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You're no more active as a teenager than you will be at 60, according to a new study

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teen skateboard

It's a common belief that youthfulness is synonymous with being active.

However, while this may well be true when comparing young children to pensioners, the level of physical activity people take part in isn't as much of a gradual downward slope over the years as you might think.

New research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that at the age of 19, people are no more active than 60-year-olds. The results were published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003-2004 and 2005-2006, totalling 12,529 participants altogether. Subjects wore tracking devices for seven days straight, removing them only for washing and sleeping, which measured how much time they were sedentary or exercising. The exercise categories were divided into light or moderate to vigorous physical activity.

Participants were grouped into five age groups: children aged six to 11, teens aged 12 to 19, young adults aged 20 to 29, midlife adults aged 31 to 29, and older adults aged 60 to 84. 49% of them were male, and the rest female.

The study found that during childhood and adolescence, physical activity lowered sharply by age until age 19, where the levels are similar to that of 60 year olds. After age 20, however, physical activity starts increasing by age until midlife, where a gradual decline began again.

Activity among the 20-somethings was spread out throughout the day, with an increase in physical activity in the early morning, compared to younger adolescents. The researchers note that this could be related to a number of things including starting full-time work, having more responsibilities around the house, or becoming a parent.

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"Activity levels at the end of adolescence were alarmingly low," Vadim Zipunnikov, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Biostatistics and senior author of the study, said in a statement. "For school-age children, the primary window for activity was the afternoon between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. So the big question is how do we modify daily schedules, in schools for example, to be more conducive to increasing physical activity?"

There were differences shown between males and females, too. Men generally had higher levels of physical activity during their teenage years and early adulthood, but the levels dropped more sharply than in women from midlife to older adulthood. In the 60+ group, men were sitting down more than women and did less light-intensity exercise. Overall, females aged over 31 were increasingly more active than males after 12 p.m.

The researchers note that the majority of studies suggest that males are more active than females at older ages, but a few have shown a reversal of this, including this new research. They say this is potentially because women tend to do a lot more indoor activity than men, such as housework, but the reasons cannot be certain.

Most strikingly, the study showed that World Health Organization recommendations of daily physical activity probably aren't being met. The WHO states children up to age 17 should be getting 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. A quarter of boys and half of girls aged six to 11 hadn't met this target, and neither had half of male and 75% of female teens aged 12 to 19.

"The goal of campaigns aimed at increasing physical activity has focused on increasing higher-intensity exercise," says Zipunnikov. "Our study suggests that these efforts should consider time of day and also focus on increasing lower-intensity physical activity and reducing inactivity."

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A new initiative in Colorado is pushing to ban smartphone sales to children

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kids on iphones

One Colorado father has made it his mission to keep smartphones out of the hands of children. 

According to a report in The Washington Post, Denver-area anesthesiologist Tim Farnum has created a non-profit called Parents Against Underage Smartphones (PAUS), which has drafted a ballot initiative (no. 29) that would make it illegal for retailers to sell smartphones to children under the age of 13, "or to any person who indicates that the smartphone will be wholly or partially owned by a person under the age of 13."

Farnum created PAUS after he came to the conclusion that smartphone use was harmful to children. He saw how his two youngest sons behaved after they got their first devices: Where they were once energetic and outgoing, Farnum says they both became quiet and reclusive. 

According to the ballot initiative, should a retailer violate the proposed law and sell a smartphone to a child under the age of 13, they would first receive a written warning, and then be hit with a $500 fine for their second transgression. The fine would then double for each subsequent violation. 

The law would not apply to regular cell phones without access to the internet. 

Farnum compared his proposed law to similar age restrictions on cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. 

Farnum's non-profit will need to collect 100,000 physical signatures by fall 2018 for the initiative to reach the ballot in time for the 2018 elections. 

Read the original report in The Washington Post here. 

SEE ALSO: ‘Smartphone addiction’ seems to only be getting stronger

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From dads to startup founders — meet the duo behind SocialJudo, a new teen monitoring app

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Teens TextingKen Smith and Dr. Matthew Phillips were standing on the sidelines of their 16-year-old sons' lacrosse game when they both noticed the same thing — every one of the teens in the stands was looking down at their phones instead of at the action in front of them.

The moment made clear to both of them just how addicted kids were to their phones. And it served as a kind of inspiration for SocialJudo, a smartphone monitoring app the duo created and recently launched.

Both Smith and Philips had both heard the horror stories about teens and their smartphones. From the moment kids receive their first phones, they face threats including cyberbullying, distracted driving, and sexual predators.

The two dad had each separately looked at the options for monitoring their teens' smartphones, but neither was impressed. The typical monitoring methods and apps involved breaking into teens' phones and going through all their data. Neither Smith nor Philips wanted to spy on his kid; each thought that looking at his kid's texts was akin to rummaging through his bedroom drawers. 

So they set out to create an alternative and sketched out what they as fathers wanted from a smartphone monitoring app. The result is SocialJudo, an app parents install on their kids' phones.

The app logs kids' texts and calls, and allows their parents to monitor their activity on social apps like Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp. Parents can also configure SocialJudo to alert them when it sees certain phrases or their their kids access particular websites. 

The app was launched June 1 and has over 200 families using it.  

SocialJudo recognizes some 50,000 slang terms for different behaviors like pot smoking or sex. Parents can set the app to send them alerts whenever their child receives or sends a text with one of the flagged terms. Parents can then view the texts in the SocialJudo app on their phones. 

The app also allows parents to track their kid's location and to set up geofences that alert them when their kid goes into an area they’ve labeled off limits.

Before SocialJudo, neither Smith nor Phillips had ever developed an app. Philips is a brain surgeon, and Smith works with RFID technology in cars.

“It’s felt like the biggest, longest, fastest roller coaster ride without a seatbelt,” said Phillips of the journey so far.

While other startups grow with an eye on the bottom line, Smith and Phillips are trying to stay focused on the needs of parents. 

Both of their sons got a driving permit recently and each quickly started asking to borrow a car. That got Phillips and Smith thinking about adding new capabilities to SocialJudo. They now have in development a texting-and-driving feature that will automatically mute all calls (except for the ones from Mom and Dad, of course) and send an auto reply to any incoming text messages.

SEE ALSO: New research suggests smartphones might actually be making you dumber

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Forget about millennials — experts are now going after marketing to Generation Z

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teenagers kids phonesNo millennial attracts more mockery than the “thought leader.” These self-described experts, also known as brand consultants, travel the globe engaging in the debatable science of telling companies how a generation comprised of over 75 million people likes to eat, work, shop and live, all the while pulling in serious cash.

Now, there’s a new crop of teenage entrepreneurs looking to pick up where their elders left off.

As millennials march steadily toward middle age and obsolescence, an increasing number of teen-run consulting firms have sprung up over the past year to teach Olds what’s cool.

This next generation is known as Generation Z. It comprises around 72 million kids and young adults born between the years 1996 and 2010. Gen Z has been called “millennials on steroids,” and brands are already becoming desperate to cater to their tastes. The teens who run these Gen Z consulting businesses are working with big clients — major telecom companies, retailers, auto manufacturers, airlines and Fortune 500 brands.

Unlike the millennial thought leaders who preceded them, these Gen Z gurus are extremely young, hyper-connected, fluent in meme culture and armed with a competitive nature that Jonah Stillman, an 18-year-old Gen Z consultant from Minneapolis, said is innate to his generation.

“Millennials love to go on social media [and] let everyone know, ‘Hey I just got this awesome job, come apply!’” Stillman said. “Us Gen Z-ers are more competitive and less collaborative; we would never do that. We want the job for ourselves.”

Introducing the teenage thought leaders

For Stillman, generational consulting is a family business. Together with his father, David, he runs GenZGuru, the “first father-son Gen X/Gen Z speaking team.” Stillman said he got the idea to cofound the company with his dad, an accomplished trend forecaster, writer, consultant and speaker, when he was around 14 or 15.

“I started to see that I wasn’t really a millennial,” he said. Stillman went online and began researching Gen Z. He immediately decided that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and learn everything he could about his peer group.

Unlike many myth-makers on millennials before them, the Stillman pair are quick to point out that their insights are driven by hard data.

Together with his father, Stillman has published three papers on Gen Z, co-written a book published by HarperCollins entitled Gen Z at Work: How the Next Generation Is Transforming the Workplace and written for the New York Times and other outlets about youth in the workplace.

Millennials ushered in an era of open office plans, unlimited vacation policies, “purpose-driven” work and Slack, but Stillman argued that today’s corporations are woefully unprepared for the demands of the Gen Z workforce.

