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Vox
26-06-2025
- General
- Vox
The hidden pressure messing with teen birthdays
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of four novels, including the forthcoming Bog Queen, which you can preorder here This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. Birthdays are supposed to be fun. You eat cake, you open presents, maybe you have a party. They can also, however, become a source of pressure and anxiety. And for many teens today, birthdays are a time when the public nature of social media and the private joys of friendship awkwardly collide. Teens often post celebratory photos or messages on their Instagram stories for friends' birthdays, Kashika, 19, told me a few weeks ago in a conversation about kids and friendship. Then the birthday kid will reshare those posts to their own account. The number of posts you share 'forms an image of how many friends you might have,' Kashika explained. Kashika, a contributor to the podcast This Teenage Life, remembered seeing classmates share tons of birthday stories, and thinking, 'Oh my God, they're so popular.' Then, on her birthday, not a single person posted a story for her. 'I felt really bad,' she said. The birthday post (or lack thereof) has become a common source of anxiety, according to experts who work with kids. Teens report 'feeling a lot of pressure to post for people's birthdays, to post in a certain way, to post efficiently, effusively,' Emily Weinstein, executive director of Harvard's Center for Digital Thriving, told me. On the flip side, teenagers worry about having enough people post on their birthdays to 'signal that you have people who really care about you' or to 'show that you have a sufficient number of friends,' Weinstein said. Birthday wishes are one way that teens feel pressure to 'perform closeness' on social media, posting photos and messages of affection publicly 'both as part of being a good friend and as a way of validating their own social acceptance and connectedness,' Weinstein and Carrie James wrote in their 2022 book, Behind Their Screens. Performing closeness isn't new — teens used to decorate one another's lockers for birthdays, Devorah Heitner, author of the book Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World, told me (we did not do this at my school, and now I feel left out). But social media adds a new layer of labor to kids' already fraught social lives, forcing them to make calculations about how to celebrate their friends online — and how to respond if their friends don't do the same for them. The pressure to post Birthdays on social media offer a whole buffet of new stressors, kids and experts told me. For one thing, posts are easier to quantify than locker decorations. 'You can literally just count the likes or count the reposts,' Heitner said. 'That's very vivid.' Even posting on other people's birthdays can be nerve-wracking, kids say. 'I used to post for every friend that I had,' Divya, 19, told me. But then she realized that other kids were only posting birthday stories for friends who had posted birthday stories for them. 'It felt very weird,' Divya said, because she didn't personally care if someone had posted a birthday message for her or not. There's also pressure to make your birthday post reflect the level of your friendship. 'If someone is your best friend, you have to make it extra special,' Divya, a This Teenage Life contributor, told me. 'You have to just do it for the sake of making your friends feel special on social media.' That pressure to craft the perfect birthday post that communicates the specialness of a friendship is part of a larger pattern, experts say. On the one hand, 'social media offer compelling opportunities to validate relationships and show public support for others,' Weinstein and James write. On the other, 'when so much of posting is an expectation and over-the-top compliments are the norm, being authentic can feel nearly impossible and knowing what's authentic can be like reading tea leaves.' The pressure to perform closeness can be exhausting and annoying, kids say. One 17-year-old, Michelle, told Weinstein and James that she'd recently gotten stressed because she liked a friend's photo but couldn't think of a comment right away. 'I get really nervous about it too, because I have to think of something quick, and it has to be something really good,' she said. Once she'd engaged by liking the post, the clock was suddenly ticking. 'There's definitely expectations to comment on a post.' Especially among younger teen girls, 'there's a feeling that if we are close, people should know we're close,' Weinstein said. If they're not representing their friendship online through likes, comments, and posts, some teens feel 'they're not somehow not doing justice to the relationship.' As Kashika put it, Instagram stories and other social media posts become 'like a declaration in society that this person is my friend.' Pushing back on the pressure Performing closeness is far from unique to teenagers — adults are doing the same thing when they post cute photos and adoring captions on their anniversaries, Heitner said. And getting fewer birthday posts than you'd like, or fewer than other people get, can feel lousy whether you're celebrating your 14th birthday or your fortieth. After all, millennials on Facebook arguably invented birthday posting culture (and stressful birthday comparisons along with it). But for teenagers, whose needs for social approval and inclusion are so high, an underwhelming birthday on Instagram can be especially hard, Heitner said. Luckily, teens are developing some of their own ways of coping with the pressure social media puts on their friendships. Some are just using Instagram less in general, Heitner said. 'It is socially acceptable now to be a kid who's like, 'I don't really like this. I barely check it.'' Others are learning to draw a distinction between performed closeness and the real thing. Kashika felt bad 'for a while' when no one posted on her birthday, she told me. But 'then I thought, no, this is just part of social media,' she said. 