Recession finally hits the game industry, making texting illegal, and pot use on the rise.
Recession No Fun and Games — Youth gobble up entertainment products like gerbils would snack on cocoa pebbles, if given the chance, and recently no product has been in greater demand by youth than video games. For the last few years, with DVD sales off and music sales in freefall, the video gaming market has reigned supreme. Sales for popular Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii games have grown, it seems, exponentially — until now. Despite the popularity of titles like “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” which sold more than 6 million copies, the video game industry as a whole fell 7.6 percent in November, with sales off by $200 million from the month before. For the year, sales are even worse, with the industry experiencing a 12 percent drop. “The industry is still trying to find a silver lining,” says Anita Frazier, an analyst for the research organization NPD. (ABC News)
Easy as 1, 2, 3 — Most educators have always thought that little kids — those younger than 5 years old — were too young to do math. But one school in Buffalo, N.Y., is proving the experts wrong. Now some are wondering whether the act of teaching itself can help reshape the brain to grasp more earlier. Teaching is an ancient craft, and yet we really have no idea how it affected the developing brain,” says Kurt Fischer, director of the Mind, Brain and Education program at Harvard University. “Well, that is beginning to change, and for the first time, we are seeing the fields of brain science and education work together.” (New York Times)
Driving Under the Influence … of Texting — We all know, intellectually, that texting while driving is dangerous. One study suggests that folks who text while driving are 23 times more likely to get into a crash than those who don’t. But will making such behavior illegal do any good? Many, frankly, are skeptical. In California, a study found that slightly more drivers texted behind the wheel after an anti-texting law went into effect, and many youth say such laws don’t curb their texting habits one little bit. “Nobody is going to listen,” says 17-year-old Karen Cordova. Furthermore, police agencies say anti-texting laws are hard to enforce. In California, officials have handed out more than 163,000 tickets to folks for talking on their cell phones, but issued only 1,400 texting citations. “The handheld cell phone is relatively easy for us to spot,” says Fran Clader, a spokeswoman for California’s Highway Patrol. “But with the texting it’s a little bit more of a challenge to catch them in the ct, because we have to see it and if they are holding it down in their lap it’s going to be harder for us to see.” (Reuters)
Pot Growing More Popular — A new survey of about 47,000 youth between the eighth and 12th grades suggests that the popularity of pot is on the rise again. More than one-fifth of high-school seniors report having used marijuana within the last month, according to White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske—up from 2008, which in turn was slightly up from the year before. While marijuana use hasn’t yet reached the record (ahem) highs it saw in the 1990s, Kerlikowske says that the attitude that folks have toward pot has softened in recent years. In 1991, about 58 percent of eighth graders said marijuana use was harmful. This year, only 45 percent thought so. When beliefs soften, drug use worsens,” Kerlikowske says. (Los Angeles Times)
No App For That (Hopefully) — About 15 percent of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 received nude or risqué photos of others via their cell phones, according to a new poll by the Pew internet & American Life Project. And 4 percent had sent such photos themselves. It doesn’t take that many people creating these images for a lot of people to see them,” says Amanda Lenhart, a research specialist for Pew. (CNN)
Closing the Facebook — With more than 350 million members, Facebook has become nearly ubiquitous among American youth. Some folks are trying to cut down the time they spend on the social networking site — but that’s easier said than done. Halley Lamberson, 17, and Monica Reed, 16, are among today’s teens giving Facebook the hand. They made a pact to check their Facebook pages just once every month – and only on a certain day of the month. “We decided we spent way too much time obsessing over Facebook and it would be better if we took a break from it,” says Halley. While some teens are actually deactivating their accounts, teens more commonly try to cull their Facebook time through support groups, like Monica and Halley, or resorting to other means. A lot of them are finding their own balance,” says psychologist Kimberly Young, who is the director for the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery in Bradford, Pa. “It’s like an eating disorder. You can’t eliminate food. You just have to make better choices about what you eat.” (New York Times)