“People refer to us as if we’re millennials,” he said, “but if we’re treated as millennials, there will be big problems.”

Connor Blakley, a Gen Z thought leader based in Cleveland, said he believes there will also be big problems for brands if they attempt to market to Gen Z as millennials.

After traveling to South by Southwest at the age of 14 to shadow infamous entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, Blakley said he became taken with the idea of starting his own company. Now, he runs YouthLogic, a Gen Z-focused consulting firm based in Ohio that employs four full-time Gen Z employees and countless other teen contractors around the country.

Blakley has written a book called BrandZ, and his company handles youth marketing efforts for clients such as Sprint, NPD Group, Hootsuite, Daymond John and several other leading consumer brands.

“It’s essential to connect with Gen Z because for the first time ever, young people are defining what’s cool,” he said. “Young people have always decided what’s cool for other young people, but they’ve never decided what’s cool for everyone else.” That, Blakley argues, is the power of Gen Z.

Teens on demand

Perplexed teenagersBlakley is correct that when older people, particularly investors, don’t know what’s cool, the first person they often turn to is to someone younger.

Tiffany Zhong, a 20-year-old in San Francisco, knows this all too well. At the age of 18, Zhong became the youngest venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, working as an analyst at Binary Capital.

Zhong was hired by the firm to act as a gateway to the next generation, and the companies she sourced for Binary were ones she found out about primarily through her network of fellow teens.

Now, like Blakley, Stillman and others, Zhong hopes to act as a gateway to Gen Z for a wider pool of investors and brands. She recently dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley, to found Zebra Intelligence, a Gen Z-focused research firm that launched in May.

“I was like, wow, I guess a lot of people in the business world are really out of touch and don’t have access to, or an understanding of, teens,” she said of her decision to start the company. “I want to address those needs and help them understand teens on a much deeper level.”

Not all teen thought leaders have ditched school to pursue their big-money dreams, however. Melinda Guo, an 18-year-old soon-to-be freshman at Stanford, runs her Gen Z consulting firm, JÜV Consulting, with the help of two peers she met during a summer program at Cornell University. She and her fellow 18-year-old co-founders, Ziad Ahmed and Nick Jain — who will both be freshman at ivy league schools in the fall — are committed to balancing school with thought leadership.

JÜV Consulting (based on the word juvenile) is a top-to-bottom teen-run consulting firm that acts as a platform connecting youth consultants around the country with brands. The company currently employs more than 80 teenage Gen Z consultants in addition to maintaining a “global youth network” of over 400 teens in 20 states and 30 countries.

What happened to a summer job at the pizza shop?

jumbo pizza coffee shopGuo said that throughout the past year, she has seen kids clamoring to become Gen Z experts. Applications to become JÜV affiliate consultants have shot up.

But why are so many teens scrambling to become Gen Z experts and youth marketers instead of say, bussing tables, lifeguarding, babysitting or occupying any number of entry-level jobs held by previous generations?

Guo thinks being a “super-brander” is a characteristic of her generation. “We grew up in a world where we had access to all these online tools at the tips of our fingers and Gen Z is more inclined to brand ourselves. We’re so used to creating our images on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. For us, to brand ourselves on a personal website or via a business is just second nature.”

Ishan Goel, an 18-year-old in Dallas, agrees. He launched his own Instagram marketing agency in sixth grade by creating a website and outsourcing work to other teens he found on freelance service marketplace Fiverr.

Now, Goel provides Gen Z consulting for brands like Mark Cuban’s hoverboard company and separately runs his own consulting firm Genzey. In his spare time he also runs a secret Gen Z entrepreneurs Facebook group where Gen Z thought leaders and teen startup founders network.

In the group, teens as young as 13 discuss personal branding and bond over the challenges of starting a business. One young consultant and member of the group who declined to be named said that he felt like he got a late start by “waiting until high school” to really focus on branding himself. Another said he had “only just began laterally networking” (aka making friends at school).

They’re different from the millennial marketers

MillenialsWhen you ask this new class of Gen Z gurus what they think of the “millennial experts” who paved their way, many don’t give their predecessors much credit.

“The majority of older Gen Z experts are people who said they were millennial experts and now they know they’re screwed,” Blakley said.

You can’t blame Blakley for his skepticism. For a time, the “media’s favorite millennial” expert was a 55-year-old comedian masquerading as a 30-something.

“People are sick of hearing about millennials and millennial experts,” Stillman said. “Millennials are the most talked about generation in history. … Now people want to know what’s next.”

But for those of us slipping deeper into cultural irrelevance, there is still hope. Just have some kids.

Angie Read is a 46-year-old mother of three Gen Z kids aged 18, 16 and 13. Recently, with 20 years of marketing experience under her belt, she decided to pivot to becoming a Gen Z expert. She is in the process of co-authoring a book on Gen Z. She also blogs on her site, GenZmom, and spends her days helping brands appeal to the type of teenagers that she goes home to every night.

“My kids understand that they’re guinea pigs,” she said. “When their friends are over, sometimes I’m like, ‘Who do you follow on Instagram? What are the funniest videos on YouTube right now? What is cool?’ And they’ll be like, ‘Stop! We’re not your focus group!’”

Is it a long-term career or just a stepping stone?

Though they’re still young, the Gen Z consultants we spoke to say they are acutely aware of how fast things can change and how quickly their skills can become irrelevant. Because of this, many of these teen entrepreneurs are hyper-focused on networking, hedging their bets and keeping their options open.

Guo said she and her cofounders are dedicated to keeping JÜV Consulting running through college, yet she has no set long-term career trajectory. Instead, she plans to go off to school with an open mind.

“We will still run the business … but I view college as hopefully the best four years of my life,” she said.

Stillman, who won’t be attending college in the fall, plans to continue to follow in his father’s footsteps as a trend forecaster. But he said that despite how different his lifestyle looks, he tries to stay grounded.

“The famous word among our generation is ‘influencer,’” he said. “People think, ‘Oh, just get 55,000 followers on Instagram and suddenly you don’t have to go to school and you’re so relevant.’ But it’s behind-the-scenes work you do that really makes the difference. My thing is, to these influencers, what’s your plan in 30 years?”

Blakley and others we spoke to, however, said that becoming a Gen Z thought leader is the fastest path to success no matter what you eventually plan to do. You can always pivot and figure out the details later.

“I have cell phone numbers of billionaires and CEOs in my phone right now, all because of this thing,” Blakley said. “If I ever want to start something else, I’ll easily be able to. I honestly think I could do anything. If I started a company that specialized in making office supplies cool to Gen Z tomorrow, I could be a millionaire.”

SEE ALSO: Generation Z hasn't given up on shopping malls...yet

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Teen suicides now outnumber homicides — and smartphone use could be playing a major role

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  • Teens TextingSuicide among teens is at a two-decade high, even surpassing the rate of homicide in that age group.
  • Smartphones and social media seem to create feelings of loneliness and may be contributing to the rise.
  • Parents should be mindful of how much time their kids spend on their phones.

In 2011, for the first time in more than two decades, suicide began killing more teenagers than homicide.

And according to research presented in a recent article in The Atlantic, excerpted from a book written by Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, smartphones and social media may deserve a lot of the blame.

"As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another," Twenge wrote, "and more likely to kill themselves."

Over the past decade, psychologists have come to see a picture in which young, developing brains are pitted against the power of brightly colored notifications, relentless pocket vibrations, and addicting apps. A byproduct has been an increase in disorders such as depression and anxiety, which can sometimes be fatal.

Twenge's research has indicated that while suicide rates aren't the highest they've ever been — that peak came in the early 1990s, before smartphones emerged — the proliferation of screen-based devices and social media has fundamentally changed how people interact for the worse.

On the one hand, social media allows teens — and anyone, for that matter — to communicate with lots of people at once. But as the MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle has said, that communication may not lead to connection. Something is getting lost, and psychology experts have surmised it's a feeling of closeness or comfort.

In her recent piece, Twenge cites research that found that eighth-graders who frequently used social media increased their risk of depression by 27% and that the risk was much lower for those who were involved in sports or their community. In addition, teens who spent at least three hours on devices were significantly more likely to show suicidal tendencies, such as researching ways to kill themselves, according to Twenge.

Loneliness seems to be a major factor in why smartphones and social media can contribute to worsening mental health.

"Today's teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly — on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook," Twenge wrote. "Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it."

In the days before social media, not getting invited to a party still felt bad. But the bad feeling most likely went away within a day or two as people stopped talking about the night's events. With apps that document every party happening in real time, and preserve those memories forever, there is never a shortage of reminders that you were left out.

