When I was a teen I found the entire concept of dating to be pretty stressful. I worried for weeks about how to talk to the girl I sat next to in history class and whether or not she liked me. One time she offered me a piece of gum and I was convinced that it was a sign that she wanted to date me. However, I was too scared to actually ask her out and nothing ever developed. A few weeks later, I found out that she shared my feelings, but by then I had already developed a crush on a girl in my art class.

As I look back on these pathetic attempts at dating I realize I knew absolutely nothing about relationships. Today’s teens are in a similar position. They are transitioning through adolescence and discovering that the opposite sex doesn’t have cooties and that they are, in fact, quite interesting. But as they begin to ask questions about love, sex, and relationships many teens receive little or no preparation from their parents. As a result, teens embark on the journey of romance with little more than tips from magazines and the examples set forth by characters on TV. With such limited and unrealistic information, many teens’ forays into the dating world prove disastrous.

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 A British study has suggested that parents begin watching sex-laced shows like Gossip GIrl with their teens.  The idea behind it is that many parents do not initiate conversations about sex with their children because they find it uncomfortable.  As a result teens are finding a lot of their questions about sex answered through shows like Gossip Girl and The Secret Life of The American Teenager and before that on the O.C. and Dawson’s Creek.  

Ideally, I would suggest that teens not watch shows like Gossip Girl in the first place.  The plots are pretty much saturated with objectionable behavior by teens and watching those shows may give young people the impression that the actions of those characters are what normal teen behavior should be.  However, if your son or daughter is watching the show anyway, it would be best if, as a parent,  you watched it with them.  Then, when sex or drugs or dishonesty pop up in the story line of the show, you have a perfect opportunity to ask, “What do you think about that?” 

The conversations that can be had during a commercial break over the moral, spiritual and emotional implications of the actions of a character may provide you a better chance for instructing your teen than a lengthy talk about the Birds and the Bees.

Libraries adding video games. The American Library Association has announced a new project funded with a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation, the charitable branch of Verizon Communications. The project will place video gaming systems like XBOX 360’s and Wii’s in public libraries and will then will be studied to see how video gaming affects the literacy skills of young people. This is an interesting way for libraries to adapt to the changing interests of today’s youth in order to remain relevant. Read the full story here…

Summer camps place cell phones, electronics on hold. In our ultra-connected world, young campers are learning to be without their Ipod’s, cell phones, and video games. Read the full story…

Movie Studios Agree To Help Discourage Teen Smoking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says teenagers are twice as likely to pick up the habit if they see cigarette smoking in movies, on television, or in cigarette ads. Also, tobacco companies use menthol flavor to get young people to smoke, says a new study to be published in the American Journal of Public Health. To combat this glamorization of smoking motion picture studios will be placing commercials discouraging smoking on DVD copies of films that depict characters smoking. Read the full story…

Gossip girl goes too far again. As an inappropriate follow-up to April’s edgy marketing of WB’s Gossip GIrl series (picture at left), the network has once again pushed the envelope. The series seems to be capitalizing on the criticism it has received from parent groups that have taken issue with the series’ sex and drug riddled plots involving teens. Click here to see the current marketing images…

VA School may “Go Green” and implement a 4-day school week. Read the story here...

Teens listening to more FM Radio. After a 2007 study suggested that most teens are listneing to less radio than they had in the past, a new study has stated that teens report increasing radio listening this year. While the reason for this is unknown I would speculate that young people find it easier to flip on a radio rather than constantly be flipping through songs on an Ipod. Additionally, in our connected world, listening to the radio creates a greater feeling of being linked with the outside world than an MP3 player. Read the story here…

Textbooks going electronic. With McGraw-Hill reporting that they will be offering 95% of their textbooks in electronic versions, Amazon is looking to capitalize with their new e-reader Kindle. Imagine a world where a college student can have all of their textbooks easily accessible in a device the size of a notebook. No more lugging around heavy backpacks! It reminds me of the moment I bought my first Ipod and realized I could hold my entire music collection in the palm of my hand. The one drawback is that I guess it would be hard to sell your used textbooks. Read the full story…

“Playground for pedophiles”. A new teen dating site called MyLOL.net is receiving criticism that it will become a “playground for pedophiles”. With

19,000 worldwide members (150 of which are males over 40) the site has become the top teen dating site on the net. Read the full story here. / View video here.

