What WILL we talk about when we talk about thriving?
Everyone knows the old adage, “a listening tour is only as good as its interview protocol,” right? Right? No?
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In this issue: I write about the questions I’ll ask on the Listening Tour and how I’m testing them out. I end by inviting you to our first Open Lab Meeting and, as always, sharing a glimpse into my own thriving – this one’s a video!
BUT FIRST, THIS IS ME RN 👇
I’ve spent countless Focusmate sessions this week filling out an IRB protocol for the Listening Tour. IRB stands for “Institutional Review Board,” and the “protocol” is a Microsoft Word document with lots of questions about what data we’ll collect, how we’ll get consent, etc. Basically, it’s a required step in the research process that helps researchers reflect on the ethical implications of their research before they get started. IRBs are important. They protect participants, minimize harm, and inform people of their rights.
Since the Listening Tour spans a bunch of different scenarios for collecting data — from casual conversations with strangers on a train all the way to recorded interviews with a minor — this IRB is particularly gnarly. The page count has already swelled to over 50, and I’m still not done!
I’ll have more to share on this next week, when I am finished with it goshdarnit.
NOW, ABOUT THOSE QUESTIONS
In prep for the IRB process, I drafted several questions to ask on the listening tour. I built upon questions we’ve used and know work well, and I added questions that I thought would help me define “digital thriving.” I put them in a Google Doc, Loomed my thoughts, and shared them with Em, the director of the Center. Here’s what that looked like:
Em responded with insightful feedback and drafted a revised set of questions. I then created a new version of the document and invited the team to give feedback. CJ, the co-founder and managing director of the Center followed up with additional insights, some of which are screen-grabbed below.
Next, I incorporated their feedback into a third version of the questions and scheduled time with a group of students at PZ to workshop them.
Aside:
As a reminder, PZ = Project Zero. See last week’s issue for more about how the Center for Digital Thriving fits within this ecosystem.
About ten graduates students met with me on a Friday morning. We had an hour together, and in that time, I wanted to see how people answered our questions and to get their advice for moving forward with the Listening Tour. An hour isn’t a ton of time, but thankfully, I have a tried and true way to quickly get a group of people into a space of meaningful conversation. It’s called “Clint’s Circle.”
CLINT’S CIRCLE?
Clint’s Circle is an activity that was born one afternoon, probably around 2018 or so, in a class on the University of Washington’s campus. I was completing a teaching practicum — a required part of my doctoral program — with my advisor, David Levy. A student in the course, Clint, had attended Evergreen as an undergrad, which is famous for its progressive, learner-centric pedagogy.
Clint said that many of his classes at Evergreen facilitated lecture discussions by going around in a circle and giving everyone a chance to reflect. If there was time, everyone went around again and had a chance to reply to others. We’d already introduced a set of reflection questions for class that day, so we chose to use those as the starting point of the circle. Everyone picked one question to answer when it was their turn.
I’ve conducted many of these circles in the years since, and I’ve found that the key to a fruitful experience is a good set of questions, which, thanks to Em and CJ, is precisely what I had!
TESTING THE QUESTIONS
I started the student workshop by asking everyone to freewrite for five minutes on the following prompt: How do you know when you’re thriving generally? How do you know when you’re thriving in your relationship with tech? Then, we jumped right into Clint’s Circle. Here are the questions I used:
A good set of Clint’s Circle questions offers several ways into the conversation. Question ➊ builds on the freewriting prompt, so it’s a bit easier to answer if you don’t like thinking on your feet. Questions ➋ and ➌ invite you to share your opinion by telling a personal story or reflecting on your observation of others. And question ➍ invites those who are particularly creative to think out loud.
These questions worked great. The students had excellent answers and advice, and I learned a ton. As it almost always does, Clint’s Circle created a space for us to be honest with each other and for every voice to be heard.
SEE, THINK, WONDER TIME 🕺
What did I notice in trying out the questions for the first time? Let’s use the thinking routine “See, Think, Wonder” on my workshop notes to to explore what I’m learning.
Aside: “See, Think, Wonder” is a thinking routine created by PZ researchers Shari Tishman and David Perkins, who, by the by, have their own Substack and podcast, Thinkability. I wrote all about it last week.
What do I 🔭 see?
When I look at the notes I took during the workshop, I first notice the variation in responses a single question can evoke. For example, the “Do you think it’s possible…” question prompted one person to talk about how establishing rigid boundaries for teens around tech wasn’t fair, or even possible. At the same time, another person took the same question in a direction of fears around AI, in particular how it might affect teens’ cognitive development. Several of the questions showed this variation.
What do I 💭 think?
I think we have a solid set of questions that will evoke a range of interesting responses. The last question though — the one about 2030 — may be hard for some (most?) people to answer. It takes a certain kind of vulnerability to imagine the future and describe it. Not everyone’s going to be up for that. I’m holding onto the question for now because it may inform the definition of digital thriving in ways only our vulnerable imaginations can. Still, I’m watching it carefully as I continue to test out these questions.
What do I 🌀 wonder?
I wonder about this distinction between thriving in general and thriving digitally. Honestly, it feels like the crux of the whole Listening Tour. Understanding that distinction, if there is one, will help us understand how tech is and is not affecting us, positively and negatively.
I’m curious, what do 🫵 you wonder?
We’re having our first ✨Open Lab Meeting✨ on Monday (1 pm Eastern), and I’ll be running a version of Clint’s Circle on these same listening tour questions. Please join us! And if open lab meetings aren’t your scene, I’ve made a sharable version of our interview protocol just for you. Either way, I invite your comments and reflections!
SEE YOU AT OPEN LAB ON MONDAY?
If not, next week! In the meantime, I’ll be back in that IRB Word document like:
p.s. A video this week! Enjoy this slow-mo of Marilyn and Lewis on the beach yesterday. Love that floppy tongue and the cheeky look on his face as he runs by.