For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, YouTube is the top storytelling platform. That’s what the 5th annual Teens and Screens Report from the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA found.
The study surveyed more than 1,500 adolescents whose ages ranged from 10 to 24 years old about their perceptions, opinions and beliefs when it came to TV shows, movies, video games, AI and social media. For adults, the term “stories” is often limited to TV and movies, but this younger demographic had a more flexible understanding of the term. Almost three-fourths (72.9%) of respondents ranked YouTube as the top medium for storytelling, and nearly four out of five respondents said that short-form videos can tell a story. That was followed by TV shows (70.3%), movies (70.2%) and video games (68.5%).
The study also dove into participants’ opinions on AI. When it came to programs about AI, about 44% of 10-to-13-year-olds described those programs as “fascinating” and only 9.7% used negative words like “doom” to describe their feelings. Those negative emotions increased as participants got older. By age 19, “doom” was the dominate emotion when it came to AI, describing how 27.4% of participants felt, and only 17.7% reported feeling “excitement.”
“The gatekeepers have changed and young people themselves are deciding what they want to watch and what they want to see more of in the content they choose,” said Yalda T. Uhls, founder and CEO of CSS as well as the senior author of the study and adjunct professor in UCLA’s psychology department. “Industry leaders need to ‘tune-in’ to young people themselves as well as the experts who have positive youth development and their well-being in mind. This year’s report clearly illustrates that that is the key to creating quality content that wins over today’s youth.”
There are other interesting tidbits from the study. For example, only 16.8% of participants said they would cast an influencer in a movie or TV show, while nearly 40% said they would rather cast an unknown actor. That preference can be seen directly this year in “Obsession” star Inde Navarrette’s meteoric rise. Similarly, seeing a new movie in theaters was the top-ranked choice for a weekend activity if money and logistics were not constraints.
Live-action content ranked higher than animation, and relatable stories were listed as the most important type of content kids and young adults want to watch. When asked what kinds of stories they want to see, the top three responses were “hopeful, uplifting stories with people beating the odds,” “friendships and social groups” and “people with lives like mine.” About 55% of participants said that they want to see more neurodivergent characters on screen.
Also, romance was again unpopular. A little more than half of respondents (57.3%) said they wanted to see more platonic relationships on screen, and 52% said that romantic relationships in media are more central to the lives of fictional characters than they are in reality.
The demographic makeup of study participants reflected the latest U.S. Census when it came to race and gender. Support for the research was provided by Roblox, Disney, YouTube, Hopelab, the Nielsen Foundation and Warner Brothers Discovery.
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