In This User-Generated World, Teen Girls Prefer Expert Content. Even though this is a generation that loves to create content, teen girls seem to still prefer to receive information from experts found in magazines rather than from friends’ blogs. Read the full story…

The Nokia Lolitas: A combustible mix of minors, sex and technology

It’s a sultry early Friday night in downtown Fairfield and a pod of teenagers has converged at the local 7-11 for the free Slurpees being given away in celebration of July 11, aka 7/11. The teens are armed with all the tech you’d expect from suburban kids of some means, raised in the age of cell phones and the Internet. Instead of riding Razor Scooters, they’re talking on Razr V3 fully-loaded phones and listening to tunes on their iPods. As the new tech has taken hold, it’s been accompanied by a spike in amateur, do-it-yourself exhibitionism. It’s a sexual revolution that’s trickling down to teens, who are experimenting with sexuality in a way that’s more public than ever before. Read the full story… 

Studies Suggest, But Don’t Confirm, Bullying-Suicide Connection 

Researchers have repeatedly found signs of an apparent connection between bullying and suicide in children, according to a new review of studies from 13 countries. Nevertheless, there is no definitive evidence that bullying makes kids more likely to kill themselves.  Still, “once we see that there’s an association, we can act on it and try to prevent it,” said review lead author Dr. Young-Shin Kim, an assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine’s Child Study Center.  According to international studies, bullying is common and affects anywhere from 9 percent to 54 percent of children. In the United States, many have blamed bullying for spurring acts of violence, including the Columbine High School massacre. Read the full story…

Cyberbullying grows bigger and meaner with photos, video 

Ricky Alatorre doesn’t know which classmate surreptitiously hoisted a cellphone camera and snapped his picture or exactly when it happened. All Ricky, 16, knows is the fuzzy yet distinguishable portrait of him in English class showed up on MySpace, on a page that claimed to be his. And the fake profile, titled “The Rictionary,” not only identified his school but also said Ricky loved dictionaries — a swipe at his school smarts — and was gay (he’s not), one of the most common schoolyard taunts. Read the full story…

Disney bucks music industry downturn 

While many music industry executives are crying in their soup, Walt Disney Music Group’s Damon Whiteside is singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Whiteside, senior vice president of marketing of Walt Disney Records, saw a whopping 60 percent rise in music sales from 2006 to 2007 because of the tween and young-teen music craze led by Disney star Miley Cyrus. Meanwhile, overall music industry sales were down 17 percent in the same period because of digital downloads and pirated music online. “It’s thanks to the tween and younger teens that the music business is staying alive,” Whiteside said here at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference about teens and technology. Read the full story…

Teen Pregnancy: Why the U.S. Lags Behind Europe 

Of all the industrialized countries in the world, the U.S. has, by far, the highest instance of teenage pregnancies with a rate that more than doubles the nearest competitors.  After posting on the topic earlier this week, I did some further research and came up with some common sense answers as to why this is.  One of the best sources I found was Advocates for Youth.  Each summer since in 1998, Advocates for Youth and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte sponsor annual study tours to France, Germany, and the Netherlands to explore why adolescent sexual health outcomes are so much more positive in the three European countries than in the U.S.  The following italicized bulleted points are from their most recent findings.  Here I will go point and counter point with what the Europeans do successfully and our U.S. reality—buckle up! Read the full story… 

Cell phone is mom-avoidance device for teens

Tweens and teens are pushing parents to adopt text messaging so they don’t have to talk “live” over the cell phone, according to mobile phone executives. A typical teenager carrying a cell phone might let mom’s call roll over to voicemail and then immediately text her back, “What going on?,” according to Stephen Saiz, manager of consumer insight and strategy of the Walt Disney Internet Group’s North American mobile division. “Teens are pushing their parents to go on mobile because they don’t really want to communicate with them directly,” Saiz said here on a panel of mobile executives at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference on teens and technology. He said later in an interview that his Disney division researches teens’ and parents’ behavior on the cell phone and with its mobile applications. The majority of older audiences using Disney mobile applications skew to mothers who are goaded there by their kids, he said. And most tweens and teens prefer to text message and instant chat with parents and friends rather than talk directly so that they can continue doing other things like play video games with friends, he said. Read the full story…

CBS News: “Horrors” Found In Tween, Teen Dating.

