In this episode of Digital Dominoes, host Angeline Corvaglia interviews Sahaj Vaidya, an AI policy expert at SuperAlign. They explore how traditional cultural expectations influence the way children present themselves online, with a focus on the unique pressures faced by Indian adolescents. Sahaj discusses the balance between maintaining family values and embracing digital transformation, the impact of this duality on mental health, and the efforts by NGOs and schools to impart digital literacy. The episode looks at the generational gap in digital adoption, the influence of Western-trained AI models, and the importance of creating culturally tailored AI solutions. The conversation concludes with strategies for encouraging healthy social media habits and the potential role of social media in promoting diversity and authentic self-expression.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

01:02 Cultural Perspectives on Digital Personas

03:00 Generational Differences in Digital Adaptation

04:30 Impact of Social Media on Adolescents

06:47 Efforts to Improve Digital Literacy

13:55 Challenges and Solutions for Families

17:53 Conclusion and Farewell 

Special thanks to

Sahaj Vaidja for taking time to be a part of this episode!

Follow Sahaj on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahaj-vaidya-80624b129/

Episode sponsored by Data Girl and Friends

They are on a mission to build awareness and foster critical thinking about AI, online safety, privacy, and digital citizenship. They inspire the next generation to navigate the digital world confidently and responsibly through fun, engaging, and informative content. They focus on empowering young digital citizens and their families through engaging and informative learning.

Find out more at: https://data-girl-and-friends.com/

List of Data Girl and Friends materials about some of the topics covered:

• Article about protecting your authentic self when online: How to Balance Your Online Persona and Authenticity - Data Girl and Friends
• Educational workbook to do with your digital native, "Authenticity and Your Online Self" Authenticity and Your Online Self - 1
• Educational about safe usage of social media https://vimeo.com/916722746

Contact us for any questions or comments: https://digi-dominoes.com/contact-us/ 

Thank you so much for being here. It's great to see you again. Hi, thank you so much for having me on this session today. Feels really great to be here and connect with you once again after a long period of time. And this also gives me an opportunity to connect with the audience and share my insights and experience based on the research that I have done.

So I think it's really interesting because you're from India originally, so it will be a different perspective compared to what I even know at all. [00:01:30] Right. That makes sense. So actually, all of us know that India is a vast and very populous country, and it's a quite unique mix of different culture and traditions, different languages, people have varied backgrounds, ethnicities.

So for example, I want to go online and post something on say Instagram, then I would be a little hesitant for a few seconds and think like, huh, when will my family think about me if I post something like this, so the family values, the family expectations and thinking. Take a front seat. That's interesting.

So have you seen any kind of [00:03:00] development? So now that with the advent of these kind of tools, I wouldn't necessarily emphasize on AI, but I would rather focus on the digital transformation. So I would say now that India has also gone a very drastic digital transformation in the last almost five to seven years, people are kind of becoming a little more aware about the online life, like what it looks like to post online or how you can create your image [00:03:30] online and things like that.

So people are opening up and adapting to those things. But for people above a certain age, accepting those things is really difficult. Whereas for teens, adolescents, And maybe parents who are in their maybe early 30s or like that, but then it's becoming a daily norm. But for people above that age barrier, it's still a far away thing.

But if there's such a strong cultural, I would say, avergence [00:04:30] to it. This actually leads to adolescents creating kind of two separate personas. One for the family and the elders, showcasing, you know, kind of respectful, traditional behavior. And another for their peers and friends, which may be more adventurous and expressive in nature.

And it's also in kind of the social media's popularity, this drive to highlight success online, it only leads to heightened stress and feelings of inadequacy. Yeah, exactly. I think that's a general problem, but even more so if you are not able to ever express yourself fully a hundred percent, because I know I'm.

Because the online world, the digital world is simply a part of life, as where someone of [00:06:00] my generation, it's still, it's like the online world and offline world feel very separate. But for the digital natives, it's not like that. The online world is more of a reality. So that must be really difficult. Exactly.

