About a week ago I told you about the press coverage surrounding parents making their way to Facebook and wondering what that means for a social network that had previously been meant exclusively for college students.  Well older teens aren’t too impressed by the idea of being friended by their mom and as a result many are calling fro the site to be closed to older adults. 

Of course opening the site up to high school students, middle school students and also to parents makes good business sense for Facebook because it means more traffic.  In fact, it meant 89% more traffic in one year.  But what this also means is that young adults that used to see Facebook as the coolest place to hang out on the web, now have begun to view it as a place overrun with 14 year olds and parents (the very people high school and college students are trying to avoid.)  So what will happen?  Well, no one exactly knows, but I’m guessing an alternative site will pop up on the web in the next year and all the college kids will flock there.  In the meantime, teens are just going to have to find a way to share Facebook with parents and younger siblings. For more click here.

This year’s Horatio Alger State of our Nation’s Youth survey results were released recently and as it turns out America’s young people are collectively not very optimistic, but individually they believe they have a bright future. These results are based on a phone survey of 1,006 students between the ages of 13 and 19.

One point about the survey that stuck out to me is that in the past 5 years, young people’s optimism about the future of America has declined 22 points! Yikes! Another thing that I noticed was that the 2 things that teens said would make their education better were more up to date technology and better job training. The tech part is pretty obvious because all students want to be cruising the Internet and typing up reports on the hottest new computer on the market. But I also think there is something to the need for better job training in schools. As I talk to teens about going back to school, the things I always here are that they need more teachers that make earning fun and that they wish teachers would show them how to use what they learn. Teens are cynical and if they don’t think geometry of U.S. History is going to benefit them in the real world, they will tune you out and doodle on their notebooks. I think this in part due to the fact that many teens see celebrity, fortune and fame as much more attainable now.

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This past May research reported that 50% of people who watch television shows online consider it a replacement for regular television viewing.  This is bad news for networks who have insisted that the option of watching TV shows online is additive and not a replacement for viewers tuning in to shows on actual TV’s. From personal experience I can say that I watched most of last season’s LOST and the Office episodes on my computer and not on TV.  The reason for it is that many times I was unable or unwillling to dedicate my Thursday evenings to sitting in front of a TV. 

This convenience can be both a good and bad thing.  For instance, if there is a show you’d like to watch with your teen but your schedules don’t exactly allow that to happen, now the two of you can enjoy watching it together at a time that is convenient for both of you.  Or maybe you’d like to hang out with your teen some night and play a game or go out to eat but your invitation is met with, “I can’t.  My show comes on at 7 and I can’t miss it.”  (I know that happened more than once when I was a teen and the latest developments on Dawson’s Creek, The O.C. and Friends seemed to take precedence over any other event that might be occurring during the show’s time slot.)  Well now, thanks to online viewing, your teen can catch the episode the next day online. 

Of course, the bad part about all this is that if there is a show that you don’t want your teen to be watching, it might not be as simple as keeping the TV off of a certain channel at a certain time.  An easy way for them to circumvent the watchful eye of mom and dad is to just watch episodes online when you’re at work or after you go to bed. 

In that case it’s really hard to prevent them from watching it.  However, I tend to think that what’s better than trying to constantly block your teen’s access to bad things is to help them understand why you object to them.  If your teen understands that you want what’s best for them and they are honest with you and respectful of your wishes then maybe you won’t have to worry if their catching episodes of Gossip GIrl online while you’re not home.

But in the end, whatever your teen sees on TV, hears in music or watches in a movie is no match for the influence of a caring and involved adult. 

  In my browsing of the web today I found a great film made by Child Net International  that addresses the issue of cyberbullying. The film follows a teen boy as he finds himself the target of bullying.  It’s something all parents should watch in order to gain a better understanding of how these things happen and what effect it has on teens.  I think it’s easy for adults to sometimes brush off the idea of cyberbullying because it was never a part of their adolescence.  I mean it does make sense that being bullied through text message or online chat would seem less threatening than getting physically beat up for your lunch money.  However, the issue with cyberbullying is that it’s impossible to escape from because you never know where it will show up.  It’s not as easy as avoiding a certain group of kids while at school or walking a different way home. Cyberbullying allows you to be harassed through instant messaging, threatened through e-mail and humiliated on myspace.  It is everywhere and with the far reach of the internet, a humiliating photo could be e-mailed to everyone in your school or posted on myspace for the whole world to see.  For teens, this can create the feeling that their world is over and they can’t handle it.  That’s why we’ve seen so many tragic cases of suicide related to cyberbullying cases.  To find out more about cyberbullying and for some tips on how to prevent and address it you can visit articles here and here. Also, you can watch the film below or HERE. 

