Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Sleep Deprivation and Teens - Walking Zombies

We just lost an hour of sleep by turning our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time. But imagine if you lost an hour of sleep — or even more — every night of your life. That’s what it’s like for our nation’s teens, who are facing an epidemic of sleep deprivation.

How bad is it? “Every single high school student I have ever measured in terms of their alertness is a walking zombie,” says Cornell sleep expert James Maas. It’s a description that will sound familiar to the parents of pretty much any teenager.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, American teenagers require about 9-1/4 hours of sleep a night, yet only 8 percent of them are getting it. A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that as much as two-thirds of high school students get less than seven hours of sleep nightly.

If it was just a matter of early-morning fogginess this wouldn’t be a big deal, but sleep deprivation in teens has been linked to lower levels of Human Growth Hormone, which is integral to a teenager’s physical growth, brain development, and maturation of their immune system, as well as higher rates of anxiety disorders and depression. A 2010 study in the journal Sleep found that teenagers who go to bed after midnight are 24 percent more likely to suffer from depression and 20 percent more likely to consider harming themselves than those who go to bed before 10:00 p.m.

In a study of fourth and sixth graders conducted by sleep researcher Dr. Avi Sadeh at Tel Aviv University, a mere one-hour nightly loss of sleep was “equivalent to the loss of two years of cognitive maturation and development.” In other words, when deprived of just one hour of sleep each night, a sleep-deprived sixth-grader performed like a fourth grader. That’s not progress.

Not only is too little sleep affecting teens, but so is their means of staying awake. Many rely on coffee, caffeinated soda, and energy drinks. Some take Adderall or amphetamines. In Massachusetts and New York they can now stay up with the help of a lipstick-sized canister of inhalable caffeine. The Journal of Pediatrics recently concluded that energy drinks are “never appropriate for children or adolescents,” citing the harmful “neurologic and cardiovascular” impact of caffeine on teenagers.

Parents are encouraged to view sleep as essential to teenagers’ well-being and success by teaching them that sleep is as important as nutrition, exercise, studying, and free time.

Source: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/sleep-deprivation-and-teens-walking-zombies/2012/03/10/gIQAr0QP3R_blog.html

Tween Dating: All About Texts

Nearly half of 11- to 14-year-olds say they have been in a dating relationship, according to a 2008 survey of 1,043 tweens by Tru, a Chicago youth market-research firm, for Liz Claiborne. A larger share—60%—think parents should let middle-schoolers date, according to a recent online poll of 787 users by Yoursphere, a social-networking website for tweens and teens.

But "dating" in middle school doesn't mean what many adults think. Tween couples talk mostly via text and chat. Their relationships are fleeting but all-consuming. They date in packs—but expect their boyfriends and girlfriends to be monogamous. When they break-up, it's often via text. And they keep their parents largely in the dark.

Anthony Conselatore didn't tell his parents the first time he asked a girl out, at age 12. "I was nervous, and we really didn't talk much while we were dating," says the Potomac Falls, Va., teen. "We'd see each other in the hallway for five minutes, then go to classes and not talk to each other again until the next week." Within a couple of months, he adds, "she fell in love with a different guy, and she broke up with me," he says. "It happens."

Now 14, Anthony is "more than friends" with a girl at school. When he sees her in the hall, "we give each other a hug and go on with our lives," he says. But they fire more than 300 text messages back and forth each day. If they do go out, they go in a pack of friends because it helps avoid "that awkward moment, when we're staring at each other for five minutes, not saying anything," Anthony says.

When a classmate approached 13-year-old Nicholas Kelly in the school cafeteria to ask him out, she brought a friend for "moral support," Nicholas says. "We dated for seven days," mostly by text message, Nicholas says. "In middle school, a long relationship is a month. Anything over that and your friends say, 'Omigod, you guys have been together that long?' " He adds, "Then, she broke up with me. I lay on my bed staring at the wall for three hours, and then it was, like, 'OK, I've got a life,' " and he went out with his friends and forgot about it.

These days, talk about dating becomes pervasive when kids turn 9 or 10, amid earlier onset of puberty and social pressure to grow up fast, experts say.

