Your kid's Instagram feed just got a TV deal

Hey Friends!

Well, we made it. Canada Day and the Fourth are behind us, which means summer is officially, unofficially, in full swing. The sprinklers are out, the freezies are flowing, and we are riproaring ready to ride this wave straight through to Labour Day.

Between backyard barbecues and the "just five more minutes in the pool" negotiations, it's easy to let the digital stuff fade into background noise this time of year. Fair enough, we're all a little more relaxed in July. But this week gave us two stories that are worth pulling out of the background for a second, because they're both about things that will change our kids' digital world while we're busy flipping burgers.

So grab your iced coffee, here's your Rundown.

Instagram wants to be your TV now

Starting this week, Instagram is testing long form, episode based shows, made by regular creators, watchable right on your Smart TV. The push is tied to Instagram for TV finally landing on Samsung devices, on top of Amazon Fire and Google TV, and it comes with the ability to cast Reels from a phone straight to the screen and watch Stories on TV too. Basically, the app that used to live entirely in your kid's hand is angling to live in your living room instead.

Here's why that matters for us: screen time limits and app rules were built around the assumption that "Instagram" means a phone in a bedroom. Once it's the TV in the family room, the whole thing gets murkier — is that "screen time" the same as watching a show? Does a downtime schedule even apply if it's cast from a phone that's supposedly locked? We're not saying panic, we're saying this is worth a gut check on how your rules are actually written. If your kid's device settings haven't been looked at since before this kind of casting was a thing, it might be time — this is the exact kind of shift the Screen Sense Guide gets ahead of, because the settings that matter change as fast as the apps do.

What AI friendship might be costing our teens

A new study looked at what happens when teens turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Replika, or Character.AI for real emotional support. And look, we all already know that teens are using AI in ways adults find troubling… we talked about it here on The CAP just last week. But the numbers found in this study are bigger than we expected. Research found that most U.S. teens now use these tools conversationally, with a meaningful chunk using them specifically for friendship or romantic advice.

The researchers flagged two things worth knowing. First, "relational displacement," which is basically when a teen reaches for the chatbot instead of a friend, partner, or family member during a hard moment, and in doing so skips the messy, real conversation that actually builds relationship skills. Second, "maladaptive relational learning," which is what happens when a teen gets used to an AI that's always validating and always available, and starts expecting real people to behave the same way. The researchers were careful to say AI isn't all bad here, it can help teens who don't have easy access to other support. But the skill-building that happens in an actual disagreement with a friend, that's not something a chatbot can replace.

This doesn’t mean we advocate for taking all access away, but we do want to remind parents to check in about who they're talking to, and why. If your teen is leaning on an AI chat for advice more than a real person, that's a good, low-pressure thing to bring up when you’re in the car or on a walk together.

We can’t stress enough how important it is for parents to get informed about how AI shows up in your kid’s life right now. It’s sometimes totally not what you might expect, and our Parent’s Guide to AI walks even the most uninformed parent through the basics and beyond. Check it out here.

Since we’re in the season of teen summer jobs, we wanted to chat about a podcast episode we released last week that changed how we think about our own kids' futures. We sat down with career coach and recruiter Emily Durham to chat about the career advice our kids actually need, and it's one of those conversations that starts about resumes and ends up being about something much bigger.

Emily's take is that in a job market being reshaped by AI, the skills that matter most for our teens aren't the technical ones, it's actually empathy, decision-making, leadership, and communication. The soft stuff. The stuff that's actually hard to teach and even harder to fake. She also made a case for some old-school moves making a comeback, like walking into a business with an actual printed resume, and gently pushed back on the idea that Gen Z is lazy about work.

If you've got a teen who's anxious about "what am I even supposed to do with my life," this episode is a good one to listen to together, or just to steal a few talking points from for your next car ride conversation.

—Cat & Nat