Media - In General
Is Facebook use slacking off?
Dear Straight Talk: A middle school teacher friend of mine says he’s noticed his students are less interested in Facebook. My 16- and 19-year-old are constantly on Facebook, which drives me crazy, as a father, because I feel it distracts…
2 Comments
Toxic stress + bad diet = HUGE PROBLEMS
Dear Straight Talk: I have the opportunity to observe teenagers without being a teacher, administrator or counselor. I notice three things: 1) Those getting into trouble have stressful home lives and parent issues. 2) These kids commonly…
16 Comments
Cost of virtual violence Part II
Dear Readers: Last week, “Curious Reader” asked if mass shootings are the price of society’s insatiable appetite for media violence. A furious defense ensued from the male panelists (see our column JAN 8), who pointed…
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Imagine there’s no violence. I wonder if you can.
Dear Straight Talk: This generation is not just born and bred on the Internet, but on an insatiable diet of violence in movies, video games and rap. The other thing uniquely part of their world are mass shootings. If these shootings were…
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Safe schools — panel weighs in with solutions
Dear Readers: The best ‘in-school’ solution I know to make schools places where kids are welcomed by their peers, versus places of harm, is the “Safe School Ambassadors” program. The program works with human nature:…
2 Comments
Son won’t go to sleep before midnight
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I have an ordinary question compared to the topics you cover. How do you get a teenager (age 16) to go to sleep before midnight — so that he wakes up in the morning acting like a human being? (I’m afraid…
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Young people lament downside of digital age
DEAR READERS: What bugs you most about the world? How would you make the world better? Every winter, I pose these questions to the panel. This year, technology took a bruising. Real relationships, thinking deeply, embracing boredom, and…
1 Comment
Harry Potter: Hero in a hero-less world
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: Harry Potter was such a sensation for so many young people who grew up on the books and then the movies. I would love to hear what Harry Potter meant to them, and if…
1 Comment
To kiss or not to kiss?
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I am a 24-year-old man relatively new to dating. It has been my assumption that kissing a woman on a first date is considered “too forward”, but after reading…
1 Comment
“Glee” about as edgy as spilled slushees
DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: One of my guilty pleasures is watching “Glee.” I am wondering if the degree of bullying they depict is exaggerated or if high school today is really like…