Tweens and teens in dating relationships are experiencing significant levels of various forms of abuse, many don’t know the warning signs of an abusive relationship, and many parents don’t know what’s going on in those relationships, a new survey says.  Among the findings:

-69 percent of all teens who had sex by age 14 said they have gone through one or more types of abuse in a relationship.

-40 percent of the youngest tweens, those between the ages of 11 and 12, report that their friends are victims of verbal abuse in relationships, and nearly one-in-ten (9 percent) say their friends have had sex.  Read the full story…

Older Americans’ Online Behavior Mirrors Younger Users’, Even Teens’ 

76 percent of Americans over 50 say the internet is an important source of information for them. That figure is up from just 51 percent five years earlier, according to findings from AARP and the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, MarketingCharts reports.  The research, part of the Digital Future Project, also found Older Americans embraced Web 2.0 and often use the web — and several forms of social media — as much as, or more than, younger and more tech-savvy counterparts.  Instant messaging and video downloading still remain more popular with a younger crowd, but Older Americans check the ‘net for news more frequently than younger users and are logging onto online communities, researching purchases, becoming socially active and playing games in increasing numbers. Read the full story…

Washington Times: Many teens opt to get pregnant.

Pregnancy pacts among teenage girls are really nothing new. The 1986 movie “Peggy Sue Got Married” featured one.
When high school senior Peggy Sue said she no longer cared who her boyfriend Charlie dated, best friend Maddy snapped to attention. “But I always thought you were going to marry Charlie, and Carol would marry Walter, and I’d marry Arthur,” Maddy protested to Peggy Sue. “We’d all live on the same street and take our kids to the park together and have barbecues every Sunday. It’s going to spoil everything if you and Charlie break up.” Read the full story…

 

US Sex Education Debate: The Students 

In a forum to discuss sex education in US schools, some young people commented: Vanessa Geffrard, University Of Maryland: “Sex is something private, something great between people.” Benjamin Barrows, Bowie High School: “Sexuality is a part of our being.” Nikki Babayeva, University Of Maryland: “A comprehensive sex education program will include both parts: abstinence and contraception.” Gyawu Mahama, George Washington University:  “Adults in general just ignore the issue.”  Read the full story…

 

 ‘Beer Pong’ Video Game Has Controversy Brewing

Richard Blumenthal said Monday that the Entertainment Software Rating Board made a mistake by clearing the game for young teens and he worries other games in the yet-to-be-released Frat Party Games line will also be approved for those same gamers. “Beer Pong” was designed by Las Vegas-based JV Games Inc. as a downloadable game for Nintendo Co.’s popular Wii game system. Read the full story…

 
MTV’s ‘True Life’ captures fickle young audience 

WHEN WE first meet 16-year-old Chris in an episode of the MTV documentary series “True Life,” he’s practicing skateboard stunts with his buddies and ignoring the floppy brown hair that hangs like a curtain across his eyes. Typical teenage stuff, right? Not exactly. Chris is deaf. And as the show proceeds, he undergoes surgery to have a cochlear implant inserted into his head, allowing him to hear for the first time in his life. Moments after the implant is turned on, he walks through a parking lot and revels in the symphony of unfamiliar sounds. “I can hear the wind,” he signs. “And I can hear cars going by … and people walking… . And talking everywhere. I can hear it. It’s cool.” It’s a quiet triumph, an extraordinary moment in the life of an ordinary (read: unfamous) person. Read the full story…

What Are Youth Watching on their Phones?  

There is a lot of noise about mobile video lately. Just the other day, MoCoNews reported that 90 percent of Venture Capitalists in a poll said mass adoption of mobile video will take off in the next five years, and 60 percent expect it will happen within the next three years. The question seems to be WHAT we will be watching. The answer could differ for teens and adults. The latter, it seems, enjoy watching mobile video in-transit or between activities. Mobile phones, in and of themselves, are, to some degree, founded on the principle of multi-tasking – i.e. being able to do certain things while involved in other activities. Read the full story…

AP: Poll: Schools not properly preparing kids. 

