Here’s a quick series of stories about teen girls and their search for identity in the media saturated world we live in.  A story talking about the effect of teen magazines like Seventeen, Cosmo Girl!, Teen, and Teen Vogue on girls can be found here.  It’s a good read and I suggest you check it out.  And to find out what your teen daughter is reading this month in those magazines, head on over to Ypulse and check out their summary.

After you finish reading those articles, you can head on over to Australian paper, The Age, and read an interesting article by Celia Walden about identity cannibalism among teen girls.  To explain that peculiar term for you a little bit, here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Focusing entirely on those whose personality or physical attributes she covets, there is a new breed of woman who longs to be someone she isn’t, as if it were as easy as creating an avatar in some paradise-like cyber-universe. By definition, these identities cannot be acquired; but that does not stop the covetous from trying, and young women are ending the first decade of this century in a black hole of impossible desires. They are Identity Cannibals — or Cannibelles — desperate to be anyone but themselves, willing to steal another’s clothes, look and lifestyle to create a new “me”.”

As we approach a new school year and a new set of expectations and pressures from teen boys and girls alike to conform and fit in, this is an article all parents, educators, and youth ministers should read.

USA Today has released a survey that reveals teens today aren’t that much different than teens a generation ago. Things like suicide, literacy and high school graduation rates have remained pretty stagnant in the past 30 years and the researchers seem surprised that the results weren’t worse. Some things that have changed are that teens today are more likely to be obese and live in poverty but less likely to die of violence, accidents or disease. Also, teens today as compared to those in the 70’s are less likely to attend church but more likely to think religion is important. What we know from this is that teens are teens and while each generation faces different challenges the essential role of parents remains the same: raise children into responsible and independent adults through a balance of protection, freedom and love.

USMagazine.com: Heidi Montag wants to record a Christian Album.

There is a different side to Heidi Montag that you don’t see on MTV’s The Hills, the 21-year-old budding singer tells USA Today. “I have been the most religious person since I was 2 years old. I always felt this crazy connection to God,” says Montag, who identifies herself as “kind of non-denominational Baptist.” Montag — who just released her latest single “Fashion” and frequently reads the Bible — says she even wants to record a Christian album. She adds that she once planned on devoting her life to God as a missionary in Africa.  Read the full story…

 

US News & World Report: Housing crisis popular with popular teens. 

While the housing bust is threatening to drag the entire economy into a debilitating recession, it’s great news for the teenage party scene.  With a wanton lack of sympathy for the mortgage meltdown and ensuing credit crisis, teenagers in one California community are using abandoned foreclosed homes as venues for unchaperoned—and presumably “raging”—drinking parties. Read the full story…

Minneapolis Star tribune: Teens who speed may soon meet cars that tattle.

Here’s one way to get teen drivers off the cell phone: Make them hook it up to the speedometer and automatically text Mom and Dad whenever the car is speeding.  The phones could conceivably keep track of such things as the number of passengers in the car, whether they’re wearing seatbelts and even monitor the volume of the stereo. Read the full story…

New York Times: Teen cruising declines as gas prices rise. 

For car-loving American teenagers, this is turning out to be the summer the cruising died. Kevin Ballschmiede, 16, pined for his 1999 Dodge Ram — “my pride and joy” — the other night as he hung out in a parking lot in this town outside Chicago. Given that filling the 26-gallon tank can now cost more than $100, he had left it at home and caught a ride.  From coast to coast, American teenagers appear to be driving less this summer. Police officers who keep watch on weekend cruising zones say fewer youths are spending their time driving around in circles, with more of them hanging out in parking lots, malls or movie theaters. Read the full story…

Kansas City Star: Growing modesty movement shows teens they can be stylish without revealing too much

Low-cut camis and short dresses may be the rage in fashion and celebrity magazines, but many young women say the styles expose too much, especially during summer. They’ve turned to faith-based organizations for help. The modesty movement, as it’s called, is gaining support from religious leaders who say it’s time to cover up. Religious groups have promoted modest-themed fashion shows and proms, and referred brides-to-be to shops that sell modest gowns. This month, hundreds attended the sold-out Pure Fashion Show at Arden Hills Resort Club & Spa in Sacramento, Calif. The Friday night show featured local teens from various churches modeling modest fashion from casual wear to evening formals. Read the full story…

TIME: Should you drink with your teen? 

The data indicate there are fewer young drinkers, but a greater proportion of them are hard-core drinkers. Parents have helped create this paradox. Many parents seem torn between two competing impulses: officially, most say in surveys that they oppose any drinking by those under 21. But unofficially many also seem to think kids will be kids—after all, not so long ago, they were themselves drinking as teens. A few of these parents have even allowed their kids to have big drunken parties at home. Read the full story…

The first time I heard about Katy Perry’s song “I Kissed A Girl” it was being sung by numerous young people.  Whether they liked or disliked it (some of them informed me that they thought it was dumb…) it was still being sung to a degree that made me realize the extent of its catchiness.  Then I contemplated the lyrics.  It dawned on me that a girl was singing about kissing a girl and liking it.  Uh oh!  

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‘Do Hard Things’ appeals to teen readers.

While some teenagers spend their free time playing video games or watching television, 19-year-old twins Alex and Brett Harris are busy promoting their book “Do Hard Things,” one of the country’s most popular Christian titles. Labeled “a different kind of teen book,” the non-fiction manifesto encourages teens not to treat adolescence as a vacation from responsibility and to rebel against the low expectations set upon them by society.  Though little-noticed by the mainstream media, “Do Hard Things” has been one of the top 10 religious titles on Nielsen BookScan for past four weeks and remains Amazon.com’s top-selling Youth Ministry title, its twelfth best-selling family and parenting book (trailing a recent surge of interest in the late Tim Russert’s works), and 224th at the site overall.

Read the interview with the Authors… 

Interest in faith increases among teens 

The Barna Research Group did a study from 2001 to 2006, which showed half of the nation’s 24 million teens attended some sort of church-related activity. Ministry among teens is thriving.

However, David Kinnaman, research director with the Barna Group, also said that by the time teenagers turn into 20-somethings, they tend to lose interest in religious activities. He recently wrote the book “unChristian,” released in September 2007, on his research of what 16- to 29-year-olds think about religion, their skepticism and points of spiritual openness.

Read full article… 

 

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.

Read the full story… 

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.

Read the full story… 

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.

Read the full story… 

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.

Read the full story… 

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.

Read the whole story… 

This week my teen culture research has led me to an article in the May 2008 issue of CosmoGIRL! titled “Religion By Design” by Marina Khidekel. In the article, Khidekel asks the question, “What if going to church were like going to Starbucks? You wouldn’t just get a plain coffee: You could get a shot of Catholicism, a sprinkle of Buddhism, a pinch of Hindu teachings – or whatever else you’re in the mood for that day.”

The article goes on to explain that this kind of “Starbucks spirituality” is becoming common as more teens abandon organized religion to instead create their own religion from various beliefs like they’re creating an iPod playlist. One teen puts it this way: “With all the options out there, it’s impossible for me to choose just one religion to follow.”

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