Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Science Underestimated The Dangers Of Sleep Deprivation

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

It can be tempting to try and cut back on sleep. After all, think of all the extra tasks we could all accomplish if we weren’t snoozing all night! Of course, sleep isn’t something one can choose to just stop doing, it’s not exercise or meditation. Sleep is an absolute necessity for our bodies, and without it, we would all break down physically and mentally.

The Sleep and Learning Lab at Michigan State University is really driving home this fact with their latest study. According to their findings, sleep deprivation is even more detrimental to our bodies and the ability to complete tasks than previously thought.

This is among one of the largest studies ever on sleep deprivation, and one of the first to research how it impacts what researchers call “placekeeping,” the ability to complete a task without losing one’s place, in spite of potential interruptions.

“Our research showed that sleep deprivation doubles the odds of making placekeeping errors and triples the number of lapses in attention, which is startling,” co-author and MSU doctoral candidate Michelle Stepan says in a media release. “Sleep-deprived individuals need to exercise caution in absolutely everything that they do, and simply can’t trust that they won’t make costly errors. Oftentimes – like when behind the wheel of a car – these errors can have tragic consequences.”

A total of 138 people were recruited to take part in an overnight sleep assessment; 77 stayed awake all night and 61 slept at home normally. Before going to sleep, each participant completed two cognitive tasks in the evening. One task measured reaction time, while the other measured the ability to stay focused on a task, even in the face of interruptions. Then, each person completed the same two tasks the following morning after either sleeping normally or staying up all night.

Overall, the researchers found that participants from both groups had a 15% error rate in the evening tasks, but that rate nearly doubled (up to 30%) among the sleep-deprived cohort in the morning. The rested participants scored about the same in the morning as they did the night before.

While the study’s authors admit that many people can complete tasks on “auto-pilot” even while sleep-deprived, lack of adequate sleep still causes deficits in all facets of everyday life, and those negative effects may be more profound than previously thought.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/study-science-underestimated-the-dangers-of-sleep-deprivation/

Decline in Ideal Heart Health Begins Early for Teen Girls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on ScienceDaily.

Heart health deteriorates as early as adolescence, with black girls experiencing greater rates of decline than white girls, according to preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2019 in Philadelphia.

"Cardiovascular health declines in adolescent girls and some teens experience a greater loss of cardiovascular health than others. About 20% of the girls in this study entered young adulthood with low cardiovascular health (defined as less than half of the total possible ideal cardiovascular health score of seven key health factors," said lead study author Holly Gooding, M.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Gooding is a member of the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease & Stroke in Women and Special Populations Committee.

Risk factors that contribute to heart disease can start as early as childhood and adolescence. These risk factors include obesity, tobacco, and alcohol use and lack of regular exercise, setting up youth for heart health problems later in life.

Obesity and physical inactivity are two of the biggest hurdles facing youth today, with nearly 24 million children ages 2 to 19 overweight or obese, and 15% of adolescents not getting enough exercise, a problem that is more common among girls than boys (19% versus 11%), according to 2015 data, the most recent year available.

Girls were also categorized into one of three categories -- ideal, intermediate or poor -- for six of the seven primary American Heart Association cardiovascular health metrics called Life's Simple 7: diet, exercise (at least 60 minutes per day for teens), abstaining from tobacco, a healthy body mass index, and healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Researchers also noted when girls began menstruating and accounted for teen pregnancy and depression in the analysis.

Among the researchers' findings:

• Heart health declined between ages 9 and 19, particularly among black girls and girls from families with lower education and income levels.
• Menstruating before age 12 was associated with reduced heart health. Black girls began their periods on average one year earlier than white girls, with a greater percentage of black girls starting menstruation before age 12.
• Depression, which is known to affect diet, physical activity levels, and tobacco use, was also associated with reduced heart health.
• Teen pregnancy was linked to reduced heart health among teens.
• The study results suggest that pediatricians and primary care providers should pay closer attention to teens who may be at higher risk for reduced heart health, particularly girls from underserved communities.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191111084927.htm

