Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Study: Parents Clueless About Tech's Dangers to Teen Hearing

One in six teens has some degree of preventable hearing loss, but few parents warn their kids to turn down their iPods or avoid other sources of excessive noise, new research finds.

"High-frequency hearing loss, which is typically noise related, has increased among U.S. adolescents," said study researcher Dr. Deepa Sekhar, assistant professor of pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine.

Yet Sekhar's poll of about 700 parents found that the overwhelming majority -- more than 96 percent -- believed their teen was not at risk or only slightly at risk of developing hearing problems from too much noise. More than two-thirds said they hadn't talked to their teen about noise hazards because of that perceived low threat.

Personal music devices and concerts are a common cause of noise overdose, as is lawn-mowing, especially when listening to music at the same time, she said. Shop class and sporting events also can be extremely noisy, she said.

Whereas 13 percent of teens exhibited high-frequency hearing loss in the early 1990s, that figure had passed 16 percent by 2006, according to background information Sekhar provided.

The study, which involved parents with teens aged 13 to 17 years old, was published online Nov. 21 in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery. It was funded by a grant from the Children's Miracle Network, a nonprofit organization that draws attention to children's health issues.

Sounds above 85 decibels can cause permanent hearing loss, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Some MP3 players can reach 110 decibels, while lawn mowers can hit 106.

Sekhar said she doesn't expect music-loving teens to give up this cherished pastime. Instead, she wants to raise awareness among parents that hearing protection is essential.

Source: HealthDay
http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/parents-clueless-about-ipod-noise-hazards-study-finds-682386.html

What's Hot? 11/22/13

Trending Today on Twitter - 11/22/13
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     7. Paris Hilton
     8. Catching Fire
     9. Mets
    10. The Hunger Games
Source: Twitter

Popular Today on Bing - 11/22/13
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Source: Bing

iTunes Top 10 Singles - 11/22/13
     1. Midnight Memories - One Direction
     2. The Monster (feat. Rihanna) - Eminem
     3. Royals - Lorde
     4. Counting Stars - OneRepublic
     5. Timber (feat. Ke$ha) - Pitbull
     6. Let Her Go - Passenger
     7. Demons - Imagine Dragons
     8. Story of My Life - One Direction
     9. Wake Me Up - Avicii
    10. Diana - One Direction
Source: Apple iTunes

Top 10 TV Shows in Prime Time - Week Ending 11/17/13
     1. NBC Sunday Night Football
     2. NCIS
     3. The Big Bang Theory
     4. The OT
     5. NCIS: Los Angeles
     6. Football Night in America - Pt. 3
     7. Person of Interest
     8. Dancing with the Stars
     9. Voice
    10. 60 Minutes
 Source: Nielsen Co

Top YouTube Videos - 13-17-Year-Olds - Today - 11/22/13
    1. Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split - feat. Van Damme
    2. Mick Foley Mystery
    3. Why bring a child into this world? A film by Unilever
    4. Your Brain on Crack Cocaine
    5. Raw Footage of Ernie Wayne Tertelgte in Three Forks Justice Court
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
    1. Thor: The Dark World
    2. The Best Man Holiday
    3. Last Vegas
    4. Free Birds
    5. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Snapchat Soars! Sends 400 Million Pictures Everyday

Snapchat now shares 400 million snaps each day, according to its CEO Evan Spiegel.

It was only just September that Spiegel reported that the disappearing photo-sharing service was seeing 350 million snaps sent per day, up from 200 million in June. Clearly, growth on the hot new social media service is staggering.

Even more staggering, perhaps, is the fact that the 400 million/day figure surpasses the photo-sharing activity on both Instagram and Facebook.

It's not surprising that more photos are flowing through the very private, self-destructing Snapchat as opposed to the very public Facebook and Instagram, where content lives forever and is seen by many.

Source: TechCrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/19/snapchat-reportedly-sees-more-daily-photos-than-facebook/

Youth Football Participation Drops

According to a new report, Pop Warner football, which is the United States’ largest football program for young people, saw an almost 10 percent drop in participation from 2010 to 2012.

Pop Warner football, which began in 1929, lost 23,612 players in 2012, a 9.5 percent drop from 2010. That is thought to be the largest two-year decline since the organization began keeping statistics.

Pop Warner officials say there are several factors in the decline, including the trend of athletes focusing on one sport. One doctor believes it is the concerns about head injuries that is the number one cause in the decline.

