November 19th, 2008
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: Every morning I drive my granddaughter to high school and sit there in traffic observing all the kids: backpacks slung over shoulders, every hand gripping a cell phone. I’ve been in the newspaper business 46 years, starting right out of high school, and I’d like to ask what young people today read. I know they’re on the Internet, but are they surfing, or actually reading? Or is it mainly social networking? And, apart from school assignments, do they read newspapers, magazines, and books?
Barbara Hale, Features Editor, Merced Sun-Star, Merced CA
Shelby, 16, Auburn CA
I don’t read. I just don’t like it. Even Harry Potter I skipped. Sometimes on MySpace, I read a “fun fact” or gossip, but I’m not into politics or business. I have better things to do, and between homework, sports, and my social life, there’s no time.
Taylor, 19, Placerville CA
I don’t usually read. I wasn’t a good reader through school so I got turned off. I didn’t even read Harry Potter. On rare occasions I read magazines from the supermarket checkout lines, but news doesn’t interest me because everything is spun and it’s overwhelming not knowing what to believe. Online, I strictly social network and get entertainment via YouTube.
Lara, 17, Fair Oaks CA
Before I became socially obsessed, I read practically a book a day. I was raised without a TV, so books were how I learned and amused myself. I especially love Steinbeck, Dickens, and Austen with their good human values. But now with school, sports, and socializing, I prefer personal-development books because you can skip around and still learn. In tenth grade I lived with my dad in Europe and Europeans think Americans are really dumb because we are clueless about world affairs. That motivated me! On the Internet, I social network but I avoid celebrity gossip. I get news from my email home page feed and the ORF, an Austrian site with detailed world news.
Hannah, 17, Auburn CA
I didn’t used to like to read, but recently I started Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms. My mom keeps thinking it’s assigned reading! I don’t read magazines or newspapers at all. On MySpace, I read election news, but generally, I don’t read politics. It’s embarrassing, but my friends and I go to a celebrity website for guilty pleasure. It’s meaningless, but that’s what we do.
Lennon, 22, Fair Oaks CA
Aside from school reading, I spend about 30 minutes a day reading things like Popular Mechanics, Rolling Stone, the Sacramento Bee. I also read regularly for pleasure, more than most of my peers, maybe because I had no TV growing up and still don’t. Right now I’m reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I use the Internet for research and social networking, but I hate reading online; it physically drains me.
Geoff, 23, Redding CA
I, and many of my peers, use http://www.google.com/reader/view/, a customizable news feed that pulls from thousands of newspapers, magazines, and online publications. During college, and now, after work, I come home and see all the day’s politics, economy, technology, philosophy, video game news, etc. It’s like reading 12 newspapers a day.
DEAR BARBARA: There’s a picture for you, although I believe the panel has proportionally more “readers” than American youth in general. This supports a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts compendium study that correlates reading for pleasure, regardless of income, with political activism, cultural participation (such as writing for this column), even regular exercise. The average 15- to 24-year-old, according to the study, spends 2.5 hours per day watching TV and 7 minutes reading. Half the young people between 18 and 24 never read for pleasure, and only a third of high school seniors read at proficiency, the level needed to read the newspaper. The cost to society is enormous.
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November 12th, 2008
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: Sure, this election brought youth out to vote, but there is still huge apathy among the young. Most high school and college-age youth are focused on their next mocha, their next text, and looking “hot.” They are barely interested in politics. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, we knew the names of congress members and how they voted. High school and college campuses were alive with political fire. Why is this passion lacking today? Your recent column (Sept. 10) showed that even the music from the ‘60s and ‘70s still rules. I worry! Without youth’s abundant energy and free time, who will shake up society and demand needed changes? The middle-age are too busy supporting families and older folks are too tired. Without youth doing their part, we have nothing!
LA reader
Kendal, 22, Arcata, CA
The draft was why American youth in the ‘60s and ‘70s were so fired up. Without our friends taken from us, what goes on in Washington doesn’t impact us the same. That era’s political turmoil also came after fear from the anti-communist ‘50s and loss of faith in government. Today we know government isn’t for our best interests; back then, people were just coming to this realization and were enraged about it.
Ashley, 21, Auburn, CA
The problem is we are encouraged to get that mocha, send that text, wear that hot outfit. It’s how TV raised us. We are poorly informed on world affairs and don’t know what to believe. Growing up, nobody said, “Pay attention. You have the power to change the world.”