What's Hot? 11/22/19

Trending Today on Twitter - 11/22/19
1. #FridayFeeling
2. #FridayThoughts
3. #DirtyUpDisney
4. #FridayVibes
5. #JFKassassination
6. Testify
7. Cybertruck
8. Delorean
9. Chapter 3
10. Finally Friday
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 11/22/19
1. Tesla stock
2. Floyd Mayweather
3. Coldplay Everyday Life
4. Tesla truck
5. Colts vs Texans
6. Fiona Hill
7. Frozen 2
8. Meteor shower
9. Myles Garrett
10. Sam Hunt
Source: Google

Apple Music Top 10 Singles - 11/22/19
1. Woah - Lil Baby
2. Jerry Sprunger - Tory Lanez & T-Pain
3. HIGHEST IN THE ROOM - Travis Scott
4. BOP - DaBaby
5. everything i wanted - Billie Eilish
6. Roxanne - Arizona Zervas
7. Bandit - Juice WRLD & YoungBoy Never Broke Again
8. The Take (feat. Chris Brown) - Tory Lanez
9. Ballin' (feat. Roddy Ricch) - Mustard
10. Reply (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) - A Boogie wit da Hoodie
Source: Apple Music

Top 10 TV (Cable) Shows - Week Ending 11/17/19
1. Monday Night Football Seattle vs San Francisco
2. Monday Night Kickoff
3. Hannity - Wed
4. Tucker Carlson Tonight - Wed
5. Sportscenter 12am - Mon
6. Rachel Maddow Show - Fri
7. Tucker Carlson Tonight - Thurs
8. The Five - Wed
9. Rachel Maddow Show - Wed
10. Hannity - Wed
Source: TV By The Numbers

Trending Today on YouTube - 11/22/19
1. Half-Life: Alyx Announcement Trailer
2. VETE - Bad Bunny
3. Terrell Owns confronts Stephen A. over Colin Kaepernick criticisms
4. Kaash Paige - Love Songs
5. Rod Wave - Dark Clouds
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Ford v Ferrari
2. Midway
3. Charlie's Angels
4. Playing with Fire
5. Last Christmas
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Reducing Social Media Time Can Lead To Higher Grades For Teens

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

Social media is indisputably one of the great time-wasters of the modern era. While quickly checking Twitter or Facebook in between appointments or classes hardly feels all that time consuming, those short visits add up, oftentimes resulting in over ten hours of wasted time each and every week. All that lost time can be especially detrimental for underachieving students. According to a new study, teens struggling to keep up academically can considerably improve their grades by cutting back time spent on social media.

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney say that high-achieving students don't seem to be negatively impacted by the amount of time they spend on social media, but students with lower grades can significantly benefit from logging off.

The research team examined the amount of time a group of more than 500 freshman college students were spending on social media, and how that time allocation influenced their grades. On average, the students in the study were spending about two hours on Facebook every day, but some reported using social media for over eight hours each day.

Each student’s academic performance was measured using their weighted average mark across all classes, and all participants were surveyed about their social media habits. Other outside influential factors, such as age and gender, were also accounted for by the research team.

“It appears that for students with lower academic achievement, the use of social networking sites replaces study time, whereas high achieving students are able to juggle both,” said study leader, Dr. James Wakefield.

Researchers suggest that struggling students turn off social media notifications on their phones, or even better, delete their accounts altogether.

The study was published in the scientific journal Computers & Education.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/facebook-failure-for-struggling-students-less-time-on-social-media-leads-to-higher-grades/

Boredom is on the Rise for Adolescents, Especially Girls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on ScienceDaily.

"I'm so bored!" It's a typical complaint by teens in every era, but one that's growing more common for U.S. adolescents, especially girls.

New research at Washington State University has found that boredom is rising year after year for teens in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, with greater increases for girls than boys.

"We were surprised to see that boredom is increasing at a more rapid pace for girls than boys across all grades," said Elizabeth Weybright, WSU researcher of adolescent development, who shared the findings in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Collaborating with scientists John Schulenberg at the University of Michigan and Linda Caldwell at Pennsylvania State University, Weybright's project tracked a decade of adolescent responses to a question about boredom in the nationwide Monitoring the Future in-school survey.

Adolescents were asked to rate their responses to the question "I am often bored," on a five-point scale. Weybright and her colleagues analyzed the results over time and across grades, between 2008, when the question was first asked, and 2017.