Some teens seem to lack a healthy outlet for dealing with those bad feelings. The effects of loneliness have left them emotionally ill-equipped to seek out resources that might improve their mental health. Instead, they bear their psychic pain in private.

Twenge advocates parents taking a more active role in limiting their teens' smartphone use.

"The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices," she wrote. "Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits."

SEE ALSO: A top psychologist says will power is overrated — here's how you really build good habits

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Schools around the US are finally pushing back their start times — and it's working

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WashU student

  • Schools in 45 states have pushed their start times back to fall in line with research that looks at the biological clock of adolescents.
  • Administrators have found short-term roadblocks but long-term rewards for students, parents, and teachers.
  • A greater appreciation for the benefits, not the downsides, of starting school later could help more schools help their students.

Rick Tony teaches math at Solebury School, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, but he's well aware of the science of sleep.

For the 2016-2017 school year, Tony, who also works as the boarding and day school's director of studies, led the charge on moving Solebury's 8:00 a.m. start time half an hour later to 8:30 four days of the week.

On Wednesdays, the first bell doesn't ring until 9:00 a.m.

Now a year into the policy, Tony said, students are less stressed and performing just as well if not better in their classes. A survey he issued schoolwide showed students and teachers are widely in favor of the policy. He's gotten similar feedback from parents saying an 8:30 start time makes for a less hectic morning.

"It's a no-brainer," Tony told Business Insider of renewing the policy for this coming academic year. "We would do it again in a heartbeat."

Sleeping in and doing better

To date, schools in 45 states have adopted a policy similar to Solebury's. Each falls in line with the prevailing best practices proposed by organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The trend also reflects a change in attitude among administrators, who are now accepting the fact that obstacles like rejiggering athletics and transportation aren't impossibilities. 

Tony sympathized with such concerns, but ultimately said the short-term investments of time are worth the long-term gains passed on to students. "It's not a matter of thinking about what you're going to lose," he said, "but look what you stand to gain by making a change like this."

kids school busRecent research published by the RAND Corporation and RAND Europe found 8:30 a.m. start times could add $83 billion to the US economy over the next 10 years. Marco Hafner, lead author of the study, said the increase in high school graduation rates and decrease in health concerns, such as rates of obesity and car crashes due to sleeplessness, should more than make up for the hassles of putting the policy in place.

'The mornings were just less stressful'

Lisa Brady has seen those benefits firsthand for the past couple years. As the superintendent of Dobbs Ferry School District, in Dobbs Ferry, New York, Brady has observed students and parents alike remark on the many upsides to the extra time in the morning.

Following a survey issued at the end of the 2015-2016 school year, Brady told Business Insider "it was clear from both the parents and the kids, overwhelmingly, that the mornings were just less stressful."

Many of the kids reported having more time to eat breakfast and get ready for school, while parents said they didn't have to drag kids out of bed or yell at them to hurry up. Once students got to school, they felt more alert. At night, they tended to report going to bed at the same time, even though the new schedule freed up an extra 45 minutes.

In Seattle, 85% of middle and high schools in the 2016-2017 school year swapped start times with the elementary schools. Now the older kids start at 8:45 while the younger ones start at 7:55. In 2016, Kira Hoffman, a then-eighth-grader at Jane Addams Middle School, told KUOW that she no longer felt "super-rushed or worried about how much I've slept, or when I'm going to get to school, or if I'm going to be late."

Pennsylvania school bus crash

Later start times aren't perfect

Schools that have followed through with delaying the first bell have run into challenges.

Tony conceded the bus schedule can still be difficult to manage. (Fortunately, he said, a number of students live on campus or have their parents drive them.) Brady said some parents actually feel more rushed in the mornings, since their routine for work used to come after their kids but now overlaps.

Both have tried to work around the problem by keeping the school open earlier, so kids can eat breakfast, finish up homework, or just hang out.

Brady has also found challenges with athletics and after-school clubs. In years prior, teams had no trouble getting to away games. Now they have less time to get there, and they have to deal with worse traffic. "The kids feel really rushed," she told Business Insider.

Once they finally get home, many say they have less time for all the homework they've been assigned. Solebury has overcome this challenge by coupling a delayed start time with fewer classes during the day. Instead of taking six 50-minute classes, students take four 80-minute classes. They end at the same time but get more done and have less homework.

"It's easy to see the obstacles to keep you from doing something like this," he said. "It's hard to see the gains sometimes. Maybe we're reaping some of those not even knowing about it." 

A lack of empathy for kids

Delayed start times are growing in popularity, but they are still rare. Brady said it has to do with a lack of empathy for pre-teens and teens. "I get that years ago we all walked a hundred miles in the snow to school," she said. "But we know better now about the adolescent brain, and we know about their natural sleep rhythms being different than adults'."

Marco Hafner, of the RAND study, said he hopes schools will have more of an incentive if they know money could be on the line.

For all the good it does, Solebury isn't satisfied with its 8:30 a.m. start time, Tony said. Administrators are still looking into whether the 9:00 a.m. Wednesday start time would be feasible the other four days of the week. Tony recalled asking a visiting psychologist whether the extra half hour would even make a difference anyway.

"She said anything you can do is going to be a big gain," he said.

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'We are very different than millennials,' says 18-year-old 'Gen Z guru' hired as a consultant for the Minnesota Vikings

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At age 18, most of us were finishing up high school, maybe heading to college, excited about the chance to go to parties without parents breathing down our neck.

Jonah Stillman, an 18-year-old Minnesota resident, just co-authored a book and landed a consulting gig with the Minnesota Vikings, according to the Star Tribune.

That book is "Gen Z @ Work: How the Next Generation is Transforming the Workplace," and he wrote it with his father, David Stillman. The father and son also run a company called Gen Z Guru.

Stillman will help the Vikings understand and connect with Generation Z — which marketers generally define as people born 1995 and later — according to the Star Tribune.

"We are very different than millennials," Stillman told the Star Tribune, and shared some thoughts on what makes Gen Z unique.

For one, he said, "Our hunt for more authentic communication also means we are looking for the most authentic way to communicate with our peers, co-workers, and bosses." Based on the research he and his father did for their book, they found that 84% of Gen Z says they prefer face-to-face communication.

Stillman's observations jibe with insights from speaker Ryan Jenkins, who wrote on Inc. that Gen Z "will be much more calculated and/or selective with the information they share online."

Jenkins has also found that nearly three-quarters of Gen Z says they prefer to communicate face-to-face with colleagues.

Stillman told the Star Tribune that he's "learning too much to stop right now" and enroll in college, so he's taking a "gap year or two."

That, too, is a Gen Z trademark: According to a College Savings Foundation survey, spotlighted in the Chicago Tribune, about 21% of respondents are planning to defer their college plans so they can pursue other interests.

SEE ALSO: Forget millennials — here are 8 things you'll want to remember about Gen Z

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18-year-old hired as a consultant to the Minnesota Vikings: 'I don't get intimidated easily'

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jonah stillman

Jonah Stillman calls himself a "Gen Z guru."

Along with his father, the 18-year-old co-authored a book, "Gen Z @ Work: How the Next Generation is Transforming the Workplace," and cofounded a speaking business, also called Gen Z Guru.

And as the Star Tribune reported, Stillman was recently hired as a consultant to the Minnesota Vikings, to help them understand and connect with Generation Z.

Marketers generally define Gen Z as anyone born 1995 or later; they're the newest members of the workforce.

When I spoke to Stillman by phone, I asked him if he felt intimidated by the prospect of working with so many people older and more experienced than he is.

"I'm going to be honest," he said. "I don't get intimidated easily. I've been trained well; I've had a lot of working experience; and I see this as another opportunity to help better myself and the Vikings."

By training and working experience, he's referring to the speaking business he started with his father and the consulting work he's done for clients other than the Vikings.

Stillman's postponing college for now: "I'm just going to play it by ear," he said.

He spoke about his own deferred college plans in the context of Gen Z's overall attitude toward higher education. "College used to be a place where you go to discover yourself," he said. "Now a lot of Gen Z-ers are only going to college if they know what they want to do."

That's partly a result of financial practicality, Stillman said. "We think it's financially irresponsible to bounce around college for a year and not declare a major."

Indeed, a survey from the College Savings Foundation, spotlighted in the Chicago Tribune, found that 79% of high-school students surveyed said cost is a factor in choosing a college. And 39% said high costs encouraged them to enroll in state schools, community colleges, as well as vocational and career schools.

Stillman also cited stats that suggest Gen Z is more entrepreneurial than millennials were at the same age — an observation that's backed up by a 2015 Goldman Sachs report.