Half of Americans say U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force. Even more feel that way about the skills kids need to survive as adults, an Associated Press poll released Friday finds.
“A lot of kids, when they get out school, are kind of lost,” said Jamie Norton, a firefighter in Gridley, Calif. “When you get out of high school, what are you educated to do?” Read the full story…

Teens, church hold different views of oral sex 

More than 10 years after President Clinton made the argument that oral sex isn’t really sex, a generation of adolescents seems to agree. Defining chastity was a prominent issue of two religious youth conferences earlier this month, one for Catholics in Boca Raton and another for Mormons in Miramar. Although church and school leaders say they have become more explicit in their teachings, 70 percent of 14- to 19-year-olds still don’t consider oral sex to be sex, according to a 2007 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Read the full story…

MultiMedia Intelligence: Teen Mobile Market Running Out of Steam as Subscribers Reach the Saturation Point.

The US 12-17 teen cellular subscribers surpassed 16 million in 2007, according to market research and consultancy firm MultiMedia Intelligence. This is up 12% from 2006.  By 2012, the number of teen subscribers will reach 17 million, a delta of only 1 million subscribers from 2007. Wireless penetration rates for teens are reaching saturation, resulting in stagnating growth. Since the teen market is not a multiple handset demographic, subscriber growth is forced to slow.  “The teen market has been the ‘golden child’ for cellular providers in the US,” according to Frank Dickson, Chief Research Officer for MultiMedia Intelligence. “In addition to growing subscribers, teen ARPU has been growing higher than that of the overall market. Teens simply use their phones to do more, from text messaging to purchasing premium content. However, pricing pressures and teen cellular saturation are bringing an end to the teen cellular gold rush.”  Read the full story…

Teens go green.

As evident from the large number of performers touring on bio-diesel buses, organic cotton T-shirts lining store racks and eco-friendly residences featured on reality shows, the world as teens know it is turning green. Teens are responding to the push for environmentalism by making green lifestyle changes and raising awareness about this prominent issue.

TheStar.com:  Can subcultures still thrive in the glare of the digital age?

The underground, and especially the subcultures that inhabit it, have been much debated and examined since British academic Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), a groundbreaking examination of the symbols and rituals of the punk subculture in London. Almost a decade after Subculture, in an essay reflecting on youth culture, Hebdige wrote: “Subculture forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates the fact of being under scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched. It is a hiding in the light.” Read the full story… 

Family meals turn teenaged girls away from drugs, alcohol 

Adolescent girls who sit down for frequent meals with their families are half as likely to smoke, drink and use marijuana as those who share family meals less often, according to a new study. “Part of it is just parents being more in touch with their kids, being able to see earlier on if their kids are veering down a path that might not be filled with healthy choices,” says Marla Eisenberg, lead author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics in the University of Minnesota’s medical school. Read the full story…

MediaPost: Overexposed: Kids See Too Many Alcohol Ads On Cable

Alcohol TV commercials are on the rise—and more young people are being exposed to them, especially on cable programs. Georgetown University’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) says 12- to-20-year-olds witnessed nearly a 40% rise in alcohol messaging from 2001 to 2007. The group says exposure levels to these ads by young people are the highest since the group begin monitoring ads in 2001. But there is some progress—especially from one self-regulating approach from alcohol trade associations. Where 30% or more of a TV show’s audience is made up of underage drinkers—under age 21—the group notes that the percentage of alcohol product ads on these programs has been trimmed to 6.3% in 2007 from 11% in 2003. The main problem is cable TV. Read the full story…

New York Post: RETAILER SEES RED OVER RISQUE AD ‘SPEED DRESSING’ 

New York ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi is trying to contain the damage after a major client, JC Penney, took the firm to task over a fake viral ad that makes light of teen sex. The ad, called “Speed Dressing,” shows two teens practicing taking their clothes off - and then putting them back on quickly - in anticipation of eventually hooking up in the basement while mom is upstairs. The spot displays Penney’s logo and campaign slogan, “Every Day Matters.” Penney officials claim they became aware of the ad, which never aired on television, only after it popped up on YouTube and a slew of other Web sites over the weekend. Read the full story…

