Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Breathalyzers in High Schools

When it comes to keeping our teenagers safe and sober, one New Jersey school district is taking the lead by employing the use of a Breathalyzer test. At Pequannock High School,  getting checked for alcohol is now the rule at dances and other social events.

"I'm all for it because if your child isn't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide," parent Barbara Fede said.

So far it has worked, and now other districts are following Pequannock's lead.

Pequannock school officials say they avoided running into any privacy issues by making students sign a contract which states they must submit to a Breathalyzer if they want to attend a school social event.

Source: WCBSTV.com
http://wcbstv.com/local/pequannock.high.school.2.622734.html

This approach to keeping teens safe and sober seems reasonable to me. I can't imagine that parents who truly want their kids to remain alcohol free will complain about the potential intrusiveness of the test. Interestingly by its omission in the report, is any information about what penalties are levied against any student who might test positive for alcohol. In this area, I'm sure there is a lot of opportunity for healthy debate. Again, for parents who don't object to the concept of helping kids stay alcohol free, this might be something to advocate for in your local school system.

For more information on helping your kids stay alcohol free, click on the titles below to view various articles:

Alcohol and Your Teen

Dangers of Teen Alcohol Abuse

Helping Your Kids Stay Alcohol-Free

Will Teens Circle Back to Email as Social Network?

With the explosive excitement and high valuations of Facebook and the like, it’s time to take a step back and acknowledge the mother of all social networks: email. Yes, plain-vanilla email.

There’s a lot of hoopla about email losing relevance with younger generations, and therefore heading toward extinction. Baloney. The fact is that kids’ primary communication devices are mobile, not computers optimized for email. Therefore they use those devices’ best application: SMS and voice. But once kids graduate, take on business responsibilities and (many) sit in front of a PC all day long, email becomes a hard fact of life. Scott Karp at Publishing2.com noted that “Most people over 30 don’t have many (or any) business or personal relationships that don’t involve communicating by email.”

Now consider the natural, authentic and deeper social connections inherent in email. Steve Hodson, who blogs at WinExtra.com, noted that his email connections “have risen up the ranks of the network over time and as such have more of a trust factor associated with them that you will never find elsewhere.” Actual writing, thoughtful interaction and more manual contact management lead to connections far more significant than superficial layers of distributed pokes and passive status feeds.

Source: Online Spin Blog / Mediapost
http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1201

Interesting. I think the blog author has a significant point here that once teens graduate and enter the workforce, email becomes much more of a significant player in terms of ongoing connection with other people.

Teens Primed for Mobile Social Networking

More than six in 10 teens have mobile phones, according to a December 2006 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project titled "Teens and Social Media." Add to this the fact that teens are a fast-growing social networking user group. In 2007, 70% used social networks at least once a month. eMarketer projects that number will grow to 84% in 2011. The bottom-line: Given the popularity of mobile phones and social networking among teens, it is not a giant leap to expect them to use the two technologies together. Early data suggest that is the next step.

"Mobile social networking is predominantly a young consumer’s game," said John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer. "The next question is whether early adopters gather at mobile-only social networking destinations or if they are extending their existing social networking relationships to mobile," Gauntt said. "Here, the evidence is well in favor of the latter."

Source: eMarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005764&src=article1_newsltr

This is something to keep an eye on. Mobile social networking is still early in its development. Given the statistics, it seems the natural course of events for kids to increase their mobile access to social networking, even more so as better mobile conduits are built to existing online social networks.