I came across an interesting study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University. Their findings concluded that 18 percent of 4 year old preschoolers are obese. Sarah Anderson of Ohio State's University's College of Public Health took body mass indexes of 8,550 US children involved in the childhood longitudinal study. Yet, the article does not state how or where these children were selected to participate in the study. It also does not state whether all of these children were from one region of the country, etc. It talks about ethnicity's playing a role in obese children, only including the numbers of the most obese and the least obese. I think giving each ethnicity studied would give a more complete representation of the date collected in the study. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/04/06/ob...

I found an interesting study about how kids and teens are growing up with technology and the internet. There have been countless claims (by adults) that the internet and technology are making America’s youth inactive, lazy and that these things are dangerous for kids. But a study performed by professors at the University of California, Berkley shows that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age. I agree with the fact that people are becoming more and more technologically savvy, and that adults are sort of in the dark about what really goes on online, which they don’t know about. The study took place over three years and interviewed over 800 young people and their parents, both one-on-one and in groups; spending over 5000 hours observing teens on sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and other networked communities; and made diary entries to document how young people engage and interact with digital media. In my eyes, this is an important study in understanding the development of the technological era. From here on out, things associated with computers and technology are only going to get more complex, and the more kids and teens are familiar with it, the more effective they will be at tackling future problems. Kids who explore the vast world of the internet will learn what they feel is most important to them, and give them a way of exploring who they are and who they want to be. Social networking is also an important concept to keep in mind. More and more young people are developing all types of relationships with others online; Whether it be discussing video games or cooking recipes, to finding that special someone that enjoys the same things you do, more and more people are meeting and having meaningful relationships through the communicative channel of the internet and technology. Young people will soon have the upper hand to adults when it comes to communicating in these ways. I liked this study, and how it’s findings impacted me. I feel like I’m at the age where I grew up with the internet when it very first started. Since then, so many things have changed and it’s interesting to observe how different it is now than when I was first introduced to it. As for the research, it was nice to see a group of researchers spend three years studying new styles of communication and to observe several thousands of hours of teens’ activities online. http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4773437/k.3CE6/New_Study_Shows_T...

I came across an article that discussed how advertisers are targeting kids for unhealthy food. The researcher found interesting statistics related to certain networks and times in which children watch television. Apparently, kids ages eight to twelve are subject to on average 21 junk food/candy/snacks and other unhealthy advertisements each day. This is startling seeing as how obesity rates among America’s youth has grown almost twenty percent in the last 30 years. It seems to be a trend. While reading this, I assumed most of these ads were from fast food restaurants, but this wasn’t the case. Most of the ads were short 15 second clips for candy, which makes sense as kids love candy so much. The Kaiser family foundation conducted the research of over eight thousand commercial television advertisements, and assessed each accordingly. Of all the ads they viewed, not one of them promoted any sort of fruit or vegetables. Most of the food ads examined by Kaiser emphasized taste and fun and then uniqueness as primary selling points, the study found. The study was based on 1,638 hours of television viewing. The programs included those on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, UPN and the old WB network, as well as cable channels ABC Family, BET, the Cartoon Network, Disney, MTV and Nickelodeon. All of which reach millions of children each month. Personally, this was a very effective and eye opening research study. I feel like the researchers did a good job at taking data from multiple television networks and assessed how much junk food kids are subjected to on average each day. Yet, a bigger problem may be that kids are just simply watching too much television and that seeing junk food while already watching television is icing on top of the cake. Regardless, I feel like it was an effective study. http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2007/04/03/Scien...

