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Teens love their smartphones -- but some say it's 'peaceful' to be phone-free
Seventy-two percent of teenagers say they often or sometimes feel "peaceful" when they're without their smartphones, according to a Pew...

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 13, 20242 min read
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Transitioning kids: 'I expected it to change everything, but I was just me with a deeper voice'
Silencing critics of transitioning children is a mistake, writes Pamela Paul in a New York Times commentary based on interviews with...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 3, 20243 min read
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Ban phones in school: The experiment with kids' minds has failed
Smart phones are making students less smart, writes Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. Student achievement has been falling around the world...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 23, 20232 min read
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Scared and sad: Gen Z fears the world
The world is a dangerous place, teenagers and young adults believe. Members of Gen Z -- those born from the late 1990s to the early 2010s...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 16, 20232 min read
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Portland will consider race, gender to 'support' disruptive students
Portland (OR) schools will design "support plans" for disruptive students that consider trauma, race, gender identity/presentation and...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 7, 20232 min read
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The therapist is online
New York City is offering free online therapy to teenagers 13 to 17 years old, reports Michael Elsen-Rooney on Chalkbeat. Teenagers can...

Joanne Jacobs
Nov 19, 20231 min read
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Unsafe: Schools in high-crime communities try to cope with violence
It's all on video: A mob of teenagers punches and kicks a 17-year-old boy in an alley near his Las Vegas high school. Jonathan Lewis,...

Joanne Jacobs
Nov 18, 20233 min read
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Teen angst is normal: 'Wellness' may backfire
Mental health doesn't mean feeling good all the time, writes psychologist Lisa Damour in The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising...

Joanne Jacobs
Nov 11, 20232 min read
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'Smartphones are kryptonite for learning'
Schools are going phone free to remove distractions in class and encourage students to socialize in their free time, report Meg Oliver...

Joanne Jacobs
Oct 20, 20231 min read
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Teens spend 4.8 hours a day on social media, says Gallup
U.S. teenagers average 4.8 hours a day on social media apps such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter),...

Joanne Jacobs
Oct 19, 20232 min read
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Help boys aspire to 'heroic masculinity'
Boys need to know that masculinity isn't "toxic," writes Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic. They can aspire to "heroic masculinity,"...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 4, 20232 min read
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Fourth-graders are finding PornHub
Online porn is easily available to kids, addictive and destructive, writes Isabel Hogben, a runner-up in The Free Press's high school...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 3, 20231 min read
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Study: School closures 'largely explain' the youth mental health crisis
"School closures largely explain the deterioration of youth mental health" during the first wave of the pandemic, concludes a study in...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 1, 20231 min read
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Summer jobs boost school success
Working for the summer pays off for teenagers from low-income families, concludes a study of Boston's summer job program. Winning the job...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 16, 20232 min read
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Warning: Too much 'trauma' talk encourages fragility
I was wrong about trigger warnings, writes Jill Filipovic in The Atlantic. Writing for a feminist blog in 2008, she thought warning...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 13, 20232 min read
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Awkward? Anxious? There's a pill for every problem, available online
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, writes Frey India, but it's more like Marketing Pills to Girls Month. She was inundated with...

Joanne Jacobs
Jun 25, 20232 min read
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'At lunch hour, everyone eats alone, scrolling TikTok'
But, Mom, everyone else has a smartphone. Parents are trying to say "no" to smartphones for elementary and middle schoolers, but it's...

Joanne Jacobs
May 24, 20232 min read
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Surgeon General: Social media is hazardous for your kids' health
Social media is endangering the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents, warns Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in a 19-page...

Joanne Jacobs
May 24, 20232 min read
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Sad, sleepy teens: Will starting school later improve mental health?
Worried about the teen mental health crisis, nine states and a number of major cities are considering mandating later start times for...

Joanne Jacobs
May 13, 20231 min read
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Guns, gays, suicide, smoking ... The show may not go on after all
Can a high school put on Oklahoma without guns? The Theatre Guild at an Ann Arbor (MI) high school revised the classical musical days...

Joanne Jacobs
May 3, 20232 min read
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