Saving the Last Dance for … Friends
Romance, schmomance. When it comes to high-school dances, many students would rather hang out with friends than be seen with a steady.
“Having a date is kind of a drag sometimes,” says Jenna Camp, a sophomore at Glenbard East High School in Lombard, Illinois. “You have to be with your date the whole night; it gets annoying.”
Experts say that, in part because of the influence of Facebook and MySpace, friendship is seen by many teens as more important than romance or love. Significant others come and go, they seem to believe, but friendship lasts forever. As a result, many youth who went to traditional date-heavy dances, such as homecoming, opted to go with a group of friends.
“They’re never, ever disconnected from their friends, whatever they’re doing,” says Eric Greenberg, author of Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America and Changing Our World Forever. “Because they’re so tied together in the social networks, their inclination toward community and toward the collective is a lot higher.” (Chicago Tribune)
Teens Staying Out of Trouble
Not as many teens are getting arrested for violent crimes compared to a decade ago, according to new governmental research. According to the study, arrests of teen boys for violent crimes have fallen by 14 percent since 1998, and 13 percent for teen girls. In fact, arrests for aggravated assault by girls under the age of 18 have dropped by 17 percent in the last decade—a relief for law enforcement officials, who saw a sharp incline of misbehaving girls the previous decade.
“We’re not facing an epidemic of girls gone wild,” says J. Robert Flores, chief of the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (USA Today)
Is Comedy Affecting Politics? You Betcha!
She might have lost at the polls, but she won, technically, in the Nielsen ratings. When Sarah Palin appeared alongside doppelganger Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live” Oct. 18, the NBC show scored its highest ratings in 14 years; but it was a hollow victory. Most experts say Palin’s public perception has been largely shaped by Fey’s skewering “SNL” impersonations of her—another sign that entertainment is shaping how we think about politics.
More youth get their political news from shows like Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” than from a daily newspaper. John McCain and Barack Obama often appeared on “SNL,” “The Tonight Show” or “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
“You have to become a celebrity because if you’re not, no one will pay attention—it’s what the public craves,” says David Zinczenko, editor for Men’s Health. (USA Today)
Twigenometry
Take that, “Guitar Hero.” The National Toy Hall of Fame went retro with its 2008 inductees, honoring the baby doll, the skateboard and … the stick.
Don’t laugh. The lowly stick runs rings around its competition on several levels, curators say. For one, the twig is the ultimate plaything for the environmentally–conscious child. For another, sticks are almost always free. Says Christopher Bensch, curator for the Strong National Museum of Play (which houses the hall), they are astonishingly versatile.
“It can be a Wild West horse, a Medieval knight’s sword, a boat on a stream or a slingshot with a rubber band,” Bensch says. “This toy is so fantastic that it’s not just for humans anymore. You can find otters, chimps and dogs—especially dogs—playing with it.”
For more information on past inductees, go to www.strongmuseum.org/NTHoF/inductees.html. (Associated Press)