'It does not actually depict our real friendship. And then my mood got a little better.' What I'm reading Families are reporting disturbing conditions at Texas immigration detention facilities, including adults fighting with children for clean water, and a lack of medical care for a boy with a blood disorder whose feet became so swollen he couldn't walk. The Trump administration is reinstating some research contracts at the Education Department that were initially terminated by DOGE, including a study on how to help kids with reading difficulties. The idea of giving kids a ''90s summer' may be a fantasy now that YouTube exists. My little kid and I have been revisiting Arnold Lobel's Mouse Soup, which includes stories about a lady who becomes obsessed with a rosebush growing out of her couch, and some rocks who learn the power of perspective. From my inbox When I talk to teens, I like to ask them what adults these days get wrong about young people. What don't we understand? Now I'm posing this to you — whether you're a kid or an adult with kids in your life, what do you think grown-ups are getting wrong? What aspects of kids' lives today need to be demystified or explained? Let me know at
Hindustan Times
30-05-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Ranveer, Krish finish fifth in boys team competition; Saanvi, Kashika end eighth in girls event
Hong Kong, Indian amateurs Ranveer Mitroo and Krish Chawla registered a fifth-place finish in the boys' team competition after posting a combined total of four-over 430 in the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation Junior Championship here. In the individual girls' event, Saanvi Somu carded a two-over 74 in the final round to end her campaign in a creditable 10th place. Her compatriot Kashika, still recovering from illness, posted an improved three-over 75 to finish the tournament in 19th position. The Indian pair of Kashika and Saanvi finished eighth with a combined score of 16-over 448 in the girls' team event. In the mixed team event, the Indian duo of Krish and Saanvi ended their campaign in 13th position at 11-over 437. The Chinese combo of Jin Heng Yan and Jin Han won the boys' team title with a tally of four-under 422. Ranveer continued his golden run in the event by submitting a modest two-over 73 in the third and final round to finish sixth in the individual event. His overall total read two-under 211, the best among the four-member team sent by the Indian Golf Union . Krish finished 22nd with a three-round total of six-over 219. New Zealand's Cooper Moore clinched the boys' individual title by a two-stroke margin over Tuan Anh Nguyen of Vietnam with a three-day total of nine-under 204. Ranveer, 16, felt that the tournament offered him an "invaluable learning experience" and that he gained a better understanding of his strengths and areas that require improvement. "Competing in a field like the GC Juniors has given me a significant confidence boost. Being surrounded by talented players and experiencing the competitive atmosphere has motivated me to push my limits. "I realised that I can hold my own against strong competitors, which has reinforced my belief in my abilities," Ranveer said.
India Gazette
28-05-2025
- Sport
- India Gazette
APGC Junior Championship: Ranveer cards 69 to finish tied fourth after opening round; Kashika placed tied 10th
New Delhi [India], May 28 (ANI): Ranveer Mitroo led the Indian charge by carding a brilliant two-under 69 to be placed tied fourth after the opening round of the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) Junior Championship here at the Hong Kong Golf Club. The Indian Golf Union (IGU) sent a four-member team to compete in the prestigious tournament. Ranveer, 16, began his round with birdies on the second and fifth holes before stumbling upon a bogey on the ninth hole. The Delhi amateur bogeyed on the 16th after six straight pars but the junior India No. 1 for 2024 showed glimpses of top form by making quick amends with back-to-back birdies on the remaining two holes for his eventual tally. Pleased with his round, Ranveer said: 'The round was pretty okay. I made some good recoveries but also some silly errors. My approach for tomorrow is to rest well and analyze my statistics of today, to avoid making the mistakes I made today. I think an overall improvement about decision-making and execution is something I would want to work on.' His compatriot Krish Chawla, the current junior India No. 1, was placed tied 16th after carding a modest one-over 72. Krish had a thrilling topsy-turvy round as he sank an eagle and three birdies against three bogeys and a triple bogey. Vietnam's Tuan Anh Nguyen submitted a card of six-under 65 to sit atop the leaderboard, a stroke adrift of New Zealand's Cooper Moore. The Indian pair of Ranveer and Krish were placed fifth in the boys team competition with a combined total of one-under 141. Australian duo of Hamish Farquharson and Cooper Giddings were placed on top of the standings with an overall tally of three-under 139. In the girls' section, Delhi's Kashika Mishra kept the Indian Tricolour flying high by posting a one-over 73 to be placed tied 10th. Her compatriot Saanvi Somu finished Round 1 in joint 17th spot. Kashika, the current India No. 1 in both the junior and amateur categories, sank two birdies against a bogey on the front nine and followed it up with three bogeys and a birdie on the back nine for her final score. The Indian pair of Kashika and Saanvi were ranked seventh with a combined score of four-over 148 after Round 1, 11 strokes behind the Thailand duo of Kritchanya Kaopattanaskul and Prim Prachnakorn and South Korean pair of Seojin Park and Yunseo Yang. In the mixed team event, the Indian pair of Ranveer and Kashika were lying in joint seventh position at even-par 142. (ANI)
