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Average Adult Watches an Hour of TV Ads a Day

March 30, 2009 No Comments

When the subjects were asked to recall their media consumption behaviors, “people underestimated the amount of time they spent with TV by a substantial amount,” about 25 percent on average. – Mr. Wakshlag

Average Americans are exposed to 61 minutes of TV ads and promotions every day.
An Average Adult are exposed to some form of digital screen (TV, GPS, Cellphones, Computers) for 8.5 hours a day.
Computer usage has supplanted radio as the second most common media activity

These are some of the statistics found by the Council for Research Excellence, formed by the Nielsen Company. The $3.5 million dollar study was started to determine whether media companies needed new ways to measure media. Ball State University’s Center of Media Design conducted the study and called it the largest observational look at media usage ever conducted. Rather than surveys, researches shadowed 350 people (over 18 years of age) and recorded their behavior in 10 second increments for 952 days.

Consistent Exposure to Media among All Ages
They found that the number of minutes exposed to advertising was consistent among all the age groups other than 45-54 year olds who spend on average an extra hours more in front of the screen.

“It flies in the face of conventional wisdom, of course, which tells us that the younger cohorts apparently spend more time with screen-based media,” said Michael Bloxham, a director of the center at Ball State.

Articles, Featured

Girl Self-Esteem & Image Issues & Parents

March 25, 2009 104 Comments

Girls Self Image

Almost across the nation 50% of young girls are engaged in negative activities such as injuring and cutting themselves or engaging in unhealthy eating habits and disorders due to self-esteem and self-image issues.

Girl Self-Esteem & Image Issues

Dove’s Campaign on True Beauty came with a bang last year with their poignant videos that went viral all over the web:

Evolution Video

Onslaught Video

Have you visited their site? It has quite a good number of statistical data in regards to Girls and Self-Image. They have information as well as workshops in helping a girl with their self-esteem. They also have a map with top cities and the individual studies they did in each area. I’ve summarized their statistics and findings below.

Here is the executive summary:

Self-esteem has become a crisis in this country. The majority of girls feel they do not measure up in some way including their looks, performance in school and relationships. Most disturbing is that girls with low self-esteem are three times more likely than girls with high self-esteem to engage in harmful and destructive behavior that can leave a lasting imprint on their lives.

Highlights: Real Girls, Real Pressure National Study

Articles

Adult Stem Cells vs. Embryonic Stem Cell

March 22, 2009 1 Comment

Stem Cell Research Media

“… why do researchers and the biotech industry push so hard for public funds for embryo-destructive research?… because they stand to make huge profits through potential patents. It’s potentially far more lucrative than research involving adult stem cells. – Breakpoint

Were you aware that not a single clinical success has resulted from treatments using embryonic stem cells yet there has been many great success stories involving the use of adult cell stems?

So why is it that most of us are not aware of the progress that has been made in adult stem research yet the issue of embryonic stem cell research is quite familiar? Who is responsible?

Few years ago, Laura Dominquez, a young teenager got into a car accident when she drove over an oil spill. She was unfortunately paralyzed from the neck down. She was told she would never walk again.

Advertising, Articles, Creativity Series, Video

Obama Pro-life Abortion Video?

March 19, 2009 No Comments

The images of a baby fetus.
The heart beats, the baby moves.

“This child’s future is a broken home.”
“He will be abandoned by his father.”
“His single mother will struggle to raise him”

The baby continues to grow…

A pro-choice video, we assume..

Then in a twist of fate,

“This child, despite the hardships he will endure, will become the first African-American President.”

Images of Barack Obama triumphant on election night.

“Life. Imagine the potential.”

Art & Design, Articles, Creativity Series, Video

Pro-Life Abortion Speech by 12 Year Old

March 17, 2009 2 Comments

Children Influencing Culture through Media?

We always talk about media influencing children and culture, but how about children influence culture through media!?

A creative speech video that has been making the rounds a few months ago is the video of a young Canadian 12 year old Lia who chose the topic of abortion as her topic for a school speech contest. Her teacher wanted her to pick a different topic but she chose to continue. As you’ll see below she was an excellent speaker and crafted her arguments with thought and strategy.

“What if I told you that right now, someone was choosing if you were going to live or die?”

“What if I told you that this choice wasn’t based on what you could or couldn’t do, what you’d done in the past or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you, you could do nothing about it?”

“Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation. Someone is choosing without even knowing them whether they are going to live or die.”

“That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.”

Articles, Internet, News, Social Media

Social Networking overtakes Email

March 13, 2009 3 Comments

Social Network Moves Up

A new study released by Nielsen has shown that Social Networking has overtaken email as the most popular internet activity. As popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace have features built to stay in communication with friends and connections many people are utilizing those communication mediums to “email” or “chat” or “post” with one another.

Nielsen reports that “member communities” exceeds email participation 67% to 65%. This is in conjunction with the fact that social networking and blogging is growing twice as fast as other drivers of users such as email, search and portals. Two-thirds of internet users visited a social networking site in 2008. Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace account for nearly 10% of all internet time. Facebook continues to lead the way by accounting for 30% of all internet users in the largest global markets.

