The Screenagers Podcast

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Podcast Recommendations June 12

Welcome to the Screenagers Podcast. I'm Delaney Ruston, physician and filmmaker of the screenagers movies, and this summer, I'm recording podcasts based on my Screenagers Tech Talk Tuesday blogs and calling these blogcasts. Today I'm sharing with you recommendations for podcasts that you can listen to with your family. So why these recommendations? Well, one of the objectives of the screenagers movement is finding ways to connect youth and adults for meaningful conversations– not just about tech in our lives, but ways to help build in our kids' critical thinking, empathy, communication skills, and I’m just a strong believer that listening to podcasts together and then discussing them can be a really terrific way to do that. It's also a way to celebrate one of the pearls of our tech revolution: the ability of people to become podcasters and to share science, stories, advice, and more.

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For us, it really has been road trips when we have listened to podcasts together over many years now. Not that long ago, my daughter was home from her sophomore year in college. She told me a funny story, which was the fact that she's in this club called Back Country Squatters, which is super cool. Many colleges have this, and it's for female students or anyone who self-identifies as female who want to do backpacking and hiking, skiing and all sorts of outdoor sports. Anyway, she was doing a trip with that group, and someone said, Hey, we should listen to a podcast. And Tessa said, Oh, I got this no problem. And then Tessa said to me, but mom, after I said that, I realized that I felt really self-conscious picking a podcast to share with everyone. And so with that in mind, the vulnerability that it takes to make recommendations, I want to go ahead and make these recommendations. As any of you who've listened to the screenagers podcast know, almost every single past episode is created for adults to listen to with youth. But today, I'm not tooting our horn but sharing other recommendations. 

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The first one is Latino USA, one in particular is called Into the Fire. It's a short podcast that really brings forth gratitude. And I'm thinking now about all the fires that are happening in Canada throughout the US. In the episode, we meet Armando, who, even though he has to spend weeks apart from his family in seriously dangerous conditions, he says there's nothing else he'd rather be doing. I have such deep respect for all these people doing this work and a personal connection, as well. When I was in medical school, my mom's small home was burned to the ground, as were nearly 3000 other homes in Oakland, California. Fortunately, my mom was okay. 

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The next podcast is a six-part series called Ghost Herd. I'm going to read you the little blurb about it: in January 17, 2023, cowboy Cody Easterday lies big, creating a quote ghost herd of 265,000 cattle that only exist on paper and bringing in hundreds of millions of investment dollars from companies including a meatpacking giant, it's fraud on a massive scale. This six-part series has been extremely popular. It's really well done, so I'm recommending that if you have a long drive, or maybe you want to listen to a little bit of it, in the evenings cuddling on the couch as a family. 

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Another podcast is called Short Stuff. In particular, there's a fun episode about Liquid Paper. My kids know I have a major bone to pick with our society. Women get far too little recognition for their contributions to science than men in contributions in general, but I often talk to them about science. And so I'm actively always looking for things about women in history to weave into our conversations. And this particular episode is about the inventor of liquid paper, Betty Graham. And when Graham was frustrated with making mistakes on the company's IBM electric typewriter, she started looking for a solution. And interestingly, Wikipedia states that Betty is considered one of the most famous female inventors of the 20th century, and I'm thinking to myself like, why haven't I heard about her before? So listen to that one. And also there's one, for example, called Goosebumps, that's also a Short Stuff episode.

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 Another show is called The Huberman Lab. The host is neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, who's at Stanford. And the episode that I'm recommending has to do with alcohol. The alcohol episode is called, What Alcohol does to your Body, Brain and Health. You may well have heard of his show, which has exploded since it started in 2021. He's an incredibly articulate person, and what I particularly respect about his work is he is trying to articulate evidence-based data, and he does a very good job related to alcohol. And in fact, why I'm glad is that he debunks several myths that are out there related to health claims about alcohol, and lots of other stuff. So what's been fascinating is how popular his episodes are with young people, particularly in college. In fact, my son said that many of his friends religiously listen to all of his episodes. 

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Okay, now I'm going to give a suggestion that comes from my daughter, Tessa. It's called Anything Goes, which is the podcast by a famous influencer, Emma Chamberlain. And the specific episode is called Post it or it Didn't Happen with the question mark. After listening to it, I really enjoyed my conversation with Tessa, my daughter, about what we liked and we didn't like about the episode. For example, we talked about the disconnect we experienced with Emma talking as if she was any old teen when in fact, she is a massive celebrity, representing Louis Vuitton and others. But it also had some really good points to be made about the cons of taking photos and videos at an event or issues around posting identity and FOMO. Be aware there's some swearing in this, and there's many ads throughout. 

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Another recommendation is called Scamfluencers. Intercontinental Con Man was really interesting. The Scamfluencers often have shows that are several episodes, but Intercontinental Con Man is just one episode. It recounts a story of a teenage boy who tries to escape poverty in Colombia by stowing away in the wheel well of a plane. He eventually becomes a master identity thief. 

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I want to end with Hidden Brain, which is a very well-known podcast. Two episodes in particular that my family and I really enjoyed, which was Reframing your Reality: Part One, which is an interview with Stanford psychologist and researcher, Alia Crum. She talks about her really interesting research related to how our thoughts about things impact our actual biology. One of her most well known studies has to do with when she randomized groups of people into getting different types of milkshakes. They thought they were getting different types of milkshakes, but the milkshakes were exactly the same. One group thought they were getting a high caloric, kind of a splurge type of “Whoo milkshake”, and the other group thought they were getting what's called sensor shake, like a healthy shake that was low in calories. After ingesting the different types of shakes, the researchers would measure their blood levels of a hormone called ghrelin, which is known as the hunger hormone. And low and behold, even though the shakes were identical, levels of ghrelin were significantly different in those groups, meaning the groups that thought they were having very decadent shakes versus the one that thought they were having the low cal shake. So our mindsets impact our biology, which is fascinating. She has so much cool research she does that there's actually a part two. 

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That's it for this episode of The screenagers Blogcast. I've been your host, Delaney Ruston, and please email us at info at screenagers movie.com. Let us know what themes you want to hear this summer. Meanwhile, you can find hundreds of blog posts At screenagers movie.com and many resources

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