Detailed in "More bored today than yesterday? National trends in adolescent boredom from 2008-2017," the team's research revealed that boredom rose within and across grades for much of the last decade.

When comparing across grades, boredom appears to peak in 10th grade for boys and in 8th grade for girls.

However, looking across time with grade levels combined, boys' boredom levels rose 1.6 percent every year on average, while girls' boredom levels rose by 1.7 percent on average. In the 10th grade, girls' boredom level rose by about 2 percent every year. In every grade, girls' boredom levels showed steeper rises than boys.

"Historically, we saw a decline from 2008 to 2010 across all grades, but it wasn't significant," said Weybright. "Then, we see a significant increase from 2010 to 2017. Around 2010, there's a divergence for boys and girls. We see that boredom increases for boys and girls, but it increases a bit steeper and earlier for girls."

While Weybright's study doesn't explore the causes of rising boredom, she notes that boredom may be associated with sensation-seeking and depression, which are rising among U.S. teens. At the same time, digital media use has also been increasing, doubling for 12th graders from 2006 to 2012.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191119123750.htm

Study Finds Links Between Teenage Anxiety and Later Harmful Drinking

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on EurekAlert.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have found evidence of an association between generalized anxiety disorder at age 18 and harmful drinking three years later, thanks to the long-term health study Children of the 90s.

The study, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence strengthens the evidence for a relationship between anxiety and later alcohol use as the researchers accounted for other factors such as adolescent smoking and cannabis use, and parental anxiety and alcohol use.

Researchers used a longitudinal design to help disentangle the order of associations between generalized anxiety disorder and alcohol use. They also tested whether drinking to cope, a motive for drinking alcohol, influenced these associations.

Using questionnaire and clinical interview data from more than 2000 participants, they found generalized anxiety disorder at age 18 was linked to frequent drinking, frequent bingeing, hazardous drinking, and harmful drinking at age 18. Generalized anxiety disorder continued to be associated with harmful drinking at age 21.

Drinking to cope was also strongly associated with more harmful drinking, but it did not appear to influence associations between anxiety and alcohol use. Harmful drinking was measured using a special test developed by the World Health Association. On average, adolescents with anxiety drank at more harmful levels regardless of whether they tended to drink alcohol for coping reasons or not.

Source: EurekAlert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/uob-slf110919.php

Adolescent Marijuana Use May Alter Decision-Making & Self-Control Areas Of The Brain

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

As marijuana continues to be decriminalized across the United States, the dangers of children obtaining and using the drug are also coming into light. Now, a recent study shows how adolescent cannabis use could change the way neurons function in certain areas of teens’ brains, specifically the regions behind decision-making, planning, and self-control.

The study, conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago psychologists, used an animal model of the structural development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which controls all high-level cognitive functions.

Within the prefrontal cortex, there is a support structure called the perineuronal net, which forms a type of protective shield using proteins around inhibitory cells. This helps secure the cells’ connections with excitatory neurons and regulate overall PFC activity. Scientists know that perineuronal net formation can be influenced by narcotic use, but the specific effects of marijuana are not yet known.

In the study, researchers gave adolescent rats a synthetic cannabinoid substance similar to the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, THC. The rats were administered this substance for either one day, ten days, or ten days followed by a period of abstinence. Then, the perineuronal net structures in these rats were compared to other animals who hadn’t received any synthetic THC.

Rats that were exposed to the synthetic cannabinoid exhibited reduced development around inhibitory cells during adolescence. The researchers also found that this reduction was more prominent among male rats.

“Our evidence suggests that exposure to cannabinoids during adolescence alters brain maturation in the prefrontal cortex,” says study leader Eliza Jacobs-Brichford in a university release. “These results may offer a mechanistic explanation for functional and behavioral changes caused by adolescent cannabinoid exposure.”