Articles, Movies

Movie Review: Watchmen Morality Review

March 9, 2009 15 Comments

Watchmen Movie Review

Length: 2hr 43Min
Director: Zack Snyder
Producer: Warner Bros, Paramound Pictures, Legendary Pictures
Featuring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Comedian), Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) Malin Akerman (Silk Sceptre), Carla Gugino, Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl), Matthew Goode (Ozymandias), Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan)
Story: Based on a Novel. In an alternate world based around 1985, Richard Nixon is president and the Cold War continues. A crime fighter named “The Comedian”, is killed when thrown off a building. Other fellow crime fighters rise to find his killer. The main characters are Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre II and Ozymandias.

(Disclaimer: I have not watched this movie, this is just a collection of reviews from several websites quotes of reviewers.)

Watchmen came out March 6, 2009 in over 3,500 theaters. Another exciting comic book adaptation? State of the art CGI and faithful to original comic! Sounds exciting? Before you jump in with the family, here is the quick morality summary.

Articles, Internet, Social Media

Social Networks in Asia: Korea, Japan, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore

March 6, 2009 5 Comments

Social Media Networks: Unstoppable Growth

Social Media has been rapidly growing in the US in the last few years. Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace are now household names in the likes of Google and Yahoo. 1 out of every 5 people who go online have visited Facebook! It has impacted the way people communicate and relate with one another. People are more connected through easy access, however, as technology becomes more ubiquitous, general social skills and relationship building has taken a hit. It has caused unthinkable issues among the youth, and has even made its mark on our government. As social media continues to make a tremendous impact on US culture how has it impacted overseas in the countries of Asia?

Social Media Networks in Asia: Rising in its Own Way

Social media is stronger than ever not just here in the US but all around the world. The social network users in Asia has grown to an incredible 456 million users. That is almost one third of all online users in the world.

OgilvyOne Asia Pacific, a US based marketing agency came out with a study “Can Brands Have a Social Life” which covered the general differences in the adoption and use of social media by the largest Asian countries. Some are listed below.

South Korea: Gaming Capital & the Ride of Cyworld

Fact: Nationwide broadband coverage and high quality mobile phones has allowed users to post online content at will. South Korea has 92% broadband penetration making it one of the most wired in the world.

Popular Activities: Online Gaming, buying music online, sharing information and interacting wiki-style.

Popular Networks: Majority of users use Naver and Daum, both Korean based search engines. Cyworld, the second largest music and video store after iTunes, has 48% of the market share. Cyworld generates sales revenue of over $100 million just from song downloads.

Online Gaming: Lineage II, Korea’s most popular online game touts 14 million users, double that of the infamous World of Warcraft. The best online gamers become professional game players and are treated like celebrities.

Articles, Internet, News

Teens Sharing Nude Photos Online – Impact in Real Life Behavior

February 23, 2009 3 Comments

“What teens and young adults are doing electronically seems to have an effect on what they do in real life: Nearly one-quarter of teens (22%) admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive. More than one-third of teens (38%) say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely and nearly one-third of teens (29%) believe those exchanging sexy content are “expected” to date or hook up.”

This articles discusses how social media sites as well as advances in communicative technology via cell phones are sometimes used by teenagers to transmit private information to friends. Some realize the risk they are taking, others do not. Unfortunately the use of these mediums in these perverse ways are affecting the way they behave in real life.

Teens Sharing Nude Photos Online – Impact in Real Life

News Excerpt from MSNBC – Family & Parenting

When it comes to sex, tech and teens don’t make the best bedfellows. As tech-savvy teens become increasingly fluent with new technology, from social networking sites to tricked-out new cell phones, research finds the negative consequences stacking up.

According to the results of a survey released today by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com, 22 percent of all teen girls — and 11 percent of teen girls ages 13-16 years old — say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves.

Advertising, Articles, News

Contest: Free Divorce for Valentines Day

February 21, 2009 1 Comment

For Valentines day a popular Detroit radio station decided to hold a contest. Whoever is voted the most dysfunctional couple gets a free divorce!

…

Let me stop there so we can all take a deep breathe for a moment. If this is not a sign of our culture going in the wrong direction, I don’t know what is. But, is this really all that surprising?

Consider a few facts and articles just on Clean Cut Media alone..

Sexual promiscuity rampant in media and in our culture.
Laws to protect children from sexual imagery are shot down in court
Study linking pregnancy and sexual shows
Sex and Mature Content in Video Games

Articles, Internet, News

Child Online Protection Act Struck Down Again

February 20, 2009 No Comments

The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was a law passed in 1998 for the purpose of protecting children from accessing sexual and objectionable content on the internet. Though the law itself was passed, the law never went into affect because the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down the law, deeming it unconstitutional. The court claimed it violates the 1st amendment – the protection of free speech.

On January 21, 2009, the government recently lost its final attempt to revive the law. The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals effectively killing the bill. The Bush administration had urged the justices to take on the case. However the justices rejected the appeal. Five of the justices who voted against this bill remains on the court.

Articles, Internet, Video

Youtube Statistics – The Ultimate Time Suck

February 18, 2009 23 Comments

YouTube Statistics – Where did my time go?

How many times have you gone to YouTube to watch some video you’ve heard about, then 7 videos later you wonder where the time has gone? or perhaps 15 videos later… 30 videos…

Well you are not alone. 77% of users coming to YouTube come intending to watch 1 video but end up watching several.

YouTube has become a time sucker and a place people have gone to alleviate their boredom. But first a quick summary of some Internet & YouTube statistics.

Internet Usage

Adults spend 15+ hours on Internet a Week
Expected 217 MM US internet Users by 2012 (71% Penetration)
55% broadband access, will grow to 90% by 2012
Online video viewing increased 35% year over year