 

SEE ALSO: 'We are very different than millennials,' says 18-year-old 'Gen Z guru' hired as a consultant for the Minnesota Vikings

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A 40-year study of teens finds Generation Z avoids sex, alcohol, and driving at record rates

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gen z teenagers

Today's teenagers don't seem to care much about hitting the open road, scoring a six-pack with a fake ID, or asking their peers out on dates.

According to a new study from the psychologists Jean Twenge and Heejung Park, teenagers instead prefer to sit at home, avoid drugs and alcohol, and scroll through a litany of social-media apps.

The study, published in the journal Child Development, analyzed survey responses from 8.3 million teenagers between 1976 and 2016. Overwhelmingly, today's teens were found to be less likely to drive, work for pay, go on dates, have sex, or go out without their parents.

By the early 2010s, the researchers wrote, 12th-graders were going out less often than eighth-graders did in the early 1990s and going on dates about as often as 10th-graders did in the early 1990s. Kids were also trying alcohol later and having sex far less often: About 54% of high-school students in 1991 reported having had sex, while only 41% did in the early 2010s.

"This isn't just about parenting," Twenge told Business Insider. "It's also about teens themselves, and the economy, and fertility rates, and people living longer."

Of course, since the study's conclusions are based on personal survey responses, the findings may not apply broadly to all of Generation Z, generally defined as people born in the early 1990s to mid-2000s. There are also bound to be members of the generation for whom the traits don't apply, as with any demographic study.

But Twenge chalked the findings up to an overall shift in the way society has operated. She is the author of "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood," which explores the conditions in which today's young people are being raised. Contrary to popular belief, Twenge said, teens aren't lazy or square, but are a product of their environment, like every other generation.

In the mid-20th century, she said, people adopted what evolutionary psychologists call a "fast-life strategy." Life spans were shorter and work was more imperative, so kids grew up relatively quickly without as much parental supervision. By 2000, though, the US had taken up a "slow-life strategy"— people were living longer, resources were more abundant, and parents started raising their kids to stay kids longer.

Because there seems to be less of a need for modern teens to become adults, Twenge and Park's research suggests that today's 18-year-old more closely resembles a 15-year-old of the 1970s or '80s.

However, one of the most disturbing characteristics of Generation Z, or "iGen" in Twenge's parlance, is a suicide rate that has surpassed the homicide rate in that age group. Twenge thinks smartphone use may play a crucial role in contributing to that. Gen Z is the first generation to be raised according to this slow-life strategy amid the prominence of smartphones. (Its members, after all, are the first to have no concept of life without the internet.) Instead of working or playing outside, teens are more likely to feel isolated and tethered to their devices.

"Today's teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly — on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook," Twenge wrote recently in The Atlantic. "Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it."

But getting rid of smartphones shouldn't be parents' first goal if they want to safeguard their kids' mental health — according to the study's findings, Twenge said, it should be encouraging independence. If kids are more concerned with working or getting involved in their community, they'll naturally have less idle time to fill with their smartphone.

At the same time, not all of Gen Z's traits are problems that need to be solved, she said, like the lower incidences of drinking and sex.

"Let's have those go to zero," Twenge said. "That would be just fine."

SEE ALSO: 26-year-old 'echo boomers' are running wild in America — here's what they're all about

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Science says there could be a psychological downside to being popular in high school later in life

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  • New research shows being popular may not be as important as having a select few close friends.
  • Teens with close bonds grew up to be better at handling mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
  • However, a correlation between having friends and being mentally healthy doesn't necessarily prove one causes the other.

When you were at school, were you one of the cool kids, or did you stick to just a couple of friends?

According to some new research, having a select few pals who you were very close to at school could be better for your mental health in the long run.

A new study, published in the journal Child Development in August, looked at data from 169 adolescents, to see whether the size of their friendship groups had an effect on depressive symptoms, self-worth, and social anxiety symptoms from ages 15 to 25.

It found that close friendships in adolescence were associated with an increase in self worth, and a decrease in anxiety and depressive symptoms in early adulthood.

Lead author Rachel Narr, who is a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia, works on the psychology of close relationships during adolescence.

"Peer relationships are such a major part of life for adolescents, and there are so many different types of peer relationships," she told Business Insider.

"I was interested in looking at the different functions those might have for mental health longterm. Both popularity and close friendship have some possible merits at age 15 as far as helping teens feel better about themselves, and past work has suggested that both have some — but we don't know as much about which has a lasting positive impact into adulthood."

Quality is better than quantity.

Narr said the research shows that it seems to be quality over quantity of friendships that's the more psychologically healthy route when you're at school.

"We weren't surprised that better adolescent close friendships turned out to be important, but we were surprised by just how important they turned out to be into adulthood," she said. "We thought we might see close friendship and popularity predict change in mental health during adolescence, and a weaker relation from age 15 to 25, but we saw exactly the reverse. It seems like close friendship at age 15 sort of 'set in motion' these long term gains."

This, she said, could be true for a variety of reasons. For example, your teenage years are when you form the first major relationships with people who aren't in your family.

"Experiencing very positive ones at that point in life may set the stage in a powerful way," Narr said. "Also, adolescence is a major time of life where people are developing their self-concepts, so having a close friend who helps you feel good about yourself, trusts you, likes you, and who you like and trust, might really set people up for positive change."

Also, adolescence is the time where people are most sensitive to feedback from peers, and start choosing who they want to spend time with, rather than who they are introduced to through parents or siblings.

Close friends offer a solid support system.

Charlotte*, who is 24 and from Hertfordshire, told Business Insider she had a select circle of friends at school who are still her friends today. While she got along with most people, she didn't consider herself in the popular "cliques."

"I think with them it's actually benefited me in the long run socially as they've been quite a solid support system, and almost takes the pressure off making 'new friends,' as I have my circle, so if there's a person who joins it that's great, otherwise no big deal," she said.

"The friendships are based on trust and honesty. So it's easier to express opinions, have friendly debates, etc, within the group. I suffer from anxiety myself and they've definitely helped with it and I would say more so. It's funny as the people who were in the popular group don't keep in touch with each other as far as I'm aware."

Katie*, who is 23 and from Southampton, also found having fewer friends beneficial in the long run. She told Business Insider it was hard at the time not getting on with everybody, but most of the people she now associates with were in the same boat and feel the same.

When it comes to dealing with mental health and social situations in later life, Katie said people who had a tougher time in school experience deeper emotions, both negative and positive, earlier.

Speaking on the popular kids, she said: "I think they remain comfortable for too long and then when the stresses arise later on, they have no basis for comparison, [and] it's the worst it's ever been to them."

friends

Still, it's not easy to make them.

Mary*, who is 32 and from London, feels quite the opposite as Charlotte and Katie. She told Business Insider that she had no friends at school, and from early on stood out from the crowd as being "the smart one."

"I wasn't the rebellious kid who was talking back to teachers or wearing the latest fashion... I was frequently mocked or verbally abused, for being a smarty pants and the teachers' favourite," she said. "I committed a suicide attempt age 14 which made the bullying worse... subsequently I never felt really close from anyone and I don't recall counting any 'true' friends."

Not being invited to sleepovers or to go out to bars or clubs at university has really affected her socially, Mary said.

"I am subject to a lot of anxiety and generally avoid social situations when possible," she said. "I regularly try to force myself to go to work gatherings or my league [roller derby] parties... but I regularly pull out at the last minute: What am I going to talk about? How will these people find me interesting? I don't have anything to say to them."

Mary also goes from one failed relationship to another, and although she has gone through cognitive behavioural therapy in the past, she hasn't managed to overcome her lack of self-esteem.

"I would love to know how popular people manage to be so greatly appreciated and recognised by others — what do they have that I don't?" she said. "The easy answer would be that they are just being themselves, but unfortunately I haven't had the chance to practise being myself with people and when I do it usually end up in disaster or just an awkward moment.

"I constantly feel I have nothing to bring to anyone, so what's the point? I just don't think I have what it takes, which makes me sad in a way but I haven't really known it any different."

Chris*, 29 from Bristol, agreed that not having many friends at school was tough. He said this has lead to him craving close friendship with everyone he can.

"In general I have anxieties about people not liking me or respecting the way I think... [I'm] not sure where it stems from but it's potentially rooted in [having few friends,]" he said. "I think I deliberately seek closer friendships on purpose, so it's hard to know whether it's because of it or if I have just made it that way.

"I would say I was not confident which led to not making friends in the same way popular people did, which in turn led me to viewing friends as people you have a close bond with, rather than just mates or whatever."