Source: Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577209052395064034.html

Multitasking Hinders Youth Social Skills

FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal recently.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.

"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."

The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.

Source: CNN
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-25/tech/tech_social-media_multitasking-kids_1_social-skills-study-facetime?_s=PM:TECH

As Minds Get Quicker, Teenagers Get Smarter

Adolescents become smarter because they become mentally quicker.

That is the conclusion of a new study by a group of psychologists at University of Texas at San Antonio. “Our findings make intuitive sense,” says lead author Thomas Coyle, who conducted the study with David Pillow, Anissa Snyder, and Peter Kochunov. But this is the first time psychologists have been able to confirm this important connection. The study appears in the forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

“Our research was based on two well-known findings, Coyle continues. “The first is that performance on intelligence tests increases during adolescence. The second is that processing speed”—the brain taking in and using new stimuli or information—“as measured by tests of mental speed also increases during adolescence.”

Researchers found that the older teenagers did better and worked faster than the younger ones. Then, running the data in numerous ways, they discovered that the measured increase of intelligence could be accounted for almost entirely by the increase in mental speed.

The work reinforces earlier theories about the relationship between increasing processing speed in the maturing brain and the cognitive development of children.

Source: Health Canal
http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/21187-Minds-Get-Quicker-Teenagers-Get-Smarter.html

Absent Fathers Affect Boys' Development, Behaviors

Boys who grow up without a dad around are more likely to reach puberty later, but father their own children earlier, according to a new study.

Researchers from the London School of Economics used data from the UK National Child Development Study to look at the relationship between the presence of fathers and the time their sons' voices broke.

The study found that if the father left during their son’s adolescence their voice broke later, when compared to boys with present fathers.

“It’s particularly surprising to see that a boy’s puberty can be delayed as a result of events that happen in adolescence,” said Paula Shephard, a researcher from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

According to the study, boys with absent fathers were less likely to be married by the age of 23 and more likely to have children by that age.

“These findings suggest that father absence exerts an influence on male reproductive decisions, even after controlling for other indicators of early life adversity,” the authors wrote.

Source: The Conversation
http://theconversation.edu.au/boys-with-absent-fathers-more-likely-to-become-young-dads-3287
 

Religious Identity Remains Constant Through High School

A new study finds many American teens maintain their religious identity through high school, even though their participation in church and other religious activities declines.

This was true of teens in all three groups studied -- from Asian, Latin American and European backgrounds -- according to University of California, Los Angeles psychiatry professor Andrew J. Fuligni and colleagues.

The study of 500 teens in the Los Angeles area also found that those from Latin American and Asian backgrounds had higher levels of religious identity, and teens from Latin American backgrounds had higher rates of religious participation.

Changes in religious identity that did occur among some teens were associated with changes in ethnic and family identities. This suggests important links in the development of these social identities during the teen years, the researchers said.

The study was released online recently in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the journal Child Development.

"Greater change likely occurs at prominent points of transition, such as the upcoming transition to adulthood," Fuligni said in a UCLA news release. "Moving away from home, encountering new work environments, attending college, developing long-term romantic relationships -- those markers in our lives -- are all features of the period after high school that may cause more significant change in religious identity."

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/boomer-health/articles/2011/07/07/religious-identity-remains-constant-in-teen-years-study

Happy Teen Years Increase Chances for... Divorce?!

Really?! This item bears more watching - as the report of this new study doesn't provide much in the way of detail into the findings. Using conjecture, I can imagine the possibility where really happy teens might find it difficult to resolve conflict in marriage particularly if they have sailed through the adolescent years without ever learning how to do so. But, as a demographic whole, I can't really envision happiness in the teen years being the cause for later divorces. What do you think?

A recently conducted research by experts at the Cambridge University has reported that a healthy upbringing during teenage years might increases the probability of people getting divorced later on in life. To be precise the likelihood of people with a happy upbringing getting divorced later on in life is 60% more than others.

For the study, experts had carried out an assessment of 2776 people who were involved in a 1946 study carried out by British researchers. The scrutinized study was basically regarding the mental health being of people.

