Shaping Youth BETA BLOG

January 21, 2010 Last night I talked about body image to our local high school PTSO with Susan E. James, an LMFT eating disorders specialist and RD/MPH Cindy Stack-Keer from Kaiser Permanente all about how body image links a child’s emotional and physical health.

The little Animoto video I created for the session gives you a snapshot of both the ‘problem and the solution’ (no, I don’t have ‘use rights’ for Taylor Lautner’s abs and such, but hey, all in the name of education and situational awareness, eh?). It’s meant to be a call to action for a nation in trouble if we don’t heavily counter-market some of these toxic cues to kids.

This week alone we have wacky “10 plastic surgeries in a day” addiction vs. obsession media debates of The Hills star 23-year old Heidi Montag, (Ladies of The View sound off here) then the so-called ‘curvier’ Golden Globe actresses (ahem, not!) and the latest covergirl kerfluffle involving the Butterfly Foundation’s support of  “look-at-the-real-me-Jennifer Hawkins” on Marie Claire…just to give a feel for decibel level of volume.

It’s hard to help kids achieve a healthier sense of self and ditch the skewed worldview with all this chatter…But we must. We abso-freakin’lutely MUST. The future of children’s mental and physical health is at stake. And no, that’s not an alarmist statement, it’s a quantifiable one. (more…)

Jan. 15, 2009 Thought I’d wrap up Part Three in this series on digital addiction vs. agency (part one and part two here) with some humorous insights from the medical community that poke fun at some very REAL research dilemmas.

Clearly there are quirky flaws in how the  entire DSM process takes shape (DSM V= Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders aka the big book/manual for shrink think )  prompting valid headlines like, “How many shrinks does it take to change a diagnosis?” (see Mind Hacks’ article here and the pithy ‘rowing backwards into the future’ critique here) Is it possible to regain control of your social media habits without self-diagnosing addiction? (fabulous tips on Search Engine Journal)

Are we even questioning researchers, pundits, and doctors themselves anymore or are we being led like ’sheeple?’ What does this have to do with kids, media and marketing? Plenty.

For starters, every time any youth psychologist expert with mega-research clout sneezes, it virally takes hold via media pundits and sensationalism to impact parenting decisions, educators, and youth. (more…)

Jan. 13, 2010 My brother AND my mother sent me this little cartoon jab which left me snickering and simultaneously standing up to stretch.

As evidenced in part one of addiction vs. agency in media management, I’m not the type to be consumed by disordered terminology, symptoms and panic statistics flinging about…

If I were, I might have seen it as a dire familial sign or symptom and scrambled to test my propensity for overuse by taking the internet addiction quiz via The Center for Online Addiction. Instead, I let out a ‘lmao’ guffaw, snagged a snack and took the dogs for a walk.

Why is it that some people give up their agency like a movie ticket (case in point, this Psychology Today piece about Avatar bringing on the blues, and CNN referencing depression stats) while others not only don’t and won’t, but would pretty much have to be put in a straitjacket to submit to same? (yah, that last one’s me)

Rather than hurling a burning fireball through the media to set off alarm bells as to whether or not internet addiction is a psychiatric disorder, and try to ‘label, classify, and L-code’ it, we need to reframe the issue on a larger canvas to create CONTEXT for the conversation… (more…)

Jan. 11, 2010 I’m officially back from my one week blog hiatus, victorious in keeping my New Year resolution to ‘unplug’ more, manage my media rather than having it manage me, and slip away sans notification to prove that the world won’t fall apart and your readers won’t jump ship just because you go awol.

Yep, it’s my personal media management smackdown which surfaces on occasion. (visual via MediaScape, NZ an informative site on youth media use too!)

So, why did I do this? Coupla reasons. No secret I’m a fairly intense person and ‘take on too much’ in shades of author Liz Funk’s SuperGirls mode.

Thankfully I have Alvin Toffler warning bells that go off in my brain when I’m on the verge of information overload and can literally feel the discordance and overwhelm impacting my worldview, so I  pullback, purge my data streams and go silent…Youth? Not so much. (more…)

Dec. 23, 2009 Shhhhhh…I’m snagging one of the new “Smencils” that just arrived today ’cause I figure ‘less is more’ and ‘variety is the spice’ when it comes to stocking stuffers…She doesn’t need a whole ’set’ right?

