasting hasn’t just made me confident, it’s also helped me discover where my passion lies.”

With Google, Apple, radio channels, and digital music services like Spotify and Gaana getting into podcasts, the market is growing, says Bijay.

According to PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2019-2023, India’s music, radio and podcasts market was worth ₹5,753 crore in 2018, up from ₹3,890 crore in 2014. The report says the podcast listening market has increased in the past few years. Monthly listeners (people who listened to at least one podcast in the last month) totalled four crore in 2018, up 57% from the previous year. This made India the world’s third-largest podcast-listening market (after China and the US).

Chennai-based psychologist Aprajitha Bhardwaj believes the pandemic has brought a sense of isolation among kids. “Podcasts are a great way for them to talk about their feelings or thoughts, which may otherwise be bottled up,” says Aprajitha.

That’s how it helped 17-year-old Yashvardhan Khaitan of Dublin High School, California, who after three months of “mental turmoil” during lockdown, debuted his podcast TeenTalks in June 2020. “During the pandemic, I was forced to pursue online studies. This took a toll on my mental health, as I was not prepared to be in front of a screen and listen to my teachers for hours. I had a hard time keeping up to date with assignments and deadlines and developed anxiety,” says Yashvardhan, who then came across social media posts from several teens feeling the same way.

Over 22 weekly episodes and 1,000 listeners, Yashvardhan says he discovered that a number of teens were dealing with severe mood swings. “One morning they said they would feel energised and happy, but an hour later, they will go down the rabbit hole and feel sad, hopeless and disconnected from their peers,” he says.

For him, the podcast has led him on to a positive track. “After recording an episode with a student, I have this feeling of happiness and awe that I would never have experienced during the pandemic. With every student I speak to I get a better idea of how this entire situation is unfolding and what I can do to make this time better for myself,” he says.