Red Herring: Report: Apple Killed Music Industry 

Apple’s iPod is partly to blame for the collapse of the music industry, according to a report Friday from researcher eMarketer. The Mac maker helped set the tone for a “rat’s nest of restrictions and incompatibilities” that have stalled the growth of digital music, according to Paul Verna, the author of the report. Revenue in the music industry continues to decline in part because of consumer confusion, the report said. A big part of the reason is music fans are asked to sort out the explosion of incompatible formats, players, restrictions, and retailers. That lack of simplicity  has slowed sales. Apple has been a “double-edged sword” for the industry, the report said. Its closed system works well for iPod users, “but leaves many frustrated consumers outside of that system.” Read the full story…

CNET: Kid Rock’s surprising take on illegal downloading 

Kid Rock’s sarcastic “just do it” YouTube rant on illegal downloading is funny and makes the point—illegal downloading is stealing. With a smile on his face Rock says, “I’m rich,” so sure it’s OK to steal my music. Oh, and while you’re at it, “Steal everything.” Steal an iPod, Steve Jobs is a billionaire, he’ll never miss it. Get yourself a Toyota, “They’re foreign” and the gas too, “You know how much money the oil companies make?” Rock shrugs it all off, “They’re not going to miss $30 or $40 worth of gas.”  Read the full story and watch the video… 

MSNBC: Religious Americans: My faith isn’t the only way 

America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.  The findings, released Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.  Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attendees said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.  Read the full story…

AP: Little `Barbie Brat’ bullies become concern 

Recess was Allie Long’s favorite part of the day until the second grade, when some of her friends on the playground pressured her to join their whisper campaign against a classmate. Allie shrugged. She didn’t want to hear their rumor or help spread it around. In an instant, her best friends since kindergarten became her tormenters. “They started taunting and teasing her,” said Allie’s mom, Trudy Ludwig. “She was on this play structure and they blocked all of the exits and wouldn’t let her off. They started moving closer to her. Allie just freaked out. One of the girls realized it was getting out of hand and got a teacher to help.” Bullying among adolescents has captured the attention of researchers, educators and parents alarmed by a parade of mean girls and cyber-bullies caught in mid-punch on viral video. But such aggression may not just happen in a whirl of adolescent hormones, some in the growing anti-bully movement argue. Read the full story…

Advertising Age: Hey, Buddy, Can I Bum a Snus Off You? 

Faced with rising taxes for cigarettes — in New York the price of a pack hit $9 — and ever-tightening smoking bans in places such as Los Angeles, where a bill threatens to force smokers out of all outdoor eating areas, Big Tobacco is trying a new approach to keep America’s dwindling 45 million smokers in the fold. The solution: snus (they are always curiously plural), a pinch of steam-cured tobacco nestled in a tiny tea-bag-like pouch. Snus don’t need to be spit out like traditional fermented dipping tobacco; they simply remain under your upper lip until you’ve gotten your nicotine fix.  Read the full story…

Advertising Age: In Google We Trust

The most reputable company in America: Google, which toppled Microsoft from the top perch in the 2007 Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient study released today — and sent it tumbling all the way down to No. 10. But what should be even more eye-opening to the companies rounding out the top 10 — which include Johnson & Johnson and General Mills — and the rest of the list is that Google’s victory shows that a company that spends nothing on advertising can still be the most positively perceived by consumers.  Read the full story…

Texting ‘addiction’ costing teens, parents

When the cell bill arrived, complete with a $300 payment notice, Travis Ramsay was in a state of disbelief. Travis Ramsay ran up a $300 mobile phone bill, mainly because of texting charges. “I was pretty mad,” the 13-year-old said. “I walked outside and punched the wall as hard as I could.” He was mad because even though the bill was his father’s name, Travis Ramsay had to pay it. After all, it was his text messaging that padded the amount due. Ramsay said when he started texting his friends, some who at times were standing right by him, and he didn’t realize the cost. Plus, he said, it was fun. Read the full story…

Emaxhealth: Strong Student Connection To School Community Key To Preventing Violence