 

 

Apparently Facebook.com is in for a bit of a makeover.  A couple years ago we read stories about employers who were doing a little research into their prospective new employees lives by Googling their names and checking Facebook profiles.  These employers were able to look past the young professional with a sparkling resume and right into their personal life, which often included embarrassing photos from drunken college parties.  This was also an issue for High School students who lost athletic scholarships once it was discovered through Myspace profile pages that they too were documenting their engagement in some risky activities. Well, today Facebook is seeing that many of their users are growing up and entering the job market and as a result they need a professional look and feel to their Facebook profiles that can impress employers.  But at the same time, what about the young users who are just getting into the social networking craze? They don’t want to grow up and they don’t want their Facebook to either.  Well, this is the problem Billionaire 20 something Facebook  creator Mark  Zuckerberg and his Facebook team have tackle as they figure out how to keep the users who are growing up while still attracting teens.  Read the article here….

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…

New teen show ‘Queen Bees’ Premiere’s on the N

From the lands of backstabbery and fakeness, the brats have come. Gisbelle and Stassi and Camille, from Trophy Club, Tex., and Shavon, Michelle, Kiana and Brittany have come to your television to compete on a reality show that totters between “so bad it’s good” and “so bad it’s bad and makes you question yourself and humanity.” And we are talking serious nasties, dude, girls who fake pregnancies and then miscarriages to win attention, who refuse to hang out with their “ugly” friends and “don’t really feel bad for homeless people.” Or say so. They are mean. But through the course of this show, they shall become nice. Or pretend to. For $25,000. This is the premise of “Queen Bees,” which premieres tonight at 9 on cable channel the N Network and can also be seen at The-N.com. It represents the latest incarnation of a mean girls frenzy that began with Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.” They’re the girls who start ruining life for everybody else in middle school. Read the full story…

Helicopter Parents Freak Out As Kids Go Off To Camp 

Eve Pidgeon watched the large group of kids, many of them laughing and chatting excitedly as they boarded a bus for camp last summer. “They just couldn’t wait,” said Pidgeon, whose 8-year-old daughter, Zoe, was among the young campers. Then Pidgeon looked around and noticed something else: “There were no children crying — just parents.” These days, camp leaders and family counselors say it is an increasingly common dynamic. It used to be the homesick kid begging to come home from camp. While that still happens, they have noticed that it is often parents who have more trouble letting go. They call it “kidsickness,” a condition attributed in large part to today’s more involved style of parenting. Observers also say it is only being exacerbated by our ability to be in constant contact by cell phone and computer, as well as many parents’ perception that the world is a more dangerous place. Read the full story…

With school events limited, teens use Facebook to draw big crowds to private parties 

When Cliff Sheckles decided to host a dance, he didn’t call everyone he knew and invite them. He didn’t put up posters or hand out fliers. He just logged on to Facebook. The then-sophomore at the Lakeside School ended up playing host to 1,200 people at his April event in the South Lake Union Naval Armory building, his seven-person security staff holding up a line of boys as if at a nightclub — a far cry from teenage sock hops of yesteryear. Large-scale private dances, like the one he coordinated, have been easier to promote since Facebook opened its doors to high school students several years ago. And a recent decision by Seattle Public Schools to limit high schools to three dances a year — down from six or seven at some schools — seems to have added fuel to the fire. Read the ful story…

NPR: Teens, Tech And Language: A Tired Old Tale Retold 

From the telegraph to the typewriter to the text message, every new technology inspires rhapsodies about the effect it’ll have on language — especially the language of the young. In his commentary, Fresh Air’s resident linguist points out that language — and the young — somehow manage to survive. Listen to the story on NPR.org… 