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/adolescent-marijuana-use-may-alter-decision-making-self-control-areas-of-the-brain/

What's Hot? 11/15/19

Trending Today on Twitter - 11/15/19
1. #ImpeachmentHearings
2. #Garrett
3. Marie Yovanovitch
4. #ImpeachmentHearing
5. #BestCartoonThemeSong
6. #FridayFeeling
7. Witness
8. Tory Lanez
9. #FridayThoughts
10. Max Kellerman
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 11/15/19
1. Mon Laferte
2. Myles Garrett
3. Walmart Black Friday 2019
4. Carmelo Anthony
5. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
6. Motorola Razr
7. Deval Patrick
8. Unicorn Puppy
9. Ford v Ferrari
10. Nancy Pelosi
Source: Google

Apple Music Top 10 Singles - 11/15/19
1. Woah - Lil Baby
2. everything i wanted - Billie Eilish
3. HIGHEST IN THE ROOM - Travis Scott
4. Roxanne - Arizona Zervas
5. Bandit - Juice WRLD & YoungBoy Never Broke Again
6. Make No Sense - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
7. No Guidance (feat. Drake)
8. Ballin' (feat. Roddy Ricch) - Mustard
9. Playing Games - Summer Walker & Bryson Tiller
10. Hot Now - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
Source: Apple Music

Top 10 TV (Cable) Shows - Week Ending 11/10/19
1. Monday Night Football Dallas v NY Giants
2. Monday Night Kickoff
3. Sportscenter 12a - Mon
4. Hannity - Thurs
5. Tucker Carlson Tonight - Tues
6. Tucker Carlson Tonight - Thurs
7. Hannity - Tues
8. Rachel Maddow Show - Tues
9. Rachel Maddow Show - Wed
10. Tucker Carlson Tonight - Wed
Source: TV By The Numbers

Trending Today on YouTube - 11/15/19
1. Last To Fall Wins $1,000,000
2. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020) Official Trailer
3. Billie Eilish - everything i wanted
4. HELLUVA BOSS (Trailer)
5. Jaclyn Cosmetics Holiday Collection Reveal
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Midway
2. Doctor Sleep
3. Playing with Fire
4. Last Christmas
5. Terminator: Dark Fate
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Playing More Than One Sport Helps Teen Athletes Avoid Injuries

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Teen girls who play several sports have a lower injury risk than those who focus on just one, a new study finds.

It included more than 1,100 girls who play basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Most were middle and high school students; some were in college.

Girls who specialize too early in sports such as basketball, soccer and volleyball could find that a single-minded focus "may hinder motor development and lead to compromised hip and knee coordination during dynamic landing and jumping activities, which can lead to increased chance of potentially life-altering injuries," said lead author Christopher DiCesare. He's a biomechanist in the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.

The study also found that girls who focused on a single sport had a higher rate of hip and knee injuries and an increased risk of knee pain.

Researchers said playing multiple sports may improve girls' coordination, and that those who specialize may not fully develop neuromuscular coordination patterns that can reduce the risk of injury.

Due to uneven growth in bone mineral and muscular and connective tissue strength before and during puberty, young athletes may be less able than older ones to handle the physical stresses associated with focusing on one sport, the study published in the Journal of Athletic Training concluded.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/fitness-information-14/sports-medicine-news-634/playing-more-than-one-sport-helps-teen-athletes-avoid-injuries-study-751559.html

Engaging in Sexual Intercourse in Early Adolescence Associated with an Increased Risk of Attempting Suicide

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on PsyPost.

Adolescents who engage in sexual intercourse tend to face higher odds of suicide attempts, according to new research. The study, published in the journal Psychiatry Research, examined more than 100,000 participants who were between 12 and 15 years old.

“Suicide is a global issue inflicting the majority of global regions and has a high prevalence among adolescents,” said study author Lee Smith, a reader in physical activity and public health at Anglia Ruskin University.

“Sexual intercourse in early adolescence may increase risk for suicidal behavior via mental disorders, distress resulting from being too psychologically immature to handle sexual relationships, and sexual violence particularly among girls.”

The researchers examined data from 116,820 adolescents in 38 countries who had participated in the Global School-based Student Health Survey.

After controlling for gender, age, food insecurity, anxiety-induced insomnia, and alcohol consumption, the researchers found an association between sexual intercourse and suicide attempts in 32 of the 38 countries.

“Those adolescents who had sexual intercourse had more than double the odds of having attempted suicide in the past 12 months compared with those who had never had intercourse,” Smith told PsyPost.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/engaging-in-sexual-intercourse-in-early-adolescence-associated-with-an-increased-risk-of-attempting-suicide-54782