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Illinois School Board Journal
November-December, 1998

Generation Dot.Com

        The current crop of elementary and secondary students has been called generation dot.com, after the .com suffix on the addresses of commercial Web sites. One defining characteristic of this generation is that it has never known a world without computers and the Internet.
        We won’t know for some time what kind of adults the Information Age children will grow up to be, but we do know that they face some of the same problems as previous generations, as well as some new ones.
        One thing we know is that there are a lot of them, and there will be many more. The so-called "baby boom echo" will continue well into the next century as the student population is expected to continue to climb steadily each year.
        The U.S. Education Department reports there are 500,000 more K-12 students in U.S. public and private schools this year than last. This year’s total K-12 enrollment of 52.7 million will again set a record, and the department projects the new enrollment records each year through 2006, with 54.3 million young people in K-12 schools by 2008.
        What follows is a summary of some of the recent research and news about what must be the most studied generation in history.

        Much has been written about the breakdown of the American family--and much of it appears, sadly, to be true.
        In 1997, only 68 percent of American children lived with two parents, compared with 77 percent in 1980, according to government statistics. Almost one-fourth of children lived only with their mothers. (These and a wealth of other government statistics can be found at http://www.childstats.gov/ac1998/poptxt.htm#_ Toc419087056)
      Typically, these children are poorer than those with two parents. Only 33 percent of female-headed families received child support or alimony as of 1995, according to the 1998 annual "Kids Count" report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
        Single-parent children, and those with two parents who work full-time, are less likely to receive adequate attention, nurturing, and even supervision.
        A recent best-seller suggests that what parents do doesn’t matter very much one way or the other, because children are guided far more by their peer groups. (The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, by Judith Rich Harris). But almost all research--not to mention most people’s intuition and experience--tells us parents matter very much. In fact, one of the primary differences between growing up in America now, as opposed to 20 years ago, is that today’s children don’t have the adult supervision and concern that earlier generations did.

        The number of children in working-poor families also has increased, from 4.3 million in 1989 to 5.7 million in 1996. "The stock market has hit an all-time high, and the unemployment rate has hit a 25-year low, yet the number of children in working-poor families has grown by a third," reports "Kids Count."
        In Illinois, according to the "Kids Count" report, 10 percent of children live in "extreme poverty," with family incomes less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level.
        "Kids Count" reports that the U.S. child poverty rate is among the highest in the developed world, and the "gap is greatly accentuated by enormous differences in the role government plays in alleviating child poverty."
        A growing concern is that many of these children do not have health insurance and therefore don’t get the health care they need to head off current and future health problems. In Illinois, according to "Kids Count," 14 percent of all children under age 18 did not have health insurance in 1995, and 25 percent of children in low-income working families did not have insurance. The federal government is considering initiatives to provide insurance for children whose parents can’t afford it, but make too much to qualify for Medicaid.

        Ironically, the children of the nation with a greater and more varied food supply than any other tend to be under-nourished and overweight. In fact, a report compiled by a panel of researchers suggests that children in immigrant families tend to be healthier than those of U.S.-born parents--in spite of the fact that the immigrant families are more likely to be poor.
        But, the findings suggest, immigrant children’s health deteriorates the longer they remain in the United States and become assimilated into American life. Members of the panel generally agreed that the setbacks occur as children abandon the relatively healthy diets, the discipline and the protective family structure that is characteristic of many cultures and instead adopt the lifestyle of poor American families. (Reported in The Washington Post, September 10, 1998)
        Lack of exercise may be an even greater problem than poor diet. Many children spend most of their time sitting in front of a screen, either computer or television. As a result, obesity in children ages six to eleven years old increased from 7.6 percent in 1976-80 to 13.7 percent in 1988-94. Among those aged 12 to 17, the percentage jumped from 5.7 percent to 12 percent. Overweight children are up to twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to be overweight as adults, thus setting themselves up for such illnesses as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