 

Technology reshapes America’s classrooms 

From online courses to kid-friendly laptops and virtual teachers, technology is spreading in America’s classrooms, reducing the need for textbooks, notepads, paper and in some cases even the schools themselves. Just ask 11-year-old Jemella Chambers. She is one of 650 students who receive an Apple Inc laptop each day at a state-funded school in Boston. From the second row of her classroom, she taps out math assignments on animated education software that she likens to a video game. Read the full story…

Melanoma surges in young women

Increasing numbers of younger women continue to receive diagnoses of the most dangerous form of skin cancer even as the rate of new cases has leveled off in younger men, federal health officials reported yesterday. An analysis of government cancer statistics from 1973 to 2004 found that the rate of new melanoma cases in younger women had jumped 50 percent since 1980 but did not increase for younger men in that period. Read the full story…

 

According to a study by Netpop Research, teens and adults aged between 13 and 34 spend more time entertaining themselves in front of computers than watching movies or reading novels and magazines.  In fact, the research showed that 36 percent of all entertainment is consumed on computers.

With this in mind, it is hardly surprising to see how staggeringly popular YouTube has become since its 2005 launch.  Web information company Alexa lists YouTube as the third most popular website in world, behind only Yahoo and Google.  But even so, many adults still aren’t quite sure what Youtube is and what they should think about it. 

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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…

LA Times: Kids and teens: The slow slide to a sedentary life

Grades aren’t the only things parents of children and teens should be keeping an eye on. Their physical activity should be scrutinized as well, considering that from ages 9 to 15, some kids could fall into a steady downward spiral of lethargy. It shouldn’t be surprising that an uptick in video game playing, television watching and computer surfing is probably to blame for the fact that as kids grow older, their time spent moving may greatly decrease, according to a recent study. Read the full story….

 

Kansas City Star: Teens herald the death of e-mail 

A pair of 2007 studies conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that teens are steadily drifting away from the old-fashioned medium. While 92 percent of surveyed adults said they regularly used e-mail, only 16 percent of teens made it a part of daily life while text messaging (36 percent), instant messaging (29 percent) and social network site messaging (23 percent) gained in popularity. Read the full story…

Genes May Play Role in Turning Teens into Criminals 

Researchers at the University of North Carolina reported Monday that genes may play a role in young men who grow up in tough neighborhoods or with disadvantaged families and later become violent criminals. The scientists have identified three genes they believe play a role. One, called MAOA, played a particularly strong role, and had been shown in previous research to affect antisocial behavior. The researchers called the gene “disturbingly common”. Sociology professor Guang Guo, who led the study, said those with a particular variation of the MAOA gene known as 2R were extremely prone to criminal and delinquent behavior. Read the full story…

Star Tribune: Investing in youth has a measurable economic payoff 

Paul Anton, a good student and shooting guard out of Minneapolis Washburn High in 1966, turned his sharp eye to the study of mathematics and economics at the University of Minnesota. He spent 30 years at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank and U.S. Bancorp and as a consulting economist for a firm that did a lot of work for financial institutions. In his latest gig, Anton is applying the cost-benefit and return-on-investment analysis of the business analyst to examining social programs — and the money taxpayers can save when kids are ready for kindergarten, when youth intervention programs keep teens out of crime, and when drug courts get offenders clean and into work-release programs for less than $40,000-a-year stays in prison. Read the full story…

Forbes: Teen Retailers’ Back-to-School Blues  

If Steve & Barry’s financial woes are any indication, the back-to-school season will be a difficult one for teen-focused retailers. The Port Washington, N.Y.-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, citing $693.5 million in assets and $638 million in debt. Best known for celebrity fashion lines, including Bitten by Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker and Starbury by New York Knicks star Stephon Marbury, Steve & Barry’s sells super-cheap clothing for teens and college students. Prices rarely exceed $20. In an economic downturn in which the Wal-Marts of the world are succeeding (see “Consumers Save Money, Discounters Live Better”), one would presume that a teen retailer like Steve and Barry’s, which is also a discounter, would be somewhat immune to hardship. Read the full story…