Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds

A national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that with technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth.  Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people’s media use.  It includes data from all three waves of the study (1999, 2004, and 2009), and is among the largest and most comprehensive publicly available sources of information about media use among American youth.

More information here.

Apologies that this site has been dormant for months. I am now resurrecting it!

The Pew Forum has just released a new report on the religiosity of 18-29 year olds.

By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations were when they were young. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation – so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 – are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Indeed, Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20% in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13% in the late 1970s). Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.

More information here. ]]> http://youthspirituality.com/?feed=rss2&p=79 0 http://youthspirituality.com/?p=73 http://youthspirituality.com/?p=73#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:38:29 +0000 admin http://youthspirituality.com/?p=73 Tn the 1980’s several scholars critiqued developmental ideas about faith, and also the focus on defining adolescence as being about independence. In short, some of this critique was about the male tendency to always see the spiritual as the “other”, as external, or something to be attained. Thanks to Erikson and other theorists, identity became about separation from one’s parents and the forging of independence.

These people including, Carol Gilligan and Gabriel Moran, I think quite rightly suggested that spiritual growth might be just as much about interdependence and integration. To see spiritual growth as a web is to see it not about as going somewhere else, or becoming more independent, or even about becoming someone other than who we are. The web as a metaphor is about the divine being with and within us, and about deepening interconnectedness. It is about an inner journey of discovery the sacred in who we are being directly connected to an outward journey of discovering the sacred in others.

So ‘web’ spirituality is about becoming who we really are, about the kind of wholeness that comes with a true integration of our being, and this can’t happen without a corresponding growth in mutual connectedness and community with others. For people who experience this, process and presence are important. Spirituality is not a personal journey, it is a shared experience. I suggest that this kind of spirituality is vocational, because it can’t be separated from the whole of your life and who you are, it is about being more that doing – you see it as encompassing all of your person and your relationships.

It seems to me that people in this arena seek and value companions, not to ‘go somewhere’ with, but to ‘be’ with in the mystery of relationship and community. A web also has connecting points – nodes or hubs – so hosts who provide relational, spiritual and physical spaces to ‘be’ are necessary and valued. If you think that think metaphor has a feminist sense to it, you’re absolutely right. But I also think of it as environmental or ecological – it’s about the integration of who we are with other and our world.

Where have you experienced this notion of spiritual growth as a web?
Where are you called upon to be a companion or host?

A pilgrimage is about moving forward, not upward. The new places to which you go might not be qualitatively ‘upward’ by any means. In fact the journey can often take you to dark places and through deserts of doubt. Nevertheless, the call is to go on through whatever comes ahead.

Pilgrimage is about discovery rather than attainment: it is about working out what questions to ask of the terrain, or your companions, and of yourself. On a journey, one undertakes both an inner and an outer quest – self-knowledge comes as one encounters the ‘other’ within.

I want to suggest that such a metaphor is deeply sacramental, in the sense that it is incarnational. The divine is present in and through the pilgirmage – in the dying and the rising, in the brokenness and the fullness. God is in the here-and-now of daily travel.

Pilgrims need fellow-pilgrims – not just companions, but guides who have travelled the way before, or at least mentors who will support and encourage even if they cannot share the journey themselves.

Where have you experienced this notion of spiritual growth as a journey?
Where are you called upon to be a guide or mentor?

I’ve just led a session on youth spirituality at the Uniting Church’s national in-service for workers with children, youth and families. The first part of what I did was look at four metaphors or images of spiritual growth:
- a ladder
- a journey
- a web
- an encounter

The image of a ladder is one of growth taking place through a series of steps or stages, or rising upward and higher. This can be seen in terms of enlightenment, but also in ‘rising above’ the old life or former stage. As such, it is prevalent in a range of spiritualities or faiths, from some eastern faiths, to the kind of Christian evangelicalism that speaks of ‘rising up’, God and heaven being ‘above us’, and sanctification or holiness being cumulative. Classical spirituality spoke of climbing mountains as a metaphor for growth. James Fowler’s stage as of faith also contain this notion of faith as a series of stages through which people must move. With such a metaphor, a person needs a teacher or truth-teller to bring knowledge, wisdom or enlightenment to aid growth. This kind of growth is not only cerebral though, it is about the person or their spirit attaining successive degrees of maturity, holiness or ligthness of being. Of course, the negative side is gnosticism, with the teach holding secret wisdom that can be obtained through other channels.