In a report issued by McLean Hospital, the United States Secret Service and the United States Department of Education, researchers note that creating a positive school climate in which students believe the school staff genuinely wants to hear from them about threats or possible attacks is critical to preventing future Columbine-like school violence. The 15-page report “Prior Knowledge of Potential School-Based Violence: Information Students Learn May Prevent a Targeted Attack,” available at www.secretservice.gov , outlines the results of multiple interviews of bystanders to violent school attacks to determine how students with prior knowledge of school violence made decisions regarding what steps, if any, to take after learning the information. Read the full story…

New York Times: Starving Themselves, Cocktail in Hand

Manorexia. Orthorexia. Diabulimia. Binge Eating Disorder. All are dangerous variations on the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, and have become buzzwords that are popping up on Web sites and blogs, on television and in newspaper articles. As celebrity magazines chronicle the glamorous and the suffering, therapists and a growing number of researchers are trying to treat and understand the conditions. The latest entry in the lexicon of food-related ills is drunkorexia, shorthand for a disturbing blend of behaviors: self-imposed starvation or bingeing and purging, combined with alcohol abuse.  Read the full story…

The National Post: Exposed G-string tied to today’s social values.

For hippies, it was the androgynous tunic; for modern teens, it is the exposed G-string. “There’s always a link between style and social values,” said Mariette Julien, a professor at L’Universite du Quebec a Montreal who presented a paper on the topic of teen dress at the country’s largest annual gathering of academics last week. “People aren’t conscious of the symbolism in their style of dress, but it remains very present.” Read the full story…

Other Headlines:

 

• Possible Gossip GIrl Spinoff
• Gen Y Fears Wrinkles: Cosmeceutical Sales To Hit $21 Billion
• Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century
• Disney Revs Up Tween Star Machine
• Thai School gets bathrooms for transvestite students
• Why GTA IV Was the Beginning of the End
• Teen Choice Awards 2008 Nominations
• Sears teams with MTV to lure teens
• Facebook overtakes MySpace worldwide
• Disney’s “Camp Rock” racks up ratings
  
  

Health Alert: Teen teeth whitening

The desire for whiter, brighter teeth is trickling down to teens and even younger. Kids across the country are bleaching their pearly whites, often without their parents knowledge. But there are some things you can do to help them avoid tooth trouble. Girls and boys alike, from elementary to high school, are white hot about bleaching their teeth.
Dr. David Carroll, a dentist, said, “Kids are under a lot of pressure, as adults are, to look and to feel to look good, to have white teeth.” Read the full story…

NBC10.com: Experts Say Teen Drivers Want Parents’ Help

New research was made public on Tuesday about teenage drivers and what parents could do to keep their kids safe.
The information comes just a day after a 16-year-old driver, who had his junior license for just six days, lost control of his SUV, killing himself and a 16-year-old passenger. Dr. Dennis Durbin from Children’s Hospital, has analyzed how and why new drivers wind up injured or in fatal accidents. “Literally overnight, teens go from their lowest to their highest lifetime risk of getting in a fatal crash the day they get their license,” he said. “They get that license and I think a lot of people think that’s a license that shows that they can drive. But it’s really not — it just showed that they passed a test that allows them to get on the road.”  Read the full story…

Metroactive: Generation Debt. 

He was your typical college kid who was persuaded to sign up for his first credit card, right there on the San Jose State campus. It didn’t take long for Rance Bobo to max out that card when he bought a bike. After that, he signed up for a few more cards, using them to buy clothes and stuff for school. The debt started catching up to him, so he decided to take out student loans to pay it off and help make ends meet. By the time Bobo left college, he was $20,000 in the hole. That didn’t stop him from taking out another 20 grand for a car loan. More than a decade later, Bobo, now 30, is still chipping away at his $30,000 tab. Even if he is saddled with debt, with no end in sight, Bobo’s not losing any sleep over it. He finds it hard to save money, often tempted to spend it on nice clothes and the latest technology. He describes his penchant for living beyond his means as a mark of his generation, one made up of folks who will drop $4 on a coffee drink without a second thought, and pride themselves on having the latest gadget in hand. Read the full story…

Through a Teacher’s Eyes: Schools, culture sending the wrong message on teen pregnancy. 