Following a proper analysis it was found by experts that youngsters who had a happy adolescence were more likely to get a divorce later on in life.

Source: Top News
http://topnews.us/content/235809-happy-teen-years-increase-your-chances-divorce-later-life-study

Middle School is When the Right Friends May Matter Most

As adolescents move from elementary school into their middle or junior-high years, changes in friendships may signal potential academic success or troubles down the road, say University of Oregon researchers.

A new study, appearing in the February issue of the Journal of Early Adolescence, found that boys and girls whose friends are socially active in ways where rules are respected do better in their classroom work. Having friends who engage in problem behavior, in contrast, is related to a decrease in their grades. Having pro-social friends and staying away from deviant peers proved more effective for academic payoffs than simply being friends with high-achieving peers.

The middle school/junior high years are a major transition for children, as students move away from grade-school classrooms led by one teacher every day into an environment of multiple classes with different teachers and opportunities to make new friends. This new study -- conducted by Marie-Helene Veronneau and Thomas J. Dishion of the UO Child and Family Center -- focused solely on the role played by friendship on academic achievement.

These transitional years may be pivotal, Dishion said. In a previous longitudinal study, he said, he and colleagues looked at the impacts of peer relationships of young people at ages 13, 15 and 17 to look for predictive indicators of life adjustments at age 24. Those influences at age 13 -- going back to middle school -- were the most influential, he noted. While instruction is school is vitally important, he said, it may be that more eyes should be looking at shifting peer relationships.

In their conclusions, Dishion and Veronneau suggested that responsible adults -- at school and at home -- "should pay special attention" to changes in friendships and encourage students to pursue and participate in adult-supervised activities to promote pro-social relationships.

Source: EurekAlert!
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uoo-msi011211.php

Fat Surgery for Teen Girls May Raise Birth Defect Risks Later

Teenage girls who’ve undergone obesity surgery may not absorb enough of a vitamin needed to have healthy babies, raising the risk of bearing children with spine and brain birth defects, a study suggests.

While more adolescents are having gastric bypass surgery, little is known about long-term consequences of the procedure, said Diana Farmer, who presented the study today at the American Association of Pediatrics meeting in San Francisco. “The possibility of future birth defects may outweigh the benefit of this bariatric procedure” for adolescent girls, said Farmer, chief of pediatric surgery at Benioff Children’s Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco.

“I am not saying the procedure should be ruled out or that obesity is not a problem,” Farmer said in a telephone interview Oct. 1. “But no kids are dropping dead at the age of 18 from obesity.”

Farmer’s report highlights a consequence of gastric bypass surgery that leads to insufficient absorption of Vitamin B9, or folic acid, which occurs in the upper intestine. Folate, or folic acid, is a key element in the prevention of spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Patients who undergo the procedure are placed on vitamin supplements to counteract the reduction. Limited research shows adherence to the supplements by teens is 14 percent, according to Farmer’s presentation.

Source: Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-03/teen-girls-fat-surgery-may-raise-birth-defect-risk-study-says.html

Early Puberty in Girls May be Linked to Absent Fathers

A new study finds there may be a link between early puberty and girls living in higher-income households without a biological father.

The study, published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at data on 444 ethnically diverse girls age 6 to 8, 80 of whom had no biological father living at home at the time of the study. Researchers noted the girls' onset of puberty (breast and pubic hair development), body mass index, ethnicity and income. Among the 80 participants, 21% had other men living at home, including stepfathers.

Not having a biological father at home was associated with earlier breast development, but only for girls who lived in families with incomes over $50,000. Not having a father at home was linked with  earlier development of pubic hair among African American girls living in higher income homes. Factoring in BMI did not change the results.

The study offered some reasons for the link: higher-income families may have weaker support systems than lower-income families; mothers working outside of the home may put extra stress on family life and relationships; and having fathers leave while kids are young may indicate early familiarity with marital discord; and children living in higher-income households may have more exposure to environmental toxins that may have an effect on puberty.

Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-puberty-20100918,0,909618.story