Gena Bagley, 24 September 2026
Success at Junior Speech Competition
Year 9 student, Dev Kandath, bravely put himself forward to compete in this year’s Otago Association of English Teachers’ Junior Speech Competition, and it is with much joy that we can announce that Dev took out first place in the Standard Entry section.
The topic was ‘The Cost of Connection’, which encouraged participants to explore whether digital lives in 2026 are making us more lonely or more united. The judges from Toastmasters praised Dev on his use of research, humour, and the structure of his speech. This certainly was a fantastic experience for Dev to have had, and the result speaks to his drive, willingness to learn and his passion for excellence. Congratulations, Dev.
Please enjoy reading Dev’s speech:
In King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6, Shakespeare wrote that “Who alone suffers, suffers most in the mind, leaving free things and happy shows behind.” In a modern context, this quote perfectly describes the feeling of scrolling through people’s “happy shows,” while suffering from a deep internal loneliness.
If social media was designed to connect us, why are so many people feeling more isolated than ever before? At the click of a button, you may have a friend, but is it really a genuine friendship? A research project by the University of Pittsburgh found that people who used social media for more than 2 hours a day had twice the odds of reporting social isolation compared to those who spent less than 30 minutes online.
TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, X. The list could go on and on. What is the factor all these platforms have in common? Videos. Videos are not necessarily bad, but endless videos can change the way we interact with one another.
In a study called the Born in Bradford “IRL” Trial, a 15-year-old participant admitted that despite spending 4 hours a day sending videos back and forth with her friends, she did not even know their phone number.
A conversation becomes a message. A laugh together becomes a reaction. Meeting someone becomes watching their story. By choosing our digital life over real life, we trade friends for lonely scrolling, leaving today's world totally alone together.
But the answer isn't to completely abandon technology. It is to recognise when our digital lives are replacing our real ones.
So, the next time you reach for your phone, stop. Look up. Look around you. Because the people around you are real. The conversations are real. The connections are real. Don't let a screen become the world you live in.
Remember one thing: “Who alone suffers, suffers most in the mind, leaving free things and happy shows behind.”
This is the Cost of Connection.