Where have you experienced this notion of spiritual growth as a series of steps?
Where are you called upon to be a teacher or truth-teller?

Click here to download the School Connectedness Report (1.8 mb PDF)

Way of Pilgrimage DVD

The folks at The Upper Room have just released the “Way of Pilgrimage” DVD. This resource is designed both as an introduction to the “Way of Pilgrimage” series of books, a spiritual pilgrimage experience for young adults.

The DVD has sections introducing the notion of spiritual pilgrimage using the 5 themes from the books, plus an initial “What is this Pilgrimage thing, anyway?”. The production quality is excellent. Obviously the DVD segments could be used with a group to introduce each section of the series. However the printed insert aklso contains a brief outline for using the DVD as a stand-alone resource with a group. In otehr words, you can conduct 6 sessions on the nature of spiritual life as a journey without needing the books. The Upper Room folks expect to have more detailed stand-alone session outlines on their website before the end of January.

The second part of the DVD is a series of videos designed to assist leaders of groups who are undertaking the “Way of Pilgrimage” series. These clips have a particular focus on those aspects of leadership with which people are least likely to be familiar – namely setting up an leading a contemplative group experience. The content is good and well filmed, but these clips are pretty stark (white background) compared to the lush look of the previous clips.

(They don’t seem to have a sample of the videos online yet but I assume its coming soon…)

The bonus is a music clip by Tenth Avenue North whose music also features as backing on the DVD.

Its an excellent resource at a reasonable price (US$25.00). The disc is NTSC but region-free. I’m not sure about availability in Australia yet – contact MediaCom and ask them to get it in.

1. The vast majority of youth in this study believe there is a spiritual dimension to life.

2. About one-third of youth see themselves as “very” or “pretty” spiritual.

3. Young people are most likely to report that their spirituality has increased.

4. Youth see religion and spirituality as related, but different.

5. Young people view both religion and spirituality positively.

6. Youth say family and friends help them spiritually, but one in five say no one does.

7. Everyday experience and relationships seen as nourishing young people’s spirit.

8. Youth most often nurture spiritual development alone or by helping others.

For more information download the report summary or visit the Centre’s website.

Click here for the link to “Transforming Practices“, which is at the resource website of the Lily Foundation.

Yesterday I attended a day seminar hosted by Search Institute’s Centre for Spiritual Development. Search Institute has embarked on a decade long project to assess the characteristics and contribution of spiritual development to the lives of young people. This is being developed as a global and multi-faith project. About a year ago, focus groups of young people and adults (parents, youth leaders, youth workers) were held around the world to identify factors to study and appropriate language. Peter Eckermann and I conducted two groups in Adelaide.

Search Institute subsequently developed a 200 item survey which has been tested around the world and is in the process of being refined. The initial survey results were presented to us in a report titled “With Their Own Voices“, now available on the CSD website. Just over 6,800 young people were surveyed across 8 countries.

This initial sample was not random, but has provided a range of useful information for further research.

Here are the study’s hypotheses:

1. Spiritual development is an intrinsic part of being human. It includes processes that are manifested in many diverse ways among individuals, cultures, traditions, and historical periods.

2. Spiritual development involves both an inward journey (inner experiences and/or connections to the infinite or unseen) and an outward journey (being expressed in daily activities, relationships, and actions).

3. Spiritual development is a dynamic, nonlinear process that varies by individual and cultural differences.

4. Spiritual development, though a unique stream of human development, cannot be separated from other aspects of one’s being.

5. Spiritual development can be conceptually distinguished from religious development or formation, though the two are integrally linked in the lived experiences of some people, traditions, and cultures.

I will write further on these studies shortly, and make some comments in relation to the recent Australian research as well.

I got to be part of an international panel giving comments on the study’s findings.

Spirituality Panel