Campus Culture Trends - November 2007
Excerpts from the Ivy Jungle Report - November 2006, "Trends in Student Ministry, Culture and Higher Education" For complete article go to www.ivyjungle.org.
Students Taking Online Courses Rises Significantly: A year ago, schools reported that nearly one in 10 college students had enrolled in an online course - a trend that many thought was leveling off. Those "experts" were shocked to discover that the number jumped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 6 - more than 3 million students nationwide took an online course during this past year. That represents a 40% increase over the previous year. Half of all students say they expect to take at least some of their course online. Even residential students are increasingly taking some courses online and more and more courses are putting some or all of their content online. (November 9, 2006)
Ethics Report Card: The Josephson Institute has published its report card on ethics among American Youth. In it they show that young people strongly value ethics and character (ie. 98% agree that "it is important for me to be a person with good character") with 83% saying "lying and cheating are not worth it because they hurt your character." 92% report being satisfied with their own ethics and character and nearly 3 out of 4 believe that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know." However, this idealism is coupled with cynicism and incongruent behavior: 59% agree that "in the real world successful people do what they have to do to win, even if others consider it cheating." 82% say they lied to a parent in the last 12 months about "something significant." 60% cheated on a test in the last 12 months and 28% stole something from a store during that time. (Josephsoninstitute.org October 15, 2006)
Overconnected: Results from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicate 87% of 12-17 year olds are regularly online, most of them daily. AOL reports that 66% of its customers prefer Instant Messaging to email. The Kaiser Foundation reports that the average teenager spends 6.5 hours engaging media - not including the extra hour or two spent on social networking sites like myspace or facebook by older teens. The most intense online user: 15-17 year old females. Myspace users can spend hours a day updating their profiles, posting their thoughts and chatting with friends. Some young people say they rarely talk on the phone anymore, with 95% of their communication through the internet. Critics of all this online connectivity fear that young people are not learning to make "real" friends and that communication and interpersonal skills are diminishing as a result. (New York Times Education Life November 5, 2006 pp. 20-23)
High Tech Communication: According to a Harris Interactive poll of teenagers, only 53% of 13-18 year olds say their favorite way to talk to or stay in touch with their friends is "in person." Cell phones, IM's email, and text messages are the preferred communication methods for more than 1/3 of teens. Social networking sites are also important. 36% of teens say they have friends they have never met in person, but only talk to online. On average teens say they have 75 people they consider to be friends on their social networking site. When it comes to honesty and sharing, 41% of teens say they are more outgoing with friends online than in person, 29% say they are more honest, 19% say they prefer to talk about important things online than in person and 30% say they are able to share more with a friend online than in person. (Harris Interactive Trends and Tudes vol. 5 issue 9 October 2006)
Young Adult Morality Differs from Boomers: A recent survey conducted by the Barn Group compares the morals of adults in their 20's and 30's with those of adults 40 and over. The results show a divergence between the "Boomers" and "Busters" with regard to 32 factors of morality - most notably 8 related to sex. Younger adults are far more likely to regard sex outside of marriage, cohabitation, fantasies, and viewing pornography as morally acceptable. Perhaps most disturbing is that those who fit into the "born again" Christian category were not very different from their peers with regard to most measures of morality - especially sex. The research shows that young people reflect the morals of their peer group much more significantly than that of their faith. (Barna.org October 31, 2006)
Pledge of Allegiance Ban: Student leaders at a California community college have received considerable national attention after voting to ban the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of its meetings. Many students at Orange Coast College have protested the move by the student trustees. The leaders say they do not think it right to swear an oath of allegiance to the country or the flag. Other student groups may still use the pledge. (Reuters November 10, 2006)
What Would You Like to Be Famous For? A Harris poll shows that nearly 12% of all respondents say they would like to be famous for being a good person who did humanitarian work - that was the number one single answer. However, the next three most popular were musical performer, athlete or artist. Twice as many people would like to be a pop-culture celebrity as being remembered for doing something good.
Sleep Deprived: Most college students arrive at school having developed poor sleeping habits. 80% of 11-17 year olds do not get enough sleep - sometimes by hours a night. Homework, activities, and media stimulation are all given a share of the blame for why kids sleep so little. Modeling by older adults and the availability of so many activities are certainly a major factor as well. Even those "sleep late" weekends do not often make up for all the lost sleep during the week. The trend seems to get worse when young people move out of the home and live on their own without someone telling them to go to bed. (Chicago Tribune (sec. 13 p. 6 November 5, 2006)
Briefly: Elton John has encouraged the banning of all religion because he believes it promotes hatred toward homosexuals (AP Nov. 12) The UN has been asked to consider "Jedi" an official religion. The latest census in England showed more people claiming to be Jedi than claimed to follow Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism (Independent online Nov. 11, 2006)
posted by UCMA @ 4:22 PM