He added that it's more likely that his mental health had an impact on his social situation at school, rather than the other way around. For example, he was a nervous child, which meant he didn't make a ton of friends easily. However, he doesn't think the popular kids had it easy, either.

"The people I went to school with must have felt pressure to be consistent, which is hard to be when you're a preteen/teenager," he said. "I think having fewer friends made it easier for me — [There was] less judgment."

Friends are good for your health — no matter how many you have.

The research cannot be certain of which way around it is, or why some teens form close friendships while many don't. It suggests a correlation between friendships or popularity and changes later in life, rather than one causing the other. Another limitation of the research is that the study started in 1998 to 1999, meaning the influence of social media hasn't been accounted for.

However, research does show that friendships are good for our overall health. One study from 2015 discussed how our social connections help us deal with daily stresses just by having someone to share experiences with and talk to.

So, popular or not, it's a good idea to make sure you still make time for your nearest and dearest. You never know when you'll need them.

*Names adjusted / surnames removed for anonymity.

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A 40-year study of teens finds Generation Z is unlike any past generation — here's what they're all about

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Today's teens are in no hurry to grow up, a new study finds.

Contrary to teenagers of past generations, Generation Z — broadly defined as people born between 1995 and the mid-2000s — aren't drinking alcohol, having sex, driving, or going out without their parents nearly as much.

According to psychologists Jean Twenge and Heejung Park, who analyzed 8.3 million responses across seven surveys of teens from 1976 to 2016, today's 18-year-olds act more like 15-year-olds from years past.

The findings largely back up Generation Z as less reckless and more socially isolated than generations prior. Here's what they're all about.

SEE ALSO: Psychologists studied 5,000 genius kids for 45 years — here are their 6 key takeaways

They don't crave the open road.

In the late 1970s, nearly 90% of teens had gotten their driver's license by the 12th grade. By 2014, survey data showed the rate had fallen to roughly 73%.

Twenge and Park's findings suggest this downward trend correlates with many other Gen Z trends, given that driving offers the freedom to date, go to parties, and get to work.



They're not as interested in trying alcohol.

Younger teenagers were more likely to avoid alcohol, according to the study, while older teens showed less of a change. That indicated to Twenge and Park that "recent adolescents try alcohol at older ages than adolescents in past decades," they wrote.

Since 1993, the percentage of eighth-graders who have tried alcohol declined by 59%, compared to a 40% decrease for 10th-graders and 26% for 12th-graders.



Dating is far less frequent.

Since 1976, there have been major declines in 12th-graders saying they go on dates. When the first survey was issued, about 85% of high-school seniors said they go on dates; by 2014, about 58% did.

The internet, while a possible contributing factor, was not ruled the deciding factor since the declines began before large percentages of the population came online, the researchers noted.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Snapchat is American teens' favorite social media app — and Facebook can't be happy about that (SNAP)

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Snap may have turned off investors, but its core app is winning over one key group — American teenagers.

Even as the social networking company's stock has slumped as the company has fallen shy of Wall Street's expectations, its app has been gaining traction with young consumers. As you can see from this chart by Statista, which is based on the results of Piper Jaffray's bi-annual "Taking Stock With Teens" survey, Snapchat is now the most popular social networking service among the teen set by far. 

That's quite an accomplishment, particularly given the increasing competition from Facebook-owned Instagram, which has repeatedly rolled out features that mimic Snapchat's. Earlier this year, Instagram launched Stories, a copycat of one of Snapchat's signature feature. By April, more people were using Instagram Stories on a daily basis than Snapchat. 

COTD_10.16_02

SEE ALSO: The Google Home Mini secretly recorded peoples' conversations and played into a big fear about smart speakers

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A surprising number of teenagers are engaging in 'digital self-harm,' the practice of being mean to yourself online

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  • A new study found 6% of US teens anonymously post or share mean things about themselves online.
  • The act is called "digital self-harm," and its rates mirror those of traditional self-harm, such as cutting.
  • Experts have found teens digital self-harm in an effort to validate their insecurities in a public space.

In past decades, teenagers struggling to deal with their emotions might have coped by taking a razor blade to their forearm or extinguishing cigarettes on their skin.

Today's teens, products of the internet era, have found an additional outlet.

Approximately 6% of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old engage in a practice known as "digital self-harm," or the posting or sharing of demeaning information about oneself anonymously online, a new study finds.

"I was surprised that the numbers were as high as they were," Justin Patchin, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire and the study's lead author, told Business Insider.

A growing body of evidence has found smartphones to be a driving force in declining mental health among teenagers. Teen suicide rates recently eclipsed homicide rates, and some psychologists claim it's largely due to the loneliness and anxiety produced by digital technology.

"I don't think it dawned on anyone that teens would leverage anonymity in this way," Dr. Danah Boyd, digital self-harm researcher and author of "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens,"told the BBC. "It tends to startle anyone I tell about it."

Researchers like Boyd (who was not involved in the latest study) have found that digital self-harm offers teens a chance to safely get attention from friends and publicize the negative feelings they've been keeping in their heads. The act can serve as a kind of purge — expunging bad self-impressions, either about appearance or personality, can validate a young person's insecurities.

"The ubiquity of social media and the way in which youth present and represent themselves in order to obtain attention, validation, and feedback from an audience," the authors wrote, "may enhance the likelihood they choose online spaces as the preferred venue through which they can affect and reach others."

A 15-year-old named Ellie (not her real name) told the BBC a similar story in 2013.

"The posts would say I was ugly, I was useless, I wasn't loved … all the stuff in my head," Ellie said. "If I saw it in black and white coming from 'other people' I knew it must be true."

The latest study is the largest to offer a picture of digital self-harm's prevalence in the US. A representative sample of 5,593 middle and high school students were surveyed about their online behavior, with 7.1% of males and 5.3% of females saying they cyberbullied themselves.

A prior survey, issued in 2013 by the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, found roughly 9% of teens engaged in the practice.

These rates mirror those of traditional forms of self-harm, known more formally as "nonsuicidal self-injury," or NSSI. A study published in 2012 determined 8% of the 665 youths who were surveyed said they engaged in a form of NSSI, be it cutting, burning, or hitting. The survey found a wider variation among genders, however, than the latest study on digital self-harm: While 19% of ninth-grade girls reported some form, only 5% of ninth-grade boys did.

Researchers behind the new study found those who engaged in traditional self-harm were three times as likely to digitally self-harm.

The team also conceded it couldn't parse out every specific reason for digital self-harm. It could be the case that some portion of teens self-cyberbully because they enjoy a "misguided pleasure in deceiving others," the coauthors wrote.

The research team advocated even more support from celebrities and activists, who have started campaigns to fight self-harm, such as To Write Love on Her Arms and the It Gets Better project.

"We believe these efforts should be redoubled by other far-reaching entities," the coauthors wrote, "especially given the powerful and unparalleled influence that digital content and communications have on this population."

SEE ALSO: Teen suicides now outnumber homicides — and smartphone use could be playing a major role

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Apple has an obligation to make the iPhone safer for kids

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  • Research shows that there's a link between digital media use and depression — especially for kids and teens.
  • There's an increasing consensus that the tech companies who have led us into the digital age have a responsibility to build some safeguards.


The average teen spends at least six hours a day looking at a screen, with most of it from using a smartphone.

Many parents, naturally, have wondered if so much time spent in front of a screen is safe.

Recent research suggests it's not. Teens who spend five or more hours a day on electronic devices are 71 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide than those who spend less than an hour a day on a device. Digital media use is linked with more depression and less happiness, with experiments, natural experiments and longitudinalstudies all showing that digital media use leads to unhappiness rather than the other way around.

Steve Jobs might have been onto something when he told a surprised reporter in 2010 that he didn't let his kids use iPads and he generally restricted their screen time.

Indeed, there's an increasing consensus that the technology companies who have led us into the digital age have a responsibility to build some safeguards. That's why I helped draft a letter from Apple shareholders spearheaded by Jana Partners and the California State Teachers' Retirement System that asks the company to take steps to protect their youngest consumers. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it could also improve the company's bottom line.

Limitation, not elimination

According to the research, the problem isn't teens owning smartphones. In fact, teens who don't use smartphones at all are actually a little less happy than those who use them a limited amount.

It's only when use goes beyond two hours a day that issues begin to appear, including less sleep and a higher risk of suicide-related outcomes such as depression and making suicide plans.

The solution, then, seems easy: Limit the amount of time the device can be used and how it can be used. This works out fairly well for Apple; most of their profit is locked in once someone buys an iPhone or iPad, regardless of how much the owner uses it.

