'Kids These Days' A New Podcast By Teens, About Teens, Premieres June 17

Ann Arbor MI, USA— — Teenagers. Always on their phones (but don’t know how to make a phone call). Endlessly curating their identities on Instagram. Unprepared for “the real world.” These are some of the stereotypes of Generation Z. But are they accurate? What are young people really thinking about, laughing about, and stressing about right now?

Kids These Days, a new podcast from Michigan Radio, offers an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to be a teenager today.

This limited-run podcast is hosted by teens, and is a collaboration between Community High School in Ann Arbor and Michigan Radio’s Peabody Award-winning podcast team. Topics range from vaping, to questions about virginity and how queer teens fit it, to what it’s like to be a 15-year old living with anxiety. And unlike so much of the reporting that’s been done on these issues, Kids These Days is written by teens, for teens and goes right to the source to bring you an unfiltered look into teenage life.

This podcast also happens to be dropping in the midst of a global pandemic. Millions of teens are experiencing a social disruption like never before. Kids These Days not only captures life right before COVID-19, it also sheds light on how young people are dealing with this new normal. Kids These Days will premiere on June 17, with an episode talking about race and youth voices on the frontline. It will be followed with an additional episode each Wednesday through August 12,

2020. The podcast will be available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, NPR One, or wherever you listen. A trailer is available now at michganradio.org/kidsthesedays.

The Kids These Days team includes journalism students at Community High, who report on mental health, identity and technology in their award-winning school publication, The Communicator. Producer Rachel Ishikawa has created multimedia projects with youth in Philadelphia, and was producer on WXPN’s Gospel Roots of Rock & Soul, which was nominated for a Peabody Award.

Editor Jennifer Guerra develops podcasts for Michigan Radio and was the executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning podcast, Believed. Support for Kids These Days comes from Michigan Health Endowment Fund and The Children’s Foundation.