Yesterday I talked about a 2008 report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education called Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media (go to Monday’s post to download the article in its entirety). The authors identified five key issues in regards to the topic:
identity
privacy
ownership and authorship
credibility
participation
This report worked to provide a balanced perspective on [...]
The Internet is a huge, hulking thing with so many nooks and crannies it can be hard to know where you are, much less know where your children are. I have heard many horror stories about the Internet, and just as many stories of supportive networks and friends who use online [...]
I am thinking today about sexual identity.
But first, a short introduction to the concept of sexual identity. Essentially, our identity on any given topic answers the question ‘Who am I?’ So in regards to a sexual identity, the question becomes, ‘Who am I, sexually? What do I like, dislike, how do I approach sexuality, what [...]
There’s been a huge amount of talk about adolescent sexting recently. It seems to have suddenly become popular enough - or at least its popularity seems to have sunk into adult awareness enough - to be everywhere all of a sudden. Parents and interviewers have in the past couple of weeks come out of the [...]
There has been much to-do, over the past several months, about “plus-sized models.” All of this conversation is, of course, moving media images in the right direction. But it is using language that is damaging.
First, some history:
The bulk of this conversation started back in September when Glamour magazine put a photo of a woman with [...]
While this is not a topic that is terribly related to adolescent sexuality, it is one that is receiving a lot of attention recently.
One week ago the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether sentencing a juvenile - someone under 18 years old - to life in prison without the possibility of parole is cruel and [...]
Dear Friends,
I’ll be frank: I understand that the young people in your family are probably very busy, far too busy to enroll in another class. I know your kids are going to be tapped-to-the-extreme this year. I also know that most - not all, but most - young people have an absolute need to have [...]
Welcome to summer, time of vacations and summer flings! I was on vacation in Florida with friends (hence, no post for a stupidly long time). I ended up talking with the three other adults who I went with about our experiences as teenagers on vacation. Our experiences ran the gamut - from flings on every [...]
A couple of weeks ago I interviewed John Styn about his project Hug Nation. One of the points we talked about was how critical physical contact is to us humans – in particular how important hugging is. Then yesterday, the New York Times published an article on teenage hug culture: For Teenagers, Hello Means “How [...]
Many Middle School students - okay, let’s face it, many Americans - have a hard time holding a serious conversation about sex using correct terminology. Even among adult, many conversations about sex include a lot of insinuations, a lot of suggestive and knowing glances and meaningless phrases like “Well, he … you know … and [...]
