Amplify Utah supports and facilitates dynamic journalistic storytelling to celebrate diverse points of view. By partnering with traditional media, we cultivate an environment that encourages stories be shared widely and made easily accessible for our communities to read, hear, watch and engage.
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"It [is] so important to Utah history that we don’t brush this under the rug."
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On the east end of Salt Lake Community College’s South City campus, spanning a large section of the wall across from its multipurpose room, there hangs an acknowledgement of several of the largest Native American tribes in Utah.
Eight flags suspended in polished wooden frames herald the emblems of eight sovereign Indigenous nations. Behind the flags, a map of Utah hangs on the wall, behind a thin layer of protective glass. The map shows the regions of Utah where each nation is from, and where they exist today.
On SLCC’s Taylorsville Redwood campus, directly east of the student center, an expertly designed rock formation juts up towards the sky. Atop one of the red boulders is a raised plaque, in weighty bronze. An identical plaque hangs on the wall next to the map of the Utah nations in South City’s back hallway.
“Salt Lake Community College is located on the Native American shared territory of the Goshute, Navajo, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute People,” both plaques read. “We honor the original ancestors of this land and also offer respect to our other tribal communities. We acknowledge this history to cultivate respect for and advocate with our Indigenous students and communities still connected to this land.”
Without Joseph Du Shane-Navanick, the plaques and their dedication wouldn’t exist. As part of his work in the college’s Office of Diversity of Multicultural Affairs, Du Shane-Navanick was directly responsible for the installation of the two land acknowledgements in early 2022.
His brother, Joey Du Shane-Navanick, has also held several vital positions within the diversity office, the college’s student association and the American Indian Student Leadership Club.
Together, the Du Shane-Navanick brothers work daily, they said, to ensure Native American heritage is recognized – and fostered – on SLCC campuses.
Joey and Joseph Du Shane-Navanick, twin brothers from the Northern Ute tribal band of Utah, trace their ancestors to the White River Ute band, which was forcibly consolidated over years of colonialist expansion and government treaties, they said.
The Uintah and Ouray Reservation, where the brothers grew up, covers much of the northeast region of Utah. It is an expansive piece of land, spanning more than 4.5 million acres and making it the second-largest reservation in the United States.
For the Du Shane-Navanicks, the road from reservation life to college was anything but straightforward, they said. Joey’s Vernal high school, he said, did not adequately guide or prepare him for the competitive college application process.
“No one told me to do extracurricular activities. No one even told me that good grades were part of it,” he said. “No one said, ‘Distinguish yourself, it’s a competition.’”
The University of Utah rejected his application, but Joey Du Shane-Navanick was determined to go to college. So, with the encouragement of the U.’s admissions office, he enrolled at SLCC.
“There really wasn’t another option for me,” he said.
Together, the brothers moved from the rural reservation to the bustling environment of Salt Lake City. They settled in an apartment near SLCC’s Taylorsville Redwood campus, and Joey Du Shane-Navanick started classes while his brother worked as a mechanic.
Something in the homework he brought home one night piqued Joseph Du Shane-Navanick’s interest, he said. His brother was taking a foundations of business with Prof. Ed Engh. Engh, as part of the curriculum, included a discussion of philosophy in the coursework.
That sparked an interest in business, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said, and soon Joseph enrolled at SLCC, in the same program as his brother. But there were still adjustments to be made.
“The reservation life feels different,” Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said of the fish-out-of-water sensation the brothers experienced when first attending classes at SLCC.
“I’m not treated as a foreign thing [on the reservation],” Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said. “As [soon as] you step off the reservation, you get tokenized, or you get treated like a mystical person. I’ve gotten comments like, ‘I thought Native Americans were extinct,’ or, ‘Do they really have reservations still?’”
The uncomfortable conversations and lack of a community led the brothers to getting involved with SLCC’s diversity office and the American Indian Student Leadership club, they said.
Clashing cultural differences, like those experienced by the brothers after leaving their home, can be anxiety-inducing, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said. Even the simplest of misunderstandings can make someone from a minority population feel uneasy, or worse, unwelcome, he said.
For instance, even introducing oneself is done differently in their Northern Ute upbringing, they said. When meeting someone new, both brothers were taught to say their first name, followed by their family name, and finally, that of their extended family.
“The thought is, you’re not only meeting me, but the people I represent,” Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said.
When meeting with other groups and leaders at SLCC, the Du Shane-Navanicks said they felt out of place during introductions and began explaining to classmates, peers, faculty and college staff their introduction style and the meaning behind it. Acknowledging these cultural differences, Joseph said, provides a place of acceptance among the majority voice and diversifies viewpoints of those at the table.