And this loop creates a constant pressure to perform in whatever domain you are doing or academically present a polished digital image of yourself. Are there any movements to kind of help them? So actually, um, right now there are some kind of NGOs, uh, and nonprofit organizations which are coming forward in [00:07:00] this domain to give impart education about digital literacy to kids, uh, children in their teens or adolescent age.

But of course, you need to strike a balance between What is good to show and what should not be shown. Exactly, yeah. Yes, so schools these days are imparting this kind of education or providing literacy on the same to students in their early days so that they can know how they can use the social media platforms with a sense of discretion.

And the younger generation will then be put in a position to actually teach the older generation how they should maybe be using social media, because there's whole, I mean, [00:08:30] generations of people who didn't get any kind of digital literacy, so they don't know. I remember when Facebook first came out, and there was a debate about this sharenting, about people were putting all the pictures of their kids online, whether it's good or bad.

Right. And you know, what happens with these social media platforms is that they are mainly their algorithms. are designed in a way to attract these younger audiences. But now if you see the shifting landscape, uh, you're in India, I've seen that now Facebook [00:09:30] is mostly used by people in their forties and fifties.

It's a very good point that you make that because these algorithms are trained somewhere else in the world in the western region, um, somewhere in the U.S. or maybe the European Union. So the societal and cultural norms play a very important role. So now, now we know that the AI models work on the training data that is fed to them.

I think since last one and a half to two years, there are a few startups in Southern India who are performing very good in [00:11:30] terms of producing their own large language models, tailored to Indian languages, custom-made for several Indian languages, so that it can be put into deployment even for the most common people of the society.

I am an American. I grew up in America. I left it around 30 years ago, and even 30 years ago I was pretty shocked about how much of the American culture was there even before internet. And, and now it's something that worries me a lot that a lot of these diversity is at risk of being lost. India [00:12:30] is such a powerful and big culture and what better place to have those kinds of initiatives and show, you know, we can create our own LLMs.

Like, by normalizing the diverse background and realistic portrayals. These platforms can help adolescents, like, feel comfortable presenting their authentic selves online. Exactly. And I really do want to I want to believe that this is a direction that we will all go in. I think that at some point we will, [00:13:30] because it's just a natural, more people will figure out how much their opinions and viewpoints are being kind of controlled by someone else's ideas of what's good and what's correct.

So missing out on social events or not participating in popular online trends can lead to a kind of feeling of alienating themselves or loneliness and it can also create tension within the household impacting their emotional well-being. Because in India, the system is that [00:14:30] family comes first. So everyone is pretty attached to each other within the family.

So one of the first things is to teach critical thinking about media. and encourage healthy social media use like parents can foster the healthy habits by encouraging screen-free times discussing the purpose of social media and monitoring usage without being overly invasive. That is also one of the important things.

I can't imagine a situation where my parents, when I was a teenager, knew exactly where I was going, where I was, who I was speaking to, what I was doing. That [00:16:00] would have been very difficult, and I would have probably looked for ways around it, as any teen would. So, yeah, that balance is, is really, really important to find.

And I think this is an advantage. It can be an advantage because these are things that are more and more getting lost. And adolescents who grow up their culture telling them that they have to weigh the traditions and the online world will actually be in a better position to be leaders, right? Because they will know how to find that balance where in other cultures, maybe it's [00:17:00] not, there's not that much pressure to have to find that balance.

And that's what I think when I think of the kids around here. Have you, uh, had that same experience? Right. Because as you mentioned that in, uh, the place where you live currently, family bears more importance. Similar is the case if you're in India. So, the parents and the family members who kind of model a balanced approach to social media can have a very positive influence on adolescence.

Exactly. Thank you. And I think that's a, we could talk about this for such a long time, but I try to keep these episodes short. Thank [00:18:00] you so much for, for your time. I love every time we, we get to talk. I'm watching your work from a distance on LinkedIn and I just love how much energy you're putting into the digital world.

I appreciate it. And thank you for having me here today. Thank you. Bye.

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