The problem is that most teens who are handed a smartphone aren't going to use it for just an hour or two per day. Research suggests that digital media stimulates the same brain chemicals and regions as other addictive products. Although some teens are able to limit their use, a substantial number end up spending the majority of their leisure time with their devices, which – as noted earlier – could lead to mental health issues.

A customer tests the features of the newly launched iPhone X at VIVA telecommunication store in Manama, Bahrain, November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Some have pointed out that parents can use third-party apps such as Kidslox or Norton Family Premier to limit time spent on the phone or on social media sites. Although some parents might find these apps helpful, others might be overwhelmed by the setup process or find the download fees too expensive. Clever teens might also find ways around these apps.

But what if Apple were to include the ability to limit screen time in the iPhone's operating system?

For example, when registering and setting up the phone, Apple could include an option to select the age of the user. If you say the phone is for a 12-year-old, it could give parents the option to restrict the apps used, shut down the phone at night, limit the number of hours it can be used and permit communication with a preapproved list of phone numbers. As the child grows older, these restrictions could be changed or lifted. Making this part of the iOS would seamlessly integrate safety for children and teens into the iPhone – and seamless integration has always been Apple's calling card.

Better phones for happier kids

This has another benefit for Apple: Parents might be more willing to buy their children smartphones if they were easier to regulate. Outside of buying an old-school flip phone – which are increasingly difficult to find – there's currently no easy way to give a child a cellphone without opening up the world of unlimited internet access, constant social media and endless evenings spent arguing over putting the phone away at dinner.

As the parent of an 11-year-old, I would be much more comfortable giving my daughter a smartphone if I knew she wouldn't be bullied on it, see things she shouldn't see or stare at it for six hours a day.

Social media companies like Facebook also have something to answer for hereand they know it. Given links between advertising revenue and time spent on the site, balancing profit and safety will be a tougher task for them.

But for Apple, it's arguably a win-win: The safer their product is for kids, the more they could sell. So why not make it safer by offering parents more tools and options?

SEE ALSO: The behind-the-scenes story of why Apple received a letter from 2 huge investors about child safety features

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Instead of paying your teen a weekly allowance, give it to him in one lump sum for the year

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  • Instead of giving your teen a weekly allowance, hand him or her one lump sum to manage for the next six to 12 months.
  • The problem with weekly or even monthly allowances is that the cash simply comes too often.
  • Less frequent lump sums can teach teenagers how to plan and save for future expenses — two crucial habits they'll need to get ahead financially.


Here's an idea: Hand your teenagers hundreds of dollars in one lump sum and leave it up to them to manage the money for the next, say, six to 12 months.

Anyone who's ever had or been a teenager may quail at the thought, but experts say this approach actually can work much better than a weekly allowance in teaching older kids about personal finance.

"It gives them that all-important experience of managing their money," says Janet Bodnar, former editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine and author of "Raising Money Smart Kids." ''The key is that kids have responsibility to go along with the money."

The problem with weekly or even monthly allowances is that the cash simply comes too often. If your kid blows hers, she just has to wait a little while to get more. Less frequent lump sums, on the other hand, can teach teenagers how to plan and save for future expenses — two crucial habits they'll need to get ahead financially.

Adults who plan ahead for large, irregular expenses are 10 times more likely to be financially healthy than those who don't, according to a study by the nonprofit Center for Financial Services Innovation. Those who have a regular savings habit are four times more likely to be financially healthy.

Lump sums can teach teens the skills needed to develop those habits, says Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist for The New York Times and author of the book "The Opposite of Spoiled."

Lump sums "train and test teens in self-restraint, in anticipating medium-term needs, in telling the difference between wants and needs, and in setting goals and priorities," Lieber says. "If you don't have more money coming for a while but a larger-than-usual pile in front of you, there will just be that many more and bigger tests of your will."

We switched to the lump sum approach two years ago, when our daughter was still in middle school. I totted up what we'd spent on clothes for her in the previous year, added in a 10 percent fudge factor and plunked the money into her savings account just in time for back-to-school shopping. We told her the money needed to cover her clothing purchases for the next year, and that it was up to her to make sure it lasted.

Which she did. She discovered her money went a lot farther at thrift and consignment stores than it did at the mall. She felt the pain of wasted money when an impulse purchase went unworn. She wrestled with whether to spend a huge chunk of her budget on Dr. Martens. (She eventually asked for them as her birthday present.)

The keys to making this work:

MAKE THE LUMP SUM BIG ENOUGH — BUT NOT TOO BIG. Skimping on the amount won't leave teens enough room to make choices, but giving too much means they won't face hard trade-offs. It's also important that the money be intended for necessities rather than "fun money." When our kids gets out in the real world, most of their paychecks won't be discretionary as they pay for rent, food, transportation, taxes and other needs.

KEEP TALKING. The real value in any kind of allowance is the opportunity it gives you to talk about money. Our daughter had to ask us when she wanted some of the clothing money transferred from savings to her checking account or prepaid card. That gave us a chance to talk about what she was learning, the challenges and choices she faced and our own experiences learning to handle money.

DON'T BAIL THEM OUT. What if they blow all their money in the first week, or outgrow their last pair of sneakers when their account is on fumes? Let them figure out a solution, such as getting a job or earning money doing extra chores, Bodnar advises.

"You need to stick to your guns, which is hard as a parent," she says.

If parents ride to the rescue, all the teenager learns is to look for the quick fix that avoids short-term pain. That kind of thinking leads to credit card debt, payday loans and repeated requests for bailouts even when they're adults. Better to take a hard line now than watch them fail later.

"Teens will flunk these tests regularly, and we should cheer, internally at least, when they do," Lieber says. "The more they mess up while they still live with us and the consequences are relatively mild, the better."

_______

This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet .

Liz Weston is a columnist at NerdWallet, a certified financial planner and author of "Your Credit Score." Email: lweston@nerdwallet.com . Twitter: @lizweston.

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NerdWallet: Are you financially healthy? https://nerd.me/financial-health-quiz

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Meet 'The Wolf of Crypto Street,' an Ohio teenager who used his entire savings to become a cryptocurrency millionaire

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  • Eddy Zillan, 18, invested his entire savings into cryptocurrencies when he was 15 years old and says he has made over $1 million in profits.
  • Zillan has spent the past three years studying cryptocurrencies and now offers his services as a cryptocurrency consultant.


When Eddy Zillan started trading in cryptocurrencies three years ago, he was 15 — too young to open an account on the trading platform Coinbase, which requires its users to be at least 18 years old.

But Zillan glossed over the site's terms of agreement and opened an account on Coinbase and another trading platform called Kraken, cautiously purchasing $100 worth of the cryptocurrency ether.

Zillan says he was initially skeptical of putting his money into the fledgling cryptocurrency market, which he'd first heard about in reference to the now defunct drug-trading website Silk Road. When Zillan began investing in 2015, there were few credible resources offering advice on how to invest in cryptocurrencies.

"At the time I invested, there were no YouTubers, there were no investors, there was no one I could learn from," Zillan said in an interview with Business Insider. "There were no books or mentors, and it was really hard to teach myself a formal education in that field."

When Zillan checked his accounts a few hours after investing his first $100, he found he'd already made $10. Though it may not sound like much, Zillan says he was floored.

"I thought: 'Wow, I just made a 10% return in a day. That's crazy,'" he said.

Eddy Zillan

The next day, Zillan put in more cash. This time, it was $1,000.

A week later, he added $5,000, and the week after that another $6,000.

Before long, Zillan had invested a total of just over $12,000, the entirety of his savings from teaching tennis lessons, along with a tidy nest egg he'd received from gifts and his bar mitzvah a few years earlier.

"I risked everything," he said.

At first, Zillan's parents had mixed feelings about their son's interest in digital currencies. While his mother approved, his father cautioned against what he considered to be an extremely risky venture.

Meanwhile, Zillan's skepticism was evaporating by the day.

Within the first few months, his returns had begun to skyrocket. As his gains inched higher, Zillan was reading about cryptocurrencies obsessively, sometimes spending hours a day on cryptocurrency forums or chatting with other investors online. Soon, he was dabbling in alternate cryptocurrencies — also known as altcoins — and day trading.

In one short year, Zillan's initial investment had snowballed. He says his entire cryptocurrency portfolio had tallied a staggering $350,000.

Zillan continued educating himself on cryptocurrencies with the few resources available online. Zillan says his knowledge of the market mostly stems from his conversations with other investors and people who created cryptocurrencies.

Like many people who invested in cryptocurrencies early, Zillan acknowledges that his profits are partially due to opportune timing. But Zillan says that making smart investments in cryptocurrencies requires more skill than simply opening an account on Coinbase.