“[It’s] the bare minimum,” he said. “I would like to see diversity along with resources and calls to action. It’s important to understand different cultures, their perspectives and what they [actually] need.”
The brothers began engaging with other students and staff at the diversity office and promoting cultural recognition across SLCC campuses, from conference room tables to study hall desks, as part of their positions with the American Indian Student Leadership club.
Before graduating this spring, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick worked as a specialist intern to the director of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, where he organized and taught lessons in an on-campus Brother 2 Brother program, a part of a national student organization designed to improve the educational experience for Native Indigenous, African American, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander and other underrepresented students.
As program facilitator, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said he leaned into his culture, incorporating a traditional Indigenous concept called the “medicine wheel” into his teaching. Split into four “slices,” the medicine wheel represents the mind, body, soul and the spirit of an individual.
For his purposes, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick said he used the medicine wheel to teach positive masculinity.
“It helps me teach what I’ve learned from my culture in a symbol that people will understand,” he said. “There are different parts to the medicine wheel, but it’s a whole thing, so it helps me teach wholeness, spirituality, as well as a person’s place in the world.”
Before graduating, Joseph Du Shane-Navanick served as president of the AISL club, where his brother is now vice president. The club had slipped into inactivity before the Du Shane-Navanicks first came to SLCC, and two years ago, they worked to re-establish the club on campus.
Now open to all, the club offers a space where Indigenous students and faculty can discuss their different cultures and heritages. The club also educates those at the college more broadly about Indigenous peoples in the Salt Lake Valley and on its campus.
Winter Rex, who works with the brothers as student success coordinator for Native American students at the diversity office, said the club helps Native students know there is a community for them at SLCC.
“When people think of Native Americans, a lot of people think of the past or think we’re not here anymore. But we are, and we’re normal people, too,” Rex said.
While plaques at the South City and Taylorsville campuses acknowledge SLCC sits on Native land, Rex and the Du Shane-Navanick brothers said they are working to expand this across the college and within the community.
Land acknowledgement, Rex said, has caught steam lately, both as a concept and a trend. However, it is not enough, she said, to simply read or hear once that SLCC sits on Native land.
“No matter where you are, you’re always on someone’s traditional territory,” she said. “Land acknowledgement means that you always know that you are on traditional territory. It’s in your everyday knowledge.”
Rex compared this type of understanding to a math formula that isn’t forgotten after the next test, but built upon with further knowledge.
Land acknowledgment, Rex said, should should include a study of history. By seeking to understand the persecution, exile and genocide Native Americans experienced in this country, she said, people are better able to gain a fuller picture of Native issues now.
Joseph and Joey Du Shane-Navanick said they hope to parlay their degrees — in political science and business, respectively — to create a better environment for students coming to SLCC from reservations.
The goal, Joey Du Shane-Navanick said, is to “create a pipeline for kids who want to come off the reservation and … help them holistically, whether that’s transferring to a college or a technical school, or something else entirely. [We want to help] make that transitional move from reservation life to city life. It isn’t easy.”
Kyle Forbush wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Kyle Forbush wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
This story is jointly published as part of the Utah College Media Collaborative, a cross-campus project bringing together emerging journalists from Salt Lake Community College, Southern Utah University, the University of Utah, Utah Tech University and Weber State University. The collaborative is an Amplify Utah project with support from PBS Utah and POV.
As gaming worlds grow larger, more detailed, and increasingly intense, the debate persists about the influence of video games on mental health and whether they can “rot” the brain.
It all started with a single flicker: pixelated shapes, aligning blocks, stacking sets, and scoring points. The thrill was in the simplicity, controlling over dancing pixels on a TV screen.
Then came the era of adventure, where the journey through a mushroom kingdom captivated a generation.
These early games weren’t deep or long, but they hooked players in a way that forever changed and set a new norm of social culture.
Fast forward to today, and the stakes are even higher. It’s no longer clearing lines or jumping over obstacles. Now, players are controlling super soldiers in an intergalactic war, competing in front of thousands of fans inside a sold-out arena.
This question has echoed through generations, from the old-school arcade days to the rise of online multiplayer communities, the explosive growth of streaming platforms and the impact of esports.
In 2024, the Oxford University Press named “brain rot” as its word of the year, making it the second year in a row that a Gen Z/Alpha-influenced term has shaped the course of where communication is heading.
The term has grown beyond meme references, becoming a target of criticism of modern digital media consumption.