“Unless we deal with these truths, we’re not going to get past the dropping popularity of the sport and people dropping out of the sport,” said Dr. Julian Bailes, a former Pittsburgh Steelers neurosurgeon whose 10-year-old son, Clint, plays Pop Warner outside Chicago. “We need to get it right.”

The statistics, which have not been previously disclosed, are consistent with declining participation rates reported in youth football across the country. USA Football, a national governing body partially funded by the NFL, said participation among players ages 6 to 14 fell from 3 million to 2.8 million in 2011, a 6.7 percent decline.

Source: Sports Illustrated
http://tracking.si.com/2013/11/13/youth-football-participation-drops/

Oxford Dictionary's 2013 Word of the Year: Selfie

In what was described as an unusually unanimous decision, “selfie” has been chosen as word of the year by the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary, beating out “twerk” and a host of other Internet and social-media-related terms, such as “bitcoin,” that have exploded onto the verbal scene in recent years.

Use of “selfie,” to mean a self-portrait typically snapped with a smartphone and shared over social networks, has risen 17,000% in frequency over the past 12 months, Oxford Dictionaries said. “Twerk” experienced a notable midyear surge, thanks to Miley Cyrus, but has not proved quite as popular or universal.

“It seems like everyone who is anyone has posted a selfie somewhere on the Internet,” Oxford Dictionaries said on its blog, without offering an accompanying selfie of the writer.

The triumph of “selfie” is part of the larger and seemingly unstoppable proliferation of words and technological terms that lexicographers have struggled to keep up with.

Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-selfie-2013-word-of-the-year-20131119,0,1477227.story#axzz2l6qbBcyE

Study: Teens More Likely to Make Friends with Peers in Classes

What's the best predictor of who a teenager will become friends with? According to a new study, it's the classes he or she takes.

Researchers from Michigan State University found that teens are more likely to make friends with the people in their classes.

"People generally want to think that kids are choosing their friends from the well-known categories like jocks and nerds -- that it's like 'The Breakfast Club' and the same at every school," study researcher Kenneth Frank, a professor in the College of Education, said in a statement. "But our argument is that the opportunities an adolescent has to choose friends are guided by the courses the adolescent takes and the other students who take the courses with them. Moreover, the pattern of opportunities differs from school to school."

About 3,000 high school students from 78 different schools were surveyed for the study, which is published in the American Journal of Sociology.

In addition, researchers found that students were more likely to form bonds with other students who took the same set of classes as they did, regardless of their social status at the school, race or gender.

Source: Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/teen-friends-school-predictor-share-classes_n_4284517.html

Technology in the Bedroom Disrupts Teens' Sleep

Televisions, computers, gaming consoles and mobile phones in children’s bedrooms can cause anxiety and sleep loss, Canadian researchers reported in the current issue of the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

Having these devices in the bedroom trains the brain to see the room as a place for entertainment, rather than a place for calmness and rest, said the researchers from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

“One of the biggest culprits for inadequate and disturbed sleep is technology,’ said Dalhousie psychologist Jennifer Vriend, the study’s lead author. “Many teenagers sleep with their phones and they are awakened regularly by it ringing or vibrating throughout the night when they get a text, email or Facebook message,” she told The Telegraph. “Having televisions and games consoles in the bedroom is also a problem. It sets up the brain to see the room as an entertainment zone rather than a quiet, sleepy environment,” she explained. “So when a teenager is playing a violent video game regularly in his bedroom, his brain starts to associate it as a place where he should be on edge and ready for danger; the brain becomes wired to not want to sleep in that environment.”

The study also found that losing just one hour of sleep can negatively affect school performance by impeding memory and making it more difficult for children to solve math problems. By contrast, moving bedtime up by an hour makes children calmer and better able to concentrate, the researchers said.

On average, the study participants who went to bed an hour earlier slept just 73 minutes more per night than those who went to bed an hour later, but the consequences were dramatic, the researchers said.

Source: redOrbit
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113004631/technology-in-bedroom-disrupts-teen-sleep-111513/

Bullies More Likely to Engage in Risky Sex

Teenage bullies are prone to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study finds.

Casual sex and sex while drunk or high was more common among bullies and bully-victims than among other teens, a survey of more than 8,600 high school students found. Bully-victims are children who are both bullies and bullied.