Zillan doesn't underestimate his good timing, but he credits his enormous returns to his business acumen and his understanding of digital currencies.

Today, Zillan says his portfolio sits comfortably at over $1 million and that he's turning his eye to another venture in the cryptocurrency field: advising.

The canvas says it all🙌🏼

A post shared by Eddy Zillan (@eddy_zillan) on Jan 20, 2018 at 4:32pm PST on

Zillan, a high-school student who turned 18 in August, has spent the past year broadening his business interest in cryptocurrencies.

His company, Cryptocurrency Financial, offers cryptocurrency-investing advice to businesses and novice investors. This week, he plans to launch the program's consumer-focused app, Coinalert.ly, designed to be a mix of resources for cryptocurrency investors, including trading tips, guides, explainers, and news.

Zillan says the app fills a void in the cryptocurrency market: a lack of resources with investing device, despite the growing influence of cryptocurrencies.

So far, cryptocurrency communities have relied largely on sites like Reddit to discuss the often volatile market, the strength of a given currency, and what seem to be pump-and-dump schemes.

Zillan, who has charged $250 an hour for private cryptocurrency-investing services in the past, says his goal isn't necessarily to make money from the company, but "to make the crypto community bigger."

"I want to see cryptocurrencies as the future," he said.

Eddy Zillan

Zillan is by no means the first to offer his skills as a cryptocurrency-investment guru. Amid the fervor of the digital gold rush, a slew of self-proclaimed "crypto geniuses" and "crypto experts" have emerged online to capitalize on their investing know-how, espousing promises of effortless wealth.

Zillan says his expertise sets him apart from other cryptocurrency advisers on the market. While others might resort to tricks or manipulation to profit off unsuspecting clients, Zillan says, his only motivation is to educate people.

"I'm not some guy off of Wall Street," he said. "There's no motive or reason for me to try to trick people."

The wolf of Crypto Street🐺😂

A post shared by Eddy Zillan (@eddy_zillan) on Jan 15, 2018 at 10:49am PST on

Zillan's rhetoric, however, is slightly at odds with the image he's cultivated online — both his website and his Instagram page capitalize on the "get rich quick" zeitgeist of the cryptocurrency community.

He describes himself as the "Crypto Millionaire" on his website, and he's often pictured in a tropical location or beside a flashy sports car. (Zillan drives three luxury vehicles, which he says were purchased with a mix of profits from cryptocurrencies and early-stage investments, and money from his parents, who are both wealthy business people.)

In one photo, Zillan smiles broadly beside a painting of himself in which he's depicted as the infamous Wall Street mogul Jordan Belfort in a scene from the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street."

The caption reads: "The wolf of Crypto Street."

When asked why he's comparing himself to one of the most notoriously debauched Wall Street traders in recent memory, Zillan describes the images as "a marketing type of deal" that shouldn't be confused with the efficacy of his company.

"Sure, it's very flashy. Wolf of Wall Street was shitty penny stocks, but what we do is completely different," he said. "I just use that for marketing. What's going to catch your eye? Some words, or a picture of that?"

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Teens are watching a surprising amount of hardcore porn — and parents need to start talking to them about it

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Man looks at computer with headphones

  • Pornography has become more widespread violent, degrading and misogynistic than ever.
  • There are major implications for the emotional, physical and mental health of teens. 
  • Parents are concerned about the access their kids now have to porn via mobile devices.


Editor's note: This article includes references to graphic sexual content that may be inappropriate for some readers.

Today teenagers are viewing far more pornography than their parents realize. And the porn they're watching is much more "hardcore" than moms and dads could possibly imagine. 

These were the main messages of "What Teenagers are Learning From Online Porn," a recent New York Times story by Maggie Jones. It quickly became one of the most read and shared articles.

While this may be a surprise to many American parents who perhaps imagine porn as merely a naked centerfold, it wasn't to scholars like me who immerse ourselves in the world of mainstream porn. We know how widespread violent, degrading and misogynistic pornography has become, as well as the implications for the emotional, physical and mental health of young people. 

In an effort to better understand the problem from a "front-line" perspective, feminist activist Samantha Wechsler and I have been traveling the world talking to parents about the issue. The question we're asked most often is: "What can we do about it?" 

'Hardcore' porn is everywhere

Surveys and our own experiences show that parents are deeply concerned about the easy access their kids now have to porn via mobile devices.

The statistics paint a dismal picture. A recent U.K. study found that 65 percent of 15- to 16-year-olds had viewed pornography, the vast majority of whom reported seeing it by age 14. This is especially problematic given the findings of another study that found a correlation between early exposure to pornography and an expressed desire to exert power over women. 

Yet for all this concern, they know surprisingly little about what mainstream porn looks like, how much their kids are accessing and how it affects them. The Times article, however, cited a 2016 survey that suggested most parents are totally unaware of their kids' porn experiences. Jones called this the "parental naivete gap."

This matches our own experiences. In the presentations we do at high schools, we ask parents to describe what they think of when they hear the word "porn." They invariably describe a naked young woman with a coy smile, the kind of image many remember from Playboy centerfolds. 

They are shocked when they learn that the images from today's busiest free porn sites, like Pornhub, depict acts such as women being gagged with a penis or multiple men penetrating every orifice of a woman and then ejaculating on her face. When we tell parents this, the change in the atmosphere of the room is palpable. There is often a collective gasp. 

It bears repeating that these are the most visited porn sites – which get more visitors every month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. Pornhub alone received 21.2 billion visits in 2015. We are not talking about images on the fringe. 

Ana Bridges, a psychologist at the University of Arkansas, and her team found that 88 percent of scenes from 50 of the top-rented porn movies contained physical aggression against the female performers – such as spanking, slapping and gagging – while 48 percent included verbal abuse – like calling women names such as "bitch" or "slut."

Bad for your health

PornographyMore than 40 years of research from different disciplines has demonstrated that viewing pornography – regardless of age – is associated with harmful outcomes. And studies show that the younger the age of exposure, the more significant the impact in terms of shaping boys' sexual templates, behaviors and attitudes. 

2011 study of U.S. college men found that 83 percent reported seeing mainstream pornography in the past 12 months and that those who did were more likely to say they would commit rape or sexual assault (if they knew they wouldn't be caught) than men who said they had not seen porn.

Another study of young teens found that early porn exposure was correlated with perpetration of sexual harassment two years later. 

One of the most cited analyses of 22 studies concluded that pornography consumption is associated with an increased likelihood of committing acts of verbal or physical sexual aggression. And a study of college-aged women found that young women whose male partners used porn experienced lower self-esteem, diminished relationship quality and lower sexual satisfaction.

It begins with parents

Fearing for their children's well-being, parents at our presentations, whether in Los Angeles, Oslo or Warsaw, want to run home in a panic to have the "porn talk" with their kids.

But in reality, they often have no idea what to say, how to say it, or how to deal with a kid who would rather be anywhere else in the world than sitting across from their parents talking about porn. At the same time, public health research shows that parents are the first line of preventionin dealing with any major social problem that affects their kids.

So what can be done?

Most current efforts focus on teens themselves and educating them about sex and the perils of porn. Although it is crucial to have high-quality programs for teens who have already been exposed, the fact is that this is cleaning up after the fact rather than preventing the mess in the first place. 

So a team of academics, public health experts, educators, pediatricians and developmental psychologists – including us – spent two years pooling research to create a program to help parents become that vitalfirst line of defense.

That's why the nonprofit we set up – Culture Reframed – initially focused on parents of tweens, addressing a key question: How do we prevent kids from being exposed to images of sexual abuse and degradation at that critical stage when they are forming their sexual identities?

What took shape was a 12-module program that introduces parents sequentially to the developmental changes – emotional, cognitive and physical – that tweens undergo and the hypersexualized pop culture that shapes those changes and is the wallpaper of tween lives.

For example, boys learn from music videos, violent video games, mainstream media and porn that "real men" are aggressive and lack empathy, that sex equals conquest, and that to avoid being bullied, they have to wear the mask of masculinity. Girls, on the other hand, learn that they have to look "hot" to be visible, be as passive as a cartoon princess and internalize the male gaze, leading them to self-objectify at an early age.

boy kid computer ipad

Navigating the porn minefield

Helping parents grasp the degree to which hypersexualized images shape their tweens encourages them to understand, rather than judge, why their girl wants to look like one of the Kardashians, or why their boy, hazed into hypermasculinity, is at risk of losing his capacity for empathy and connection. This helps parents approach their kids with compassion rather than with frustration and anger that can undermine the parent-child relationship. 

