It's 3 p.m. Do You Know What Teens Are Doing?

# What this piece covers

This is an interview-based opinion that centers on a specific, time-bound view of teen life: what teens do after school. Mike Goldstein, founder of the Center for Teen Flourishing and former Match Education CEO, describes the center as an R&D lab focused on the 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. hours and offers practical steps schools and communities can take to increase teens' engagement in "real-life" activities.

# The problem as described

# How the center defines flourishing

Flourishing uses a concrete behavioral definition: teens who spend 15 hours per week outside of school on ''real-life'' activities such as sports, music, work, or socializing with friends. The interview acknowledges the 15-hour cutoff is an arbitrary but actionable target meant to move the needle.

# Proposed solutions and interventions

Goldstein and the interviewer suggest several practical approaches schools and communities can adopt:

• A Race to the Top for high-school flourishing: a competitive, state-level push to increase the share of teens reaching the 15-hour target.
• Use school advisory periods to identify students who are languishing and to help them select an activity to join.
• Hire dedicated connectors (recent college graduates or link workers) whose job is to connect teens to after-school activities and community supports—similar to social prescribing models used elsewhere.

These ideas rest on the belief that communities often have unused capacity—open slots in extracurriculars and willing community groups—but lack adults who actively recruit and guide teens into those activities.

# The role of screens

The interview reframes the screen debate to focus on total recreational screen time rather than only social media. The center views six or more hours of recreational screen time per day as displacing sleep, exercise, friendships, and other activities that contribute to flourishing.

# What this means for educators and parents

The recommendations give educators concrete roles: use advisory time for outreach, consider hiring staff whose explicit responsibility is to link students with activities, and partner with community organizations to fill available slots. For parents, the framing suggests limiting recreational screen time and prioritizing opportunities for teens to spend structured hours in non-screen activities.

# Bottom line

The argument is practical and behavioral: increase teens' weekly hours in real-world activities, reduce recreational screen time, and use targeted adult support to bridge teens into those activities. The Center for Teen Flourishing sets a measurable target (15 hours per week) and offers policy and school-level tactics intended to move struggling teens toward that target.