A whiff here and there and she’ll get the gist of the theme…100% recycled newspapers turned into a rainbow of scents and colors. I like finding inexpensive toys that appeal to big kids too (ahem, obviously) so I’m secretly coveting this little $5 waddling penguin as a desk toy because it makes the ‘She Geek’ in me smile, reminding me of the Linux logo!

It appears to be a typical wind up critter, but like the other scores in my post yesterday from Reach and Teach ‘ten under $10′ it’s FAR from some lame ‘kids meal’ toxic action figure, it comes from a green eco-sustainable company, Plan Toys with lots of feel good factor here…

Each lil’ fella is made of  “…natural rubberwood recycled from rubber tress no longer able to produce latex; wood is stabilized with a time consuming chemical-free kiln drying process. Non-formaldehyde glue is used in place of the traditional toxic wood glue. Non-toxic, water based dyes provides colors.”

So just by gifting it hopefully you’re tickling the imagination of what ‘can be done’ on a shoestring budget while imparting your own values of ‘choices’ when it comes to what companies get your hard-earned green.   (more…)

Dec. 16, 2009 Got gifts? Not sure when we jumped from “Black Friday/Cyber Monday” to bold-type headlines of “last minute gifts!”—but I’m still holding my own on the ‘haven’t stepped in a mall’ front…

So today I’m going to add a few FREE ‘last minute finds’ that are literally and figuratively priceless.

To up the ante and make it tougher, I’ll remove the physical ‘givens’ like hugs and help and chore coupons and focus exclusively on media freebies beyond the obvious ‘iPhone apps’ since not everyone is a mobile maven.

First on my list? An excellent post by Koka Sexton (an avatar sounding name if ever I’ve heard one!) on “22 most unknown free things anyone can have,” ranging from distinguished MIT open courses to comic books, BBC language lessons to Sephora samples. Quite frankly, it puts my picks to shame…but since I’m focusing only on MEDIA magic, we’ll start off with free gaming that uses a charity spin!

Games That Give.net is a new site where worthy causes receive the ad revenue which makes the games free! Their theme line? “What are you playing for?” Choose which cause to champion, and their newly launched site (already about to turn over the $10K mark in donations!) will donate 70% of their ad rev to the charity of your choice on the site. So if kids are  gonna have extra screen time, blizzards or not this winter break…make it count! Here’s more about their team. Second find? (more…)

Dec. 8, 2009 It’s Tuesday, time for our weekly “Packaging Boyhood” focus, so what better time than the holiday season to sound the ‘red’ siren on the ‘green’ brand that tween and teen boys are sucking up to…Monster energy drink.

With everything from motocross and macho madness to the thumping, screaming, ‘over the top’ rebel yell, Monster ‘packs a vicious punch’ by creating lil’ monsters out of the male middle-school set without a clue (or a care) as to the impact of the jolt and crash ‘kick ass flavor’ to their adolescent bods.

Wow. I feel like I got a testosterone infusion just reading the freakin’ label, “when it’s time to unleash the beast within, grab a Monster and GO BIG!’

Packaging Boyhood authors wrote a whole chapter on ‘What Boys Do’ and rightfully nail this verbiage as positioning violence and risk taking and ‘pushing the limits’ as a culture conduit to ‘manhood.’

Gotta say, it’s been fun counter-marketing the sheer absurdity of the entire energy drink category based on the hyped up, gender specific packaging alone. (not just ‘Monster, Monster Hitman, & Monster Sniper’ but Full Throttle, Red Bull, and other spiky, thuggish, ‘tough guise’ contrasts to the myriad pink think thinspiration cues of energy drinks like RockStar for the girls) It’s so predictably stereotyped that it’s almost amusing, and easy to see into the ‘crystal ball’ of the future and be able to tell kids what to watch for in advance. (video after the jump of what’s got my dander up) (more…)