Lennon, 22, Fair Oaks, CA
The amount of media we are subjected to is confusing and distracting. Everyone is hooked to cell phones, computers, TV, video games. Commercials tell us to just worry about ourselves — but to fit into the herd as well. There is no music to inspire us, no amazing bands speaking what we feel. The ‘60s and ‘70s music is the best available. But it’s not ours! And while we like it, we need something that talks about problems we are experiencing now. We also don’t know what to trust. News is twisted three or four ways and we are skeptical of every version. The Constitution states that we, the people, are the government. Yet we have been purposefully kept at a distance as government is increasingly secretive. Young people don’t need corporate profits and payoffs to improve the world. We’d like to shut down the auto and power industries until they actually focused on green energy. We’re here, we know right from wrong, we just can’t grab the reins.
Graham, 15, Fair Oaks, CA
Yes, there is apathy, but there is passion, too. Tour any high school and see student-run speech and debate clubs, rock bands and dance teams. Apathy is a mask to fit in, passion is underneath.
DEAR LA: The panel has it right again. Can you imagine the unleashing of this ‘passion underneath’ if youth were being drafted for Iraq and Afghanistan? The draft is definitely the glaring difference between then and now. Today youth are asked for nothing, and so, in general, give nothing. The other difference is we are bombarded 24/7 with the slickest advertising for the unhealthiest products money can buy. Big Brother Media is out of control. Youth, especially, have been targeted to feel the pressure to achieve personal gratification at any cost. The economy collapsed when the free market wasn’t regulated, and so will America if non-stop advertising of unhealthy products isn’t regulated. We should be worried. When youth are not only silenced, but molded into the most depressed, obese, narcissistic, scholastically dull youth population in the developed world, I agree with you LA, we have a problem. We need to hit the media “off” button and renew the character-building values that formed this country.
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December 19th, 2007
Dear Readers: World peace and ending hunger, the most wished-for things of the 60s, 70s and 80s, are considered pie-in-the-sky by most youth today. For better or worse, the thoughts of youth are society’s truth serum. I am honored to share this year’s societal wishes from the teen panel.
From Julian, 15: I live in a household with many religions. My father’s family is Jewish, my mother’s is Catholic. Both my parents converted to Hinduism, while my brother has a Muslim wife and converted to Islam. I, myself, believe in a higher power but don’t follow a religious path. My household is a model of tolerance and acceptance between different religious groups. I wish global society could have a similar tolerance and that no one religion pushed their views or considered itself the “true” religion.
From Bird, 17: You can still fight with each other — I can’t even imagine having world peace — but I would like everyone to be greener, trade their SUVs for hybrids, or convert to biodiesel. I want everyone to recycle, be clean, and be conscious. I know a woman who doesn’t believe in global warming, she doesn’t think it’s happening!
From Sawyer, 16: As the most multi-cultural nation on earth, America has great collective intelligence and creativity, but we’ve lost the drive to produce our own goods. World peace will never happen — we may produce a more united world, but people will always fight. Starvation will always be here, too. There will always be rich and poor. No one wants to mow the lawn, yet someone is left to it. It’s sad, but there will never be a time when all is equal. If we get rid of AIDS, something else will cause sorrow, end life, create destruction. You just need to strive and work hard for what you can. For that, freedom is essential, including the freedom to question and talk frankly about religion, including the terrorists’ religion.
From Geoff, 22: I read today that more people believe in the Devil and Hell than Darwin’s theory of evolution. Fixing that would be a start. I also wish our government was more transparent, people would become citizens again, presidential front-runners would stop thinking homosexuals will degrade the military, auto-makers would shift to more renewable energies instead of suing the states for seeking their own mandates, Fox News would be correctly categorized as a “talk show,” big business and conservatism would stop trumping science, and we could own up to 9/11.
From Betsy, 19: I wish we would stop using so much energy when we have the technology to use so much less. I also wish the media would stop negatively influencing kids to grow up faster then they should.
From Kendal, 20: I’d love for society to realize the Iraq war is mostly a peace-keeping police action. If we were to leave right now, there would be mass genocide of Shiites killing Sunnis, and Turks beating down Kurds. Of course we’re there for oil, but preventing genocide is high on the action list, too.
From Laura, 21: I would like people to ease up on political correctness. People are so quick to accuse others of being racist, sexist, or prejudiced that we end up perpetuating the very thing we want to eradicate. Instead of harping on every politically incorrect phrase, what if we put our energy into being tolerant of everyone in a more general, relaxed way?
From Lennon, 21: What happened to simple fun? If work was something people did part of the week instead of all week, the world would be a lot less stressed.
From Megan, 18: I mainly long to find comfort in the world. I wish to be truly happy, to love my life in every way, to be with people I love, and live to the fullest with them.
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