“I can see why people think gaming is brain rot, you can definitely take it that far. But the term is kind of overused,” said Spencer Tracy, student and captain of the Halo Esports team.“It’s more about overexposure to [the] media in general. That’s not just video games — that’s social media, movies, and the millions of ads we see every day. You can get brain rot from anything if you overconsume it.”
Ironically, Gen Z and Gen Alpha — the same groups creating and consuming digital content — have also embraced the term “brain rot” on social media, one of the various platforms accused of causing it.
“It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of social media that they’ve inherited” stated Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages.
Gaming has long faced criticism for its impact on players. Parents, educators and psychologists have debated its influence for decades, questioning whether it inspires creativity and strategic thinking or fuels addiction and social withdrawal.
The rise of platforms like Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and Kick has only increased discussion as thousands of players spend hours on streaming instead of engaging in real-world activities.
While some view gaming as a contributor to so-called “brain rot,” others see video games as tools for learning, skill development, social bonding and even professional opportunities.
With gaming reaching more than $100 billion in revenue in 2023 and esports becoming a legitimate competitive platform, students and faculty express how gaming provides them with entertainment, community building and personal growth. To these gamers, games have far surpassed the meaning of “just playing games”; they have become a cultural bridge to a new era of communication.
Coach Jeff Sosa, director of SLCC’s Esports program, highlights how gaming is misunderstood by many, particularly older generations.
"I think a lot of older generations think of gaming as 'brain rot' because they don't understand how gaming activates or excites people," Sosa said.
"Much like how not everyone likes all sports, and not every sport has everyone's interest, but older generations don’t struggle with its appeal because you can physically see the action,” he said. “However, there isn’t much physical action in video games.”
Sosa acknowledged some games are simply made to be addictive and could be considered a "brain rot" style of game. He also said some people just use video games as their form of brain rot to pass the time.
“It's a fine line because the activity [gaming] can do both, unlike some forms of physical sports."
However, Sosa believes esports can shift the narrative by providing a competitive outlet that challenges players in ways that many may not expect.
“College esports helps show that there is a serious side to gaming, and if you think someone is good at gaming, they can prove it. You’d be surprised how many students think they are good at gaming but refuse to actually play an esports game that their program supports,” Sosa said.
According to Sosa, SLCC’s Esports not only offers a platform for competition but also an opportunity for gamers to prove their skills while challenging the "brain rot" stereotype and fostering a sense of community and pride.
For SLCC gaming students, the esports program stands as a testament to gaming’s ability to create meaningful connections and even shape personal identities through an ever-changing college environment.
For Tracy, gaming, and being a part of the Halo team, is more than a competition, it's about community.
“I love gaming, I love Halo, and I love building teams and bringing people together. When a local tournament can bring hundreds of people together from all over the world to just play Halo, that's a pretty special thing.”
Former and current SLCC esports players echo the feeling. Luis Vilchez, a former member of the Halo team, sees gaming as a natural extension and contributor to his competitive drive.
“It has improved my communication and chemistry with my teammates drastically on and offline,” Vilchez said.
Isabelle “Fluffy” Saunders, current member of SLCC Overwatch team, found a deeper connection through gaming.
“Most of my friends and the people I meet have been through esports,” Saunders said. “I definitely [have] grown a lot as [a] person playing video games because a big part of competition is communication. I've always struggled with communicating. I feel like learning how to act in a virtual environment really helped me understand that a lot better, it just made me more comfortable because I got more confident in talking in real life.”
Outside of esports, two SLCC students and casual gamers also challenge the idea that video games contribute to brain rot.
Ayad Al Samaray, a 19-year-old computer science major, sees a distinction between gaming and the mindless content consumption known as “doom scrolling.”
“Brain rot to me, is short-form media found on platforms like TikTok, and is something that is low effort with a negative impact on your mind ... I would definitely not categorize most video games as brain rot,” Al Samaray said.
“The furthest I'd go is to say that some of the communities overlap, but video games at the source are not brain rot,” he said.
Ryan Castrita-Morales, a 19-year-old majoring in health science, acknowledges gaming has the potential to become something that consumes one’s time, but believes it's about personal responsibility.
“I don't think all games are brain rot, but it's easy to turn off your brain and waste time on them,” Castrita-Morales said. “Gaming is a way to connect with people from around the world and insert yourself into the story of a video game. I think it's great entertainment and enrichment, but it's up to you to manage your time to avoid it from becoming an addiction.”
Gerardo Galvez-Zamora reported and wrote this story as a communication student at Salt Lake Community College.