        We are just beginning to see the effects of the cyber-world on our daily lives. Near-instantaneous world-wide communication has become a given, and so has access to unimaginable amounts of information.
        Numerous studies have indicated that children with access to computers do better in school and learn more. Certainly, they have access to more information than even existed a few short decades ago. The Internet has the potential to become a great equalizer among school districts, bringing vast amounts of information and experts in numerous fields to even the poorest schools.
        The Internet also brings with it certain dangers. One is the possibility of computer addiction. Recent studies show that spending excessive time on the Internet can alienate users from real life by substituting electronic entertainment and communication for real-life socialization.
        Although there is no scientific research to prove the connection, many have expressed concern that the extreme violence of some computer games may lead to real-life tragedy. The father of a boy who killed a fellow student and the principal of Bethel Regional High School, in Alaska, "believes his son, Evan, was emulating the popular computer game Doom," reported the Boston Globe (October 19, 1998). "The perpetrators of other recent school shootings in West Paducah, Kentucky, and Springfield, Oregon, also reportedly played the ultraviolent games."
        Exposure to inappropriate material is a widespread concern, and various solutions are being sought, notably filters that block access to objectionable sites. Some schools recently were chagrined to find that their filtering software didn’t prevent students from reading the Starr report in all its salacious detail--the software doesn’t block government sites, on the premise that the U.S. government doesn’t publish pornography.
        The Internet also opens up a whole new area of mischief, as young hackers break into computer systems, generally just for the fun of creating havoc. A "hidden" cost of computerizing a school is security measures to keep ingenious young hackers out of administrative databases.
        The most immediate danger comes from Internet predators who befriend children on-line, then seek to set up meetings with them. Law enforcement efforts to protect children include FBI agents posing as children in forums that predators tend to visit, and recently an international ring of child pornographers was cracked by investigators. But the best protection is educating children, in school and at home, as to the dangers of meeting in person someone they’ve talked to on the Internet.

        Some research shows that children watch an average of more than 28 hours of television per week. Excessive television watching is blamed for a multitude of childhood problems, from short attention span to excessive commercialism to a penchant for violence.
        One study shows that by the time a child reaches the age of 12, he or she has witnessed more than 8,000 murders on television.
        According to Jeanne Beckman, of the Winnetka, Illinois, Alliance for Early Childhood, children most at risk of committing violence are the ones who most prefer television violence. "More aggressive children watch more violent television and actually prefer more violent television than their less aggressive peers," says Beckman, in an article titled "Television Violence: What the Research Says about Its Effect on Young Children." (This article, which is well worth reading, can be found at  http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/npin/respar/texts/media/tvviod96.html)

        Despite the amount of violence youngsters encounter on television and in computer games, and despite the highly-publicized and alarming school yard killings of last fall, school is still one of the safest places for children to be, says U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley.
        School crime is on the decline, even as some gang activity shows signs of increasing, says a joint report released by the Departments of Education and Justice in October. The report is touted as the first accurate and comprehensive picture of crime and violence on school property.
        Some 43 percent of schools reported no incidents of crime whatsoever, according to the report.
        Homicides in school are extremely rare, but the number of high-profile multiple murders increased from two in 1992-93 to six in 1997-98.
        In 1996, theft accounted for 62 percent of all crime against students at school. And, according to this report, the number of students bringing weapons to school declined from 12 percent in 1993 to 9 percent in 1997. (A more recent study showed that one in five students said they had carried a weapon to school, a good example of how different research methods can produce widely different results.)
        There has been an increase in the number of schools who reported gangs at their schools, from 15 percent in 1989 to 28 percent in 1995. However, during that time period, there has been an enormous amount of publicity about gangs, which may lead children to inaccurately interpret certain clothing, symbols or behavior as evidence of gangs.

        Along with violence, exposure to sexual content is a primary concern about both television programming and Internet access. However, figures on teenage pregnancy and abortions suggest youngsters are either having less sex, or at least are being more careful when they do.
        A study released in October shows a 14 percent decline in the teenage pregnancy rate since 1990, bringing the teenage pregnancy rate to its lowest point since 1975 among all ethnic groups. Abortion rates also have decreased among teenagers.
        Researchers who conducted a study for the Alan Guttmacher Institute suggest that the decline is due to more conservative attitudes about sexual activity and more reliable use of birth control, particularly long-lasting implants and injections.
        A recent federal study reported that the proportion of high school students who said they had had sexual intercourse declined 11 percent during the 1990's, and other surveys have shown that fewer young people approved of premarital sex in the mid-1990s than had a decade earlier. (Reported in The Washington Post, October 15, 1998)

        Most teenagers who drink begin at age 14, and nearly one in five of 16- to 19-year-olds has experienced an alcohol-related blackout, according to a national survey on teen drinking by the American Academy of Pediatrics. (The survey queried 600 teenagers by telephone, so its accuracy depends upon how the 600 were chosen and whether they told the truth.) The survey moved Chicago schools’ CEO Paul Vallas and Richard Burnstine, president of the pediatrics’ group’s Illinois chapter, to call for a ban on advertising alcoholic beverages.
        Although drug use in general has declined among teenagers, marijuana use remains high, and most school children say they can get drugs when they want them. A recent addition to the pharmacopoeia is body-building steroids, reportedly being used by children as young as ten years old.
        One of the oldest (and potentially most dangerous) "highs" around is having a resurgence in popularity, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Growing numbers of children are getting high from inhaling gas found in many everyday objects: aerosol air fresheners, Freon, even gasoline. The practice can damage the brain, liver and kidneys, and even cause death.
        According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one in five teenagers has used inhalants to get high, almost identical to the percentage of eighth-graders who have used marijuana. Meanwhile, 90 percent of parents surveyed did not believe their children had ever abused inhalants.