“Carol get hooked up” was the subject of an email I received this morning from “urbangiftcardonus@….” Associating it with Urban Outfitters in Cambridge, I opened it. I should have known better. It was a “gift” card offer from FabFlyGear.com, selling clothing by Sean “Diddy” Combs, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Eminem. Frankly, if my mind were not on writing this column in response to the Gloucester High School pregnancy debacle, I would have simply put it in the trash. However, since I have visited Urban Outfitters from time to time, mostly out of curiosity, I decided there might be something on sale there that could help me shape an argument to explain what needs to be done if we are to save nearly an entire generation of youngsters from dissolution. Read the full column…

Business Week: What Do Teens Want? 

Nearly 59,000 captive teens might seem like every parent’s worst nightmare. But for Helsinki (Finland)-based Sulake, such a group provided a pain-free way to gain valuable insight into what “kids these days” really care about. Pain-free because Sulake runs Habbo, the nine-year-old virtual world that as of early June had some 100 million avatars, 9.5 million of them active on the site each month. And because Sulake could use the world as a platform to question the teens—virtually. Habbo’s second Global Youth Survey features the results of a two-month-long poll conducted at the end of last year, which surveyed 58,486 teens in 31 countries. The findings were recently published in a 255-page report targeted at companies looking to market to the lucrative demographic. Read the full story…

Teens and cell cams: Striking a pose? 

Many families preserve history through photos. Often, a trip to grandma’s would seem incomplete without a trip down memory lane via the big book of pictures.  These days, electronic media dominates everything from the way we listen to music, communicate and save images. Almost every cell phone has a built-in camera, which has some parents concerned – for good reason.  According to a recent report by the Associated Press, more and more teens are taking inappropriate photos of themselves, often wearing little or no clothing, and sending them to prospective boyfriends or girlfriends. More worrisome, these photos, once on the Internet, are accessible to practically anyone.  Read the full story…

Hollywood Urged To To Rid Child Movies Of Smoking 

It’s been one year since the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) pledged to make the movies that children see smokefree. But nothing has been done to put that pledge into practice. “One year later, we are still waiting for Hollywood to do the right thing,” state Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D., said today. “The MPAA must act now to protect children from the harmful influence of movie stars smoking gratuitously on film. We cannot sacrifice the health of another generation through indifference and inaction.” Read the full story…

Study: Teens dropping rags, radio for web, games, and TV 

A new study reminds us of a trend we’d rather not think too much about: teens and “tweens” are reading less, instead spending more time surfing the web, playing games, and watching TV. More teens than ever sharing—and restricting—content online. The Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report is conducted twice a year (spring and fall), with the most recent study carried out in March 2008 (the results were just published). This time around, 1,182 teens (ages 13 to 17) and tweens (ages 8 to 12) were interviewed in-person, and the results confirm a continuing three-year trend of kids putting down the magazines and books, and picking up the mouse, controller, and remote. Read the full story…

Reuters UK: Cellfire aiming coupons at teens 

Mobile coupon provider Cellfire is looking to expand its advertising customer base to include teen retailers and consumer product makers, its chief executive said on Wednesday. Cellfire users receive coupons and discounts on their cell phones from such companies as Hardee’s, Domino’s Pizza Inc, McDonald’s Corp, 1-800-Flowers.com Inc and Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. Speaking at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit, CEO Brent Dusing said retailers and others who market to teenagers are looking for new ways to reach customers. “If you want to reach them (teenagers) with a promotion, it’s very difficult to reach them in the paper world, of course, because your customer demographics are not reading the newspaper. They’re not checking the mail at home, and they’re probably not going to online coupon sites,” he said. “But they are on the phone, all the time.” Read the full story…

USA Today: Lack of vitamin D rampant in infants, teens 

Giving your children all they need to grow big and strong may not be as simple as a gummy vitamin and three square meals. They still may be susceptible to an epidemic that’s starting to gain the notice of pediatricians and bone doctors across the country: vitamin D deficiency. Mike Stone joined a growing legion of children diagnosed with the condition when an X-ray of his 14-year-old bones revealed a skeleton so thin it appeared clear on film. Read the full story…

Information Week: Today’s Teens: Breakin’ The Law, Breakin’ The Law

Kids these days, I tell ya. Turns out most teenagers could care less about the law when it comes to driving and cell phone use. In fact, a recent study shows that in North Carolina, teen use of cell phones while driving has increased since laws preventing it were enacted. How is it they are failing to get the message? Read the full story…