This story is jointly published as part of the Utah College Media Collaborative, a cross-campus project bringing together emerging journalists from Salt Lake Community College, Southern Utah University, the University of Utah, Utah Tech University and Weber State University. The collaborative is an Amplify Utah project with support from PBS Utah and POV.
When Luigi Mangione was arrested for shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in December, Gen Z quickly turned the tragedy into memes across Instagram, X and TikTok. The online reaction — ranging from grief to celebration — sparked debates about the appropriateness of such dark humor.
“[Dark humor] can use language or things that have happened that you shouldn’t be joking about, but that’s what the jokes are sometimes,” said Garrett Balok, a general studies major from Utah Tech University.
For Gen Z, individuals born between 1997 and 2012, this type of dark humor serves a purpose beyond mere entertainment, often functioning as a coping mechanism for mental health challenges. According to Harmony Healthcare IT, 42% of Gen Z have been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
“For young people who've grown up from the recession in 2008 and 2009 to all the chaos that's happened since then, it's been a long time,” said Dannelle Larsen-Rife, professor of psychology at Utah Tech University. “They feel this helpless and hopeless [as they try] to grapple with these really big, big issues."
There has been an emerging pattern of reflecting tragedy through humor amongst Gen Z. Mental health experts and sociologists say this is caused by an increasingly chaotic world, where younger people use a combination of dark humor and digital culture to face these unique challenges.
“Mental health problems are very high among Gen Zers right now, and perhaps, that is also being played out in the types of humor that they're making,” said Bethany Gull, instructor of applied sociology at Utah Tech.
Incidents like the Luigi Mangione case or the Titan submarine implosion quickly became subjects of memes and jokes across digital platforms.
Social media platforms have played a significant role in how Gen Z processes serious social issues. Incidents like the Luigi Mangione case or the Titan submarine implosion quickly became subjects of memes and jokes across social media platforms.
As intense events take over the news cycle, from the 2024 election and the LA fires, Gen Z turns to humor using memes to both acknowledge and cope with them, according to a study by Abilene Christian University.
While the American Psychological Association reports Gen Z is more likely to report experiencing mental health conditions than previous generations, Gen Z is one of the first generations who have improved in expressing their emotions.
Joshua Henrie, a population health major at Utah Tech, said he’s leaned on dark humor as a coping mechanism.
“It's something people use to get through hard things and mentally straining things,” Henrie said. “It might not always be appropriate or anything like that, but it's how people get through things.”
This phenomenon isn't exclusive to Gen Z. Weslie Janda, a general studies major at Utah Tech, noted experiencing similar humor with her parents, though she acknowledged it is "more common and severe" among her generation.
The increased usage of social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube over the last decade has allowed Gen Z to connect through shared humor in unprecedented ways. However, this connectivity also comes with unique challenges.
“We used to graduate from high school, get a job, get married, have a child and buy a home,” Gull said. “It doesn't look the same way that it did 30, 40 years ago. I think some of this humor is just a reflection of how there are very few absolutes anymore.”
Even historical tragedies like 9/11 have become subjects of memes for Gen Z, which raises questions about when humor crosses boundaries of appropriateness, as discussed in an issue of “The Criterion.”
Some members of Gen Z view this humor negatively. Jimmy Thurston, an electrical engineer major at Utah Tech, said he finds it annoying and irritating.
“People do it because they want to test boundaries. They want to test limits. They want to see how badly/how much can [they] push this, [and] how much further can [they] go with this,” Thurston said.
John Jones, professor of psychology at Utah Tech, said it allows people the “opportunity to be irreverent.”
Janda pointed to internet anonymity as a factor enabling boundary-pushing humor without consequences.
“You can kind of just say whatever you want and it doesn't have impacts on your real life, day-to-day situations,” Janda said. “So, you can make those kinds of jokes with no real repercussions.”
Jones added that online environments can encourage less empathetic behavior.
“It's essentially easier to be cruel online,” Jones said. “And that could be one manifestation of online cruelty.”
Alyssa Bayles and Ives Hong reported and produced this story as communication students at Utah Tech University.
This story is jointly published as part of the Utah College Media Collaborative, a cross-campus project bringing together emerging journalists from Salt Lake Community College, Southern Utah University, the University of Utah, Utah Tech University and Weber State University. The collaborative is an Amplify Utah project with support from PBS Utah and POV.
Before discovering Instagram filters, Lauren Bohanan said she never worried about how she looked online.
“I didn't even know Instagram had filters until my friends at the time always told me to use them,” said the Utah native and bioengineering major at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It bred a lot of insecurity that I never had before.”