"Findings from this study add to our understanding of the ways in which bullying affects youth and provide preliminary evidence that bullies and bullies who are also victims might be at heightened risk for sexual risk-taking behaviors," said lead researcher Melissa Holt, an assistant professor of counseling and human development at Boston University.

The report, published online Nov. 11 in Pediatrics, did not directly address why bullies and bully-victims might engage in risky sexual behaviors, Holt noted. "It may be that bullying and sexual risk reflect a coping response to stressors not captured in the study, such as harsh parenting," she said.

The increased risk for sexual risk-taking among bullies and bully-victims held even after taking into account factors such as dating violence, physical abuse and sexual abuse, Holt added.

"The time has come to acknowledge that bullying is a recognized health issue and that methods of prevention and help for those involved are important and necessary," said Dr. Jefry Biehler, chair of pediatrics at Miami Children's Hospital.

Source: HealthDay
http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/bullies-more-likely-to-engage-in-risky-sex-study-finds-681988.html

What's Hot? 11/15/13

Trending Today on Twitter - 11/15/13
     1. #DollarMenu & More
     2. Philippines
     3. Sounds
     4. #Obamacare
     5. #Androidgames
     6. #oomf
     7. #AMAs
     8. #HappyFriday
     9. Chicago
    10. Texas
Source: Twitter

Popular Today on Bing - 11/15/13
    1. Cursive Handwriting
    2. Jake Gyllenhaal
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    4. McRib
    5. Apology Note to Burglars
    6. Madonna Badger
    7. Woman Pulls Gun on Reporter
    8. Elk and Photographer
Source: Bing

iTunes Top 10 Singles - 11/15/13
     1. The Monster (feat. Rihanna) - Eminem
     2. Royals - Lorde
     3. Counting Stars - OneRepublic
     4. Timber (feat. Ke$ha) - Pitbull
     5. Demons - Imagin Dragons
     6. Let Her Go - Passenger
     7. Wake Me Up - Avicii
     8. Roar - Katy Perry
     9. Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus
    10. Hallelujah - Matthew Schuler
Source: Apple iTunes

Top 10 TV Shows in Prime Time - Week Ending 11/10/13
     1. NBC Sunday Night Football
     2. NCIS
     3. The Big Bang Theory
     4. CMA Awards
     5. 60 Minutes
     6. NCIS: Los Angeles
     7. Dancing with the Stars
     8. Home Depot Prime College Ftbl
     9. Person of Interest
    10. Voice
 Source: Nielsen Co

Top YouTube Videos - 13-17-Year-Olds - Today - 11/15/13
    1. Justin Bieber sleeping with Girl in Brasil
    2. Miley Cyrus coves Summertime Sadness in the Live Lounge
    3. One Man Dances Like Nobody's Watching While Everyone Is
    4. Disney's Maleficent Official Teaser Trailer
    5. Mick Foley Mystery
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
    1. Thor: The Dark World
    2. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
    3. Free Birds
    4. Last Vegas
    5. Ender's Game
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Teen Athletes at Increased Risk for Medication Misuse

Teen athletes derive many positive benefits from participating in sports, but their increased risk of sports-related injuries may also heighten their risk for medication misuse and abuse, especially for boys, finds a recent study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Nearly 7.5 million adolescents take part in sports at the high school level and 2 million high school athletic injuries occur each year.

"We should expect that adolescents who participate in competitive sports at the interscholastic level are at a greater risk to get injured and, subsequently, be more likely to be prescribed opioids to manage pain," said lead researcher Philip Veliz, Ph.D., of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The study, which followed 1,540 teens, showed that male athletes were more likely to use and misuse opioids medications on at least one occasion in the past year than non-athlete males. However, said Veliz, "one surprise was that female athletes were not more likely to be prescribed these medications or misuse them."

Male athletes may be more likely to be prescribed opioid medication because they are more likely to play sports such as wrestling and football, which have the highest rate of severe injury among high school sports. But their misuse and abuse of the medications may also have something to do with the role that sports play in the lives of young men, say the researchers.

"Adolescent males depend on sports for social status, the maintenance of relationships with male peers and family members," said Veliz. "In other words, sports are a powerful site to be recognized as a man, and male adolescents will sacrifice their bodies through athletic performances to prove their masculinity. Consequently, opioid use and misuse among males could be the byproduct of a play-through-pain culture."

Source: MedicalXpress
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-11-teen-athletes-medication-misuse.html