 
CBS News: Self-Cutting Linked To Risky Teen Sex 

Teens who are frequent self-cutters are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors and have a greater HIV risk than teens receiving psychiatric treatment who have cut just a few times, new research suggests. The findings identify habitual cutting behavior as an important risk factor for sexual risk, even in already high-risk teens, researcher Larry K. Brown, M.D., tells WebMD. In 2005, Brown and colleagues from the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center in Providence, R.I., first reported the link between self-cutting and sexual risk taking in a study involving close to 300 teens undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment. Read the full story…

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Dads create clean Christian version of MySpace

About a year ago, Randall Brown started looking for a safe place for kids to hang out. Online, that is. He found out the hard way that MySpace isn’t just for finding friends, networking or listening to cool bands. Companies have hacked into MySpace and spam-slammed it with porn ads and other advertisements. He also looked at Facebook. Although that site has had better luck filtering out porn and ads, there are still teens being teens, posting comments, graphics and applications that might be offensive.  Read the full story…

Teen survey shows virginity pledges can work.

Of 1,517 adolescents ages 12 to 17 in 2001 when the research began, teenagers who vowed to remain virgins until they were married were less likely to be sexually active than others who didn’t make a pledge.

About one-quarter of the adolescents surveyed (23.8%) made a promise to wait until marriage to have sex; 34% had broken it by 2004, compared with 42% of those who didn’t make the pledge and had sex during that time.

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Study: Teens Heed Parental Warnings against Drugs and Alcohol But Indulge When Left Unguided.

A new survey released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the MetLife Foundation has found that parental guidance and example has a profound affect on their children’s use of alcohol and drugs, especially at such “coming-of-age” events as prom and graduation parties.

The survey indicates that when parents engage their children in discussions about alcohol and drug abuse the teens take their parents’ message to heart.

“Only 16 percent of teens whose parents set a zero tolerance policy reported their individual likelihood of using drugs or alcohol, whereas 45 percent of teens whose parents didn’t set such boundaries reported they were likely to drink or use drugs at prom or graduation parties this year,” the report states.

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Teen girls fight body image battle. 

For teens, especially girls, it may be very difficult to accept themselves as normal in appearance.

Health care authorities say the “body image” that teens have of themselves is often distorted by visual media that relies heavily on images of thin women and muscular men.

Recent high school grad Madison Hayes, 18, said it is very common for girls to be critical of their appearance.

“On a daily basis I hear girls complain about things like their jeans giving them a muffin top; the little love handles above their hips,” she said. “Girls are so picky about how they look.”

Hayes said she believes media influences are probably 90 percent of the reason that young women think there is something wrong with their body shape.

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Teens listen to less radio, more Ipods. 

Teenagers are beginning to desert radio in favor of music from personal devices and computers, according to Coleman Insights, which studied teens’ listening behavior in a major market.
Long observed by media pundits, the trend is finally having a measurable impact on audience size in the teenage demo. Specifically, Coleman found that 84% of the 14-17 cohort listen to music daily on an MP3 player, iPod, or computer, versus 78% for radio. Coleman described these results as evidence of a “tipping point” in audio consumption: “Coleman Insights has for the first time detected greater use of them than of FM radio in a few specific instances.”

Another Coleman study found the 15-17 cohort favors iPods and MP3 players as primary destinations for listening to music, with 41% choosing the personal devices, compared to just 22% for FM radio.

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Living together: No big deal?

An analysis of cohabitation, marriage and divorce data from 13 countries, including the USA, shows that living together has become so mainstream that growing numbers of Americans view it as an alternative to marriage.

The National Marriage Project study of a sampling of Western European and Scandinavian nations, Australia, Canada and New Zealand found that cohabitation elsewhere is far more common and indeed viewed as an option to matrimony. The study found that anywhere from 15% to 30% of all couples identified themselves as living together, compared with about 10% right now in the USA.

“We’re still the most marrying of all these countries, but the data are clearly headed in the one common direction. It’s headed in the direction of cohabitation as an alternative,” says David Popenoe, the report’s author and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, which studies marriage and child well-being.

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