Americans spend more than 1/3 of their day looking at screens March 31, 2009
Posted by questcollegeministry in church, news, Uncategorized, young adults, youth culture.Tags: church, news, young adults, youth culture
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Thanks to churchrelevance.com, I came across this article from the New York Times. A recent study has found that the average American adult spends 8.5 hours each day exposed to screens. This includes televisions, computers, cell phones, and even GPS units. Put another way, we spend more than a third of each day looking at screens.
One of the remarkable features of this study is that this average time holds steady for nearly every age group of adults. Television remains the most common form of media consumption, but this study proves that computer usage has replaced the radio as the second most common form. However, while the time spent looking at screens is roughly the same, the screens that they look at are a little different. For example, 18- to 24-yearolds watch the least amount of television, at just 3.5 hours each day. This means that people in this age range are spending a full 5 hours each day of “screen time” doing things other than watching TV.
I think that there are real implications for the church here. People are using screen-based media for 1/3 of their day. We need to find tools and methods to use screens forminisitry . Too often, churches and ministries use technology for information delivery only. In other words, they have websites or Twitter or other things that serve the purpose of providing information. They are using these tools only to let people know when and where they can show up if they want to participate in ministry.
I think that we need to move beyond this. I think that we need to actually find ways to actually conduct ministry on-screen. We have to figure out how we can use the technological tools available to us so that we can use them to actually touch their lives for Jesus, not just provide information about who we are and where they can find us. When we rely on getting people to come to the church, we 0nly have a few hours each week to reach them. On the other hand, if we can effectively use on-screen culture to our benefit, we have the ability to connect with people during 1/3 of their lives, and nearly 1/2 of the time they are awake. If we don’t figure out how to do this effectively, we’re missing out on a real opportunity to affect the world for Jesus.
I’m not sure that I have answers to how to do this, but I know I’m actively asking the question.
The mindset of new college freshmen August 19, 2008
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Working with Child-Men February 1, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in young adults, youth culture.Tags: christianity, spirituality, young adults, youth culture
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I came across a post on Think Christian today about the phenomenon in our society of Child-Men. It discusses how many single, young men remain in a kind of eternal adolescence. It talks about how many single men in their 20s and 30s remain promiscuous, restless and slobby. They do this largely because they can. There is nothing that is pushing them out of this kind of adolescence and essentially to “grow up.” In the past, marriage and children was a primary force in making many men transition out of adolescence. In our society today, however, young men have the ability to push that off into the hazy future of “someday.”
The underlying message is not that these young, single men are idiots because they continue to spend their days playing video games. The true message is that society has failed these Child-Men because it has failed to provide them a purpose that extends beyond their own lives. The article argues that young men “need a culture that can help them define worthy aspirations.” Instead, they have a culture with examples like Enron to show the value of landing a respectable job and a divorce rate to show the value of marriage and family.
Following Jesus Christ should provide exactly the kind of purpose that is currently missing in their lives. And yet we, as followers of Jesus, seem to be failing to present a compelling alternative to this endless adolescence. And it has to be us who are failing at communicating, because clearly God is capable of providing that purpose. While God certainly can work without us, people are generally more receptive when we are doing things that he can work through. We need to do a better job of demonstrating the purpose God can provide to people who otherwise don’t really have one.
It’s a very thought provoking way of looking at ministry to people in this demographic. It’s worth reading the entire article. You can find it here.
More reasons not to like early classes January 20, 2008
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When I was in school, I never liked early classes. I never felt like I accomplished much in them, and I didn’t learn as much as from classes later in the day. I know that many current students feel the same way. Now there is some scientific evidence that explains why.
According to this article in the New York Times, the body clocks of adolescents are different than the ones of younger children or of adults. In most adolescents, the body doesn’t start producing melatonin, the hormone that produces sleep, until about 11 p.m. and it continues producing it until about 8 a.m. This means that the body is still producing the hormone that causes sleep after many students, particularly high school students, have started class. Studies indicate that as many as 28% of students fall asleep in their first class of the day.
Some schools have seen dramatic effects by simply starting and ending their school day later. In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County, Kentucky, changed their starting time from 7:30 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, and standardized test scores increased and have continued to increase each year since. Similarly, schools in Minneapolis and Edina, Minn., moved their starting times to around 8:30 and saw grades increase while lateness, behavioral problems and dropout rates all decreased.
So moving anything important involving adolescents to after 8:00 in the morning can have a dramatic impact on the results.
Teens and Social Media January 9, 2008
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Pew Internet & American Life Project recently released a study on teens and social media. There is nothing particularly new, but it does provide solid data to support what we already knew or suspected. You can find a nice summary of the data in this Ypulse article. Ypulse is not a Christian site, but it generally does a good job of keeping its finger on the pulse of younger generation, particularly when it comes to media and marketing issues. Here are some highlights Pew Internet study:
Girls are more likely to engage in content creation online than boys are. 35% of all online girls blog compared to 20% of online boys. 54% of online girls have posted photos online compared to only 40% of online boys.
While much of this online presence is about keeping the conversation going among friends (particularly among girls), 39% of online teens do share their own artistic creations, such as artwork, stories or videos. 26% of teens remix content they find on the internet into their own creations.
The one area of online content creation that boys dominate is in posting video online. Boys are nearly twice as likely (19% to 10%) to post videos on the internet than girls.
Teens are creating this content for an audience — that is, they want people to see it. Almost half of online teens have posted photos where other people can see them, and 89% of those teens report that people post comments about their pictures at least “some of the time.” However, teens are picky about the audience they are posting for. 66% of teens with social network profiles restrict those profiles in some way, and 77% of those who post pictures restrict who can view those pictures at least “some of the time.” Compare this to the only 54% of adults who restrict access to their pictures.
Social media is also replacing email as a means of staying in contact with friends. 54% of teens send messages to friends over social network sites daily, compared to only 22% who send email to friends daily. Text messaging is also replacing email, with 60% of teens reporting that they send text messages to friends daily.
Boys and Schools January 2, 2008
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The teenage brain – a good accelerator, but bad breaks December 28, 2007
Posted by questcollegeministry in news, young adults, youth culture.Tags: news, young adults, youth culture
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