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Graduating from high school is a huge rite of passage, but entering the working world, especially in uncertain economic times, can be intimidating. According to a new study, a big chunk of high school graduates say they don’t exactly feel prepared for post-school challenges, especially when it comes to a few necessary life skills. And many feel pressured to lean into influencer culture as a way to make ends meet. The national survey, which was commissioned by K12, an accredited online K through 12 school, asked 300 recent high school graduates and 200 parents about how confident they were upon entering the real world. Notably, less than a third (32%) of recent grads said they felt their high school years had equipped them. Teen boys felt less prepared than girls, with 23% rating their “real world” confidence at 3 or below on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most confident. Meanwhile, 16% of female grads said the same. Questions on where their confidence was lacking highlighted a few areas where recent grads felt most insecure, which, somewhat surprisingly, seemed to be the very rites of passage that young adults once looked forward to: 34% said they didn’t feel confident about managing their own money, 27% didn’t feel ready to live independently, and 26% cited communicating effectively as a concernperhaps a display of how online communication has peaked in recent years in lieu of in-person communication. Recent grads’ biggest fears echoed those insecurities, with 44% saying that they were worried about becoming financially secure. In addition to a challenging job market and an uncertain economy, those grads largely felt that their high schools didn’t equip them with some key life skillsmainly, financial skills. A staggering 62% said they wish they’d learned how to do their taxes, 60% said the same of being taught about credit scores and loans, and 51% also noted that they wished they had learned how to invest. Given many high school grads don’t feel quite ready for the real world, it makes sense that most teens said they plan on attending college after graduation: 90% said college is in their future. However, there was another notable trend that grads are likely to lean into after high school: becoming an influencer. More than a third, or 34% said they felt pressure from social media to become content creators or entrepreneurs, which is hardly surprising given just how common the side gig, or even full-time career, has become. But interestingly, it’s not just social media that’s steering teens toward content creation. According to the report, 56% said their high school actually encouraged students to “explore alternative career paths.” Those alternatives were things like trades, gig work, and yes, content creation. Given the lives of young adults today are so broadly shaped by social media and influencer culture, the pull to dive into content creation makes perfect sense. Still, teens are rightly worried about whether or not they have the financial literacy to turn influencing into income.
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E-Commerce
Xiaomi rolled out its new sports utility vehicle in Beijing on Thursday, as the firm best known for smartphones and consumer electronics gears up to further challenge Tesla in the world’s largest auto market. Xiaomi launched the YU7 at 13 of its Beijing showrooms and will start taking orders for the vehicle in July. It is keen to repeat the success of the sporty SU7 sedan, which launched last year and has outsold Tesla’s Model 3 on a monthly basis since December. Analysts have said the YU7 could pose a major threat to Tesla’s best-selling Model Y but its launch comes at a time when Xiaomi, a relative newcomer to China’s highly-competitive EV market, has seen new EV orders fall after a series of controversies. Chinese authorities have been investigating a fatal highway crash at the end of March involving an SU7 in driving-assistance mode and Xiaomi has apologised for “not clear enough” marketing after customer complaints of false advertising. Liu Jiaxing, a 34-year-old tech worker, was among the first visitors to Xiaomi’s flagship showroom in Beijing Oriental Plaza on Thursday morning, eager to catch a glimpse of the emerald green YU7. Liu said he was fond of the styling and colour as well as the fact that Xiaomi vehicles connect with the firm’s personal gadgets and smart home products, which he felt pointed to how local brands understood Chinese consumers better than their foreign counterparts. “I used to be more prone to U.S., German, and French car marques, but the fast progress of China’s EV sector prompts me to focus more on the products rather than brands,” he said. Another visitor was Tom van Dillen, managing partner at German management consultancy Greenkern in Beijing, who said he was not a fan of some of the YU7’s intelligent features, which he described as “unnecessary,” but said the YU7 was a formidable challenger to the Model Y. He cited a “physical ecosystem advantage in the showroom where there is a dedicated area with accessories that only fit into Xiaomi cars” and their competitive price. Xiaomi has said that it will only announce the YU7’s pricing in July. HSBC Qianhai estimated in a note last week that the new SUV will be priced between 230,000 yuan and 330,000 yuan ($31,989-$45,898) and that Xiaomi could ship 100,000 YU7 units this year and 249,000 units in 2026. The Model Y is priced from 263,500 yuan in China. ($1 = 7.1899 Chinese yuan renminbi) Qiaoyi Li and Alessandro Diviggiano, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Last weekend, an ugly rumor of a tragic death spread began rocketing around Bluesky. What made it odd was the identity of the dearly departed: Bluesky itself. Its not entirely clear what prompted this discussion, which ultimately seemed to be dominated by Bluesky fans rejecting the possibility that the social network had died (or at least jumped the shark). According to one theory, a story by Semafors Max Tani ignited the debate by mentioning Democratic congressional staffers whod given up on Bluesky after their bosses kept getting yelled at by Democratic users angry at their impotence. That doesnt sound like evidence of death to me. Another contributing factor might have been slowing user growth after millions of disaffected Twitter users arrived en masse in the wake of the U.S. November presidential election results and Elon Musks Trump boosterism. The service grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then. Again, not a sign of rigor mortis or even a dreaded vibe shift. For a social network, being prematurely written off is a rite of passage. Its even a compliment of sortsa sign that people are paying attention and care. Way back in 2014, for instance, when Twitter was still ascendant, I wrote about the fact that cranky users had started predicting its demise less than a year after it launched in 2006. So when I chatted with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber this week, I wasnt surprised that she didnt seem fazed by the debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter. Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated, she told me. It’s a similar thing, because with social sites, it’s not straight up all the time. [Growth] comes in waves, and at each stage, there’s a new era of communities being established and formed. We’re still seeing a lot of community formation, and one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It’s not just another social site that has to be a singular winner takes all in an ecosystem with existing incumbents. I spoke with Graber backstage at the Web Summit conference in Vancouver, shortly after shed been interviewed by Wireds Katie Drummond during the events Tuesday night opening session. (I should note that shes also appearing at a Fast Company event next week.) Her assertion that social networkings days of corporatized centralization are over seems manifestly true to me, and its a phenomenon bigger than Bluesky itself. In November, I stopped posting to Twitter and began using a wonderful multi-network app called OpenVibe to post to three alternatives. Bluesky is one of them. So is Mastodon, an even more grass-roots operation that makes Bluesky, with its 25 employees, look like a tech giant. And the thirdMetas Threadsactually does hail from a tech giant. Ive had rewarding experiences on all three, though Threads, which has around 10 times as many users as Bluesky, feels too much like a purposefully sterile planned community to me. I prefer havens for wandering conversations and playful weirdness, which Bluesky and Mastodon both provide at their best. All three show every sign of remaining relevant for the long haul, unlike some of the Twitter wannabes that didnt make it (RIP, T2 and Post) or turned out not to matter all that much (hello, Substack Notes). Like The Atlantics Charlie Warzel, Im surprised that so many reasonable people remain active on Twitter, which has come to resemble a dystopian carnival ride. (Exhibit A, for the moment: The bizarre recent incident in which Musks Grok bot wouldnt shut up about supposed white genocide in South Africa.) But I wouldnt argue that Twitter is dyingjust that its a disfigured shell of its former self. I dont expect any social network to replace the Twitter of yore as the internets uncontested go-to destination for real-time chatter about current events and pop culture. Bluesky, however, is still making progress in its quest to fill the hole left by Musks dismantling act. A new Pew Research Center study confirms that the presidential election results led to a major influx of news influencers at Bluesky, though even more are still on Twitter. Moreover, Bluesky is beginning to build functionality to cultivate conversations around the days events. Earlier this month, for example, the service began beta testing a feature that lets the NBA use its Bluesky profile picture as a portal that sends users to live content. The company says the WNBA account will also get the capability, whichif deployed more widelywould be pretty useful for anybody who offers live video, including individuals on YouTube and Twitch. In a roundabout way, this new Live Now feature reminds me of Twitters pricey 2016 gambit to turn itself into a live-event platform by streaming NFL games. Except all Bluesky is doing is facilitating users leaving the service to consume video elsewhere, which is both infinitely cheaper than buying sporting rights and more in line with its philosophy of knocking down social medias walled gardens. We are a pass-through so that, as a content creator, you can get users onto your site more easily, says Graber. If Bluesky is still in the process of becoming as conducive to community as Twitter once was, its also avoided some of the problems that have long dogged the older service. The Pew study showed that its news-influencer presence skews to the left, a finding that wont startle anyone whos spent time there. Any broadening of its political spectrum could result in its tenor growing more fraught. Already, it can have a snappish quality, as reflected in the congressional drubbing reported by Semafor and software kingpin Adobes hostile reception after it began posting in April. (Overly brand safe Bluesky is not.) What happens if Bluesky ever gets overrun with trolls, as Twitter was years before Musk took charge? I asked Graber about its approach to moderation, especially in a period when Meta seems quite proud of its Twitter-like decision to dramatically scale back attempts to keep the conversation on its platforms accurate and civil. We’ve always stayed lean, but we’ve always had human moderators, and we think that humans always need to be in the loop, she told me. Because ultimately, youre dealing with humans. On the other hand, there are automated systems that are constantly attacking social networks and you have to have automated systems to keep up with that. So we use a combination. The company also leverages the work of third parties who use open-source moderation tools to block spammers, she says. One other challenge that Bluesky has not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber emphasized that its working on subscription services, a healthier revenue source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A funding round last October. Graber isnt the type to declare her intention to crush the competition. In a previous conversation I had with her, she said nice things about Mastodon. Even her digs at Meta are a principled stance against social media being dominated by a few monolithic companies. But neither is she satisfied to operate a social network that may never grow to the size of a Twitter or Threads. In both her onstage interview and our subsequent chat, she was at her most passionate when discussing the companys aspiration to decentralize social networking via its open AT Protocol. It powers Blueskyand variants such as the Pinksky photo-sharing app, which she praised onstagebut could also provide the infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community. The goal is to really get through that this is a choose your own adventure and Bluesky’s just the beginning, she says. The sky’s the limit. Whether shell fulfill her grandest ambitions, Im not sure. But I already like this era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really did take all. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company As AI models start exhibiting bad behavior, it’s time to start thinking harder about AI safetyAIs that can scheme and persuade were once a theoretical concept. Not anymore. Read More Google’s second swing at smart glasses seems a lot more sensibleTo avoid another Google Glass flop, the company is focusing on design and functionality. Read More The future of online shopping is human creators and AI musicAmber Venz Box’s LTK platform helps some 350,000 creators sell to their followers. Here, she talks TikTok ban, AI-generated content, and what’s next for social commerce. Read More AI influencers are shaping Gen Z’s shopping habitsYounger social media users may care more about follower counts than authenticity, a new survey says. What does it mean for real-life creators? Read More Polaroid’s tumblr-core MoMA collab turns your photos into works of artThe exclusive collection includes a MoMA-branded Polaroid camera and custom colorful film frames. Read More This new browser could change everything you know about bookmarksNew browser Deta Surf lets you turn screenshots into bookmarks, search the text of your bookmarked pages, and even visually organize them. But is it ready for prime time? Read More
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E-Commerce
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