I came across a study done by Barry A. Kosmin of Trinity College in Connecticut. In the study, a survey was conducted about people’s religious views and stances. The results were compared with results from the same survey done in 1990. His findings were interesting to me. Apparently, Americans are becoming less religious, and increasingly turning away from many denominations they once felt part of. His findings went on to state that the percentage of people who do not claim a religious identity nearly doubled since 1990, growing to 15% of Americans. That’s a staggering number, seeing as how around 84% of Americans consider themselves Christians. The article didn’t state what ethnic demographic the survey was given to, or what organization gave out the survey. It’s hard to tell what demographic these findings are representing, and I personally would have included where the study was conducted and how participants were chosen. All that was stated was that 54,000 people were surveyed via telephone in both English and Spanish. The findings of this survey imply that ‘middle ground’ religious folks are starting to fall of the religious bandwagon. It appears that there are more and more strongly believed religious people than somewhat religious people. Perhaps the state of the economy has people more worried about financial obligations than religious belief obligations. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-religion10-2009mar10,0,2...

With all this talk about the US being in an economic downfall, some Americans are resulting to online gambling as a means to make back what they’ve lost. (Bad choice) A recent study conducted by Pricewaterhousecoopers determined that the United States could generate $52 billion in revenue over the next ten years if online gambling became regulated and taxed. The legalization of online gambling could absolutely ruin thousands of millions of American’s credit scores, bank accounts and credit card balances, resulting in even more economic downfall. I think this is a bad idea for America, and would only make things worse for our economy. The company that conducted the research would undoubtedly benefit from that $52 million revenue, and is most likely encouraging lawmakers to pass the bill. They conducted the study, and is presenting it’s results as crucial evidence for their argument for legalizing all forms of online gambling. In my mind, unlimited and fully legally online gambling could easily hurt our economy just as easily as it would stimulate spending. Technology is presenting new ways of establishing debt, and now you won’t even have to leave your bedroom to gamble all your money away. It’s one thing to bed your money that is in your hand, it’s another to place wagers electronically through credits that you’ve purchased online. I think this article and research is misleading due to the fact of who performed the study, and what they are potentially benefitting as a result of legalizing all forms of online gambling. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2009/03/study-shows-online-gambling-could-gener...

I came across a South Florida business article that stated most people in the United States are concerned about job loss. In the study, it was shown that most Americans are more concerned with job loss than anything else. When it comes to economic fears, the loss of a job weighs most heavily on the minds of Americans, according to a newly released survey by the financial services firm Edward Jones. Edward Jones is an investment company that generates over $4 billion in revenue a year. The firm focuses solely on individual investors and small-business owners. The article is mostly just statistics from the survey conducted of 1,000 respondents on behalf of Edward Jones, as stated at the end of the article. A few interesting statistics that jump out at me are the younger vs. older responses, implying each interviewee was required to provide age with their answers. Clearly, younger people being surveyed are going to be less concerned with health care or retirement issues. While older respondents focused their concern on retirement and stock market issues, all of which are currently major issues within the American economy. Age differences weren’t the only differences in responses; many of the statistics provided were ethnically categorized as well. The article stated that 55 percent of African Americans are more concerned with job security than Caucasians (37%). I, personally would have conducted this research differently. Perhaps removing the Edward Jones side of it would present a more randomized population of Americans to be interviewed/surveyed. The fact that a financial organization conducted the research presents biases that wouldn’t have been present had it been a completely random 1,000 people sample. Either way, it appears that America has many people of different ages and ethnicities concerned about the economy, and what’s most important to them. Here's a link to the article.
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2009/02/23/daily6.html

I found an article on CNN.com discussing the possible relationship between testicular cancer and marijuana use. The article begins by stating that researchers have not had sufficient testing in the matter, and that it was a 'hypotheses' at the time it was published. The author goes into statistics about how a man's chance of developing the disease is about 1 in 300, and actually dying from it is about 1 in 5,000. A team of researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle conducted interviews with 369 men between the ages of 18 and 44 that had been diagnosed with cancer, and 979 men in the same age category that do not have cancer. They found that there was a slightly higher percentage of men who smoke pot regularly with testicular cancer. Many things jump out at me when I hear about studies like this. So many other factors go into the information being given to the surveyor. For instance, people with life threatening cancer may respond differently or more honestly to these types of questions. And also, why were so many more non cancerous men interviewed than those with cancer? The unbalanced number for the statistics could easily throw off these researcher's findings.

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