Parents have long battled to keep their children away from social media, but some clever tweens have found a unique hideout: the comments section of NPR's podcasts.
In the latest episode of “This American Life,” host Ira Glass reveals the story of a team at NPR who noticed a sudden influx of baffling comments on their “Wild Card” podcast’s Spotify episodes. A producer initially suspected bot-generated traffic, but an audio producer named Hannah Chin instantly identified the comments as from young middle schoolers, too young for social media, using the platform for a secret group chat.
The team reported the posts to Spotify, but Glass tracked down one of the commenting students, who simply stated, “Um, I think we just, like, looked for podcasts that didn’t have many comments.” Glass, who has hosted “This American Life” for three decades, couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pain at being outsmarted by middle schoolers.
This discovery is not the first time middle schoolers have used NPR’s comment sections. The podcast team had previously noticed similar activity on TED Radio Hour. It raises questions about the role of public radio in modern communication and the lengths to which young people will go to find a space to chat.