Navigating all the minefields of living in today's toxic porn culture – from sexting and poor self esteem to porn and peer pressure – is very tricky terrain, and parents need all the help they can get. 

But ultimately, the Culture Reframed project is about so much more than providing parents with newfound confidence and skills. It's about taking power back from the porn industry, which is out to hijack the sexuality and humanity of kids in the name of profit, and giving it back to parents.

Samantha Wechsler, interim executive director of Culture Reframed, co-authored this article.

SEE ALSO: It's past time to end the debate on whether video games trigger real-world violence

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10 ways schools, parents, and communities can prevent school shootings now

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florida shooting

After a shooter killed 17 people at a Florida high school, many have expressed frustration at the political hand-wringing over gun control and calls for prayer

As a parent, I understand the desire for practical responses to school shootings. I also absolutely believe the government should do more to prevent such incidents. But the gun control debate has proven so divisiveand ineffective that I am weary of waiting for politicians to act.

I study the kind of aggressive childhood behavior that often predates school shootings. That research suggests what communities and families can start doing today to better protect children. Here are 10 actions we can all take while the federal government drags its heels.

What schools can do

Because educators observe students’ emotional and behavioral development daily, they are best positioned to detect troubled behaviors and intervene. In Los Angeles, for example, schools have successfully used outreach and training to identify potentially violent students before problems occur.

SEE ALSO: It's past time to end the debate on whether video games trigger real-world violence

1. Teach social and emotional skills

Children learn social skills from everyday interactions with each other. Playtime teaches young people how to control their emotions, recognize others’ feelings and to negotiate. Neighborhood "kick the can" games, for example, require cooperation to have fun — all without adult supervision. 

Today, frequent social media use and a decrease in free play time has reduced children’s opportunities to learn these basic social skills.

But social and emotional skills can — and should — be taught in school as a way to prevent student violence. Students with more fluent social skills connect better with others and may be more able to recognize troubled peers who need help.



2. Hire more counselors and school resource officers

Due to budget cuts, many schools have few or no trained school psychologists, social workers or adjustment counselors on staff. These mental health professionals are society’s first line of defense against troubled students — especially with the current increase in adolescent depression and anxiety.

In my opinion, school resource officers — trained police officers who work with children — are also helpful for students. While untrained officers may pose a threat to students, well-trained school resource officers can connect with kids who have few other relationships, acting as a support system. They are also on hand to respond quickly if crime or violence erupts. 

Putting trained school resource officers and counselors in every school will cost money, but I believe it will save lives.



3. Use technology to identify troubled students

Technology may challenge kids' social development, but it can also be harnessed for good. Anonymous reporting systems — perhaps text-message based — can make it easier for parents and students to alert law enforcement and school counselors to kids who seem disconnected or disturbed. That enables early intervention. 

In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one such tip appeared to prevent extreme violence in May 2017. Police took a young man who'd threatened to harm his peers into protective custody before he could act on his words.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

In a letter to his 16-year-old self, Malia Obama's English Harvard boyfriend said he was 'a lanky, over-confident public school boy'

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Malia Obama

  • Malia Obama is reportedly dating Rory Farquharson, a Harvard classmate from the UK.
  • Farquharson previously attended the Rugby School in England. A Rugby School publication features a letter he wrote to his 16-year-old self.
  • In the letter, he talks about dealing with depression and advises himself to maintain his close relationships.

Malia Obama is reportedly dating a classmate at Harvard: Rory Farquharson, a sophomore from the UK.

Farquharson previously attended the Rugby School, a private school in England, where he was "head of school" from 2015 to 2016. In England, private schools are called public schools — somewhat confusing for Americans, but will come into play in a moment.

A 2014 Rugby School publication features a letter Farquharson wrote to his 16-year-old self, and it's both amusing and surprisingly insightful.

Farquharson writes: "You're a lanky, over-confident public school boy, desperately trying to prove to your friends how much of a 'lad' you are and have failed miserably."

But the letter quickly takes a dark turn. At 16, Farquharson was preoccupied with academic success, and wore himself out trying to achieve it. He writes: "The early mornings, the long days and the late nights are all taking their toll — you look a wreck, your body aches every time you move and it takes you a good half hour to get out of bed in the morning (pain and depression)."

Farquharson goes on to give his younger self several pieces of life advice: Embrace change. Be true to who you are. Take responsibility for your own future.

Perhaps the sagest suggestion in the letter is to "look after your friends and family." Farquharson acknowledges that "there will be points in your life where you'll consider leaving your fairly eccentric but loyal group of mates behind in favor of a cooler group."

But he urges his younger self to "be generous and kind and devote time to those you care about. You'll find that the relationships that you nurture will be the most satisfying and important things of all in life."

That last bit of wisdom is backed up by research. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which Business Insider previously reported is one of the longest and most complete studies of adult life, found that strong relationships keep us happier and healthier.

Farquharson leaves his 16-year-old self with one final piece of advice: "Try to do every single thing — whether big or small — as well as you possibly can. If you can do that, then you'll find that success looks after itself."

Read the full letter on the Rugby School's website »

SEE ALSO: Meet Malia Obama's Harvard boyfriend, a prep school graduate rugby player who reportedly aspires to be a banker

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Groundbreaking gay teen rom-com 'Love, Simon' is getting rave reviews — here's what critics saying

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Love Simon official trailer movie

"Love, Simon" is a teen rom-com critics can't stop raving about. The movie tells the story of the titular Simon as he confronts his sexuality, experiences a first real crush, and struggles with coming out to his high school peers.

Starring Nick Robinson ("Jurassic World") and directed by Greg Berlanti ("Super Girl,""Riverdale"), this movie is being lauded as both refreshing and pleasantly predictable.

Here's what critics are saying:

Simon is a lovable and well-needed teen character for the big screen

"Simon is a fully realized three-dimensional character, hilariously unsteady when he tries to flirt with a landscaper and a wreck when a friend gets wind of the email exchanges. How refreshing to see a teen boy on a big screen that's not a sleepy-eyed, monosyllabic jerk just looking to get laid."

Us Weekly's Mara Reinstein

The feel-good message will be universally felt

"'Love, Simon' is an empathetic bliss-out, a fleet and sweet comedy/romance/mystery where the stakes couldn’t be higher — it deals with the public exposure of teenagers' secrets! — but also where every high school crisis or embarrassment passes with time because people, it turns out, are fundamentally decent."

Village Voice's Alan Scherstuhl

Others will find the "normalcy" of the movie groundbreaking

"[The] movie sometimes feels frustratingly safe, given that it's centered on a bland, upper-middle-class hero whose edges are sanded off. With that said, there's still something undeniably powerful about 'Love, Simon's' ordinariness. After all, there have been dozens of mediocre studio films about straight teen romances over the decades; it says something about the direction of the film industry to finally see one centered on a young gay man."

The Atlantic's David Sims

"That this story is coming from a major studio, with the gay kid depicted as an all-American everyboy and main character, rather than a comic sidekick, represents undeniably heartening progress."

AV Club's Jesse Hassenger

Love Simon movie trailer bathroom scene

A lot of critics are calling it a modern John Hughes film ("16 Candles,""Pretty in Pink")

"The film looks and sounds like so many other mainstream, John Hughes-nostalgic high-school-coms you've seen on both big and small screens, just with one difference: The hero is gay. It's as if Berlanti is daring audiences to find anything objectionable in what amounts to a thoroughly family-friendly queer film."

The Hollywood Reporter's John Frosch

But "Love, Simon" might have missed its moment because teens are advancing norms on their own terms

"A milestone that feels overdue — the first mainstream teen comedy foregrounding a gay character — may have been outpaced by real life. Can a love story centered around a gay teen who is very carefully built to seem as straight as possible appeal to a generation that’s boldly reinventing gender and sexuality on its own terms?"

Time Magazine's Danniel D'addario

"Love, Simon" is a great step forward, but we need more LGBTQ+ representation in movies

"As much as 'Love, Simon's' winning, if slightly bowdlerized, coming-out story initially made me yearn for an altered youth, it's since made me yearn even more for stories that reflect my gay life today, or my gay life as it might be years from now. (And your gay life, and your gay life, and your gay life.) Here's hoping for those movies in the near future."

Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson

And critics don't think it's a "perfect" film

"Still, the movie isn't perfect: the sheer number of 2017-specific cultural references will almost definitely date 'Love, Simon' in the future. What's more, Simon's idea of the relatable teenage experience ('We do everything friends do: we drink way too much iced coffee while gorging on carbs') smacks of immense privilege."

Refinery29's Anne Cohen

"Love, Simon" arrives in theaters on March 16. Watch the full trailer below.

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