Those insecurities, she added, eventually contributed to body dysmorphia and influenced her decision to get lip fillers.
Bohanan's experience reflects the broader impact of Augmented Reality, or AR, beauty filters on college students' self-perception. While Meta removed third-party AR and beauty filters from its apps on Jan. 14, these digital alterations have already become fixtures on most social media platforms, increasing pressure on young adults to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.
Before 2015, Instagram offered only its original filters such as X-Pro II, Earlybird and Apollo, which allowed users to capture the essence of vintage worn-out Polaroids or achieve a “Tumblr-esque” aesthetic; a hipster lifestyle striving for uniqueness and individuality which later became a niche in of itself. However, many of these nostalgic tools have been eclipsed by the rise of AR filters – digital overlays that augment the real world seen through a smartphone camera and add other elements to the images.
AR filters have rapidly developed since their arrival on social media. Beauty filters can contort facial features and body appearance, smooth skin texture, fix discoloration and enhance various facial features. A study published last October suggests beautifying filters can make young women feel more dissatisfied with their bodies.
University of Utah junior, Karen San Juan explains how AR filters can lead to heavy comparison of physical beauty.
“These filters can be a mask, helping people cover their insecurities but creating a false reality. Especially with evolving technology, it is harder to tell if someone has a beauty filter on, some viewers may be led to believe that the filter is one’s natural beauty,” San Juan said.
Grant Beck, a sophomore computer science major at the University of Utah, said beauty filters can mask insecurities but also create a false reality.
“It is harder to tell if someone has a beauty filter on and some viewers may be led to believe that it is their natural beauty,” Beck added.
As social media has expanded as an industry, allowing additions of AR filters that enhance beauty in many different ways, so has changed the definition of beauty. Specifically that of body image is something that has been heavily touched through the posts of influencers on different social media platforms. Not only does this portrayal of ‘perfect’ bodies impact depression or anxiety but can also influence physical health through eating disorders.
“The media has expectations on what the beauty standard is, and if you don't fit into it, then you're 'not good enough,' which can lead to many people feeling insecure about their physical appearance.”
Snapchat first popularized AR filters in 2015, with other apps like Instagram and TikTok quickly following suit.
Professor Avery Holton, who serves as communication department chair at the U, said most filters began as stickers or sparkles before evolving into tools for people to modify their appearance.
“[Filters] match an aesthetic that we feel like we should be achieving to fit in or to meet standards,” he said.
Holton added people can use filters for fun but they become "more problematic when it's done to influence or guide the communities we are in" and change our perception of ourselves and who we should be.
Holton said these filters often target Gen Z, specifically young women, adding that women between 15 and 24 use social media the most and average about seven to eight hours a day.
As young women spend hours scrolling through social media, they often encounter targeted images such as trends, aesthetics and lifestyle content. By interacting with these images, their preferences can feed into an algorithm that influences how they should act, look and behave.
Isabelle Freiling, assistant professor of communication at the University of Utah, said social media platforms use sophisticated algorithms that can precisely identify user preferences and interests.
“They show us information that we engage with that keeps us on those platforms,” she said. “Sometimes you might be like, 'I don't want to spend much time scrolling on Instagram' but you're still going there and scrolling. It's not easy to resist, it’s so hard to turn away from it all.”
Karen San Juan, a health and kinesiology major at the University of Utah, said she believes presenting idealized images on social media can lead to harmful comparisons, depression and anxiety.
“There tends to be this idea of 'perfection' and only sharing the good moments with everyone,” she said. “From an outside perspective, you may think someone is having the time of their life, you may start comparing your life to theirs and question why yours isn't as great.”
Younger women tend to see this more often in social media influencers, who they idolize for their beauty, lifestyle and aesthetics. Beauty filters give many young women the chance to replicate the look of these influencers to try to achieve the same aesthetic or lifestyle that has gained them fame or recognition.
Beck believes younger generations’ need for approval makes them vulnerable to filters on social media. Based on observations Beck has made from experiences with female relatives and friends, he said he understands the sense of pressure surrounding societal ideals of beauty and perfection.
“Women in particular might be affected because society already holds them to a high standard of physical appearance.”
Bohanan, however, expressed skepticism about whether removing AR filters will improve students' mental health.
“The damage is done in the sense there are still editing apps such as Facetune and now AI,” she said. “I've seen so many ads on TikTok and reels for body and face-altering programs that receive high downloads. The age of social media will always find a way to target insecurities as that's how there is control and profit.”
Addy Christensen and Eliza Delgado reported and produced this story as English and Psychology students at the University of Utah.
