- Too much TV as teens (can lead to poor eating habits as young adults, according to a study that tracked high schoolers) (Vancouver Sun)

- Ubisoft brings back 'Waldo' (in a new interactive "Where's Waldo" video game. Also teen virtual world Gaia Online and Zong team up to allow Gaia users to purchase the site's virtual currency with their mobile phone number) (Virtual World News)

- Coke ads dial down branding (and plays up the bells and whistles of the "Open Happiness" campaign. Staples revives a classic Back-to-School ad to commemorate the popular spot's 15th anniversary) (New York Times, reg. required) (MediaPost, reg. required)

- Oxygen looks to strike a chord (with a new music initiative including vignettes and a microsite featuring up and coming artists. Plus a profile on Jessica Hopper, author of "The Girls Guide To Rocking") (Los Angeles Times)

- The debate over E-books on campus (wages on as students and educators make a rocky transition in classrooms across the country. Plus for those college grads lucky enough to find a job the average starting salary for the class of 09 stays stable ) (WSJ) (South Florida Business Journal)

- EU teams up with MTV (to raise awareness among teens about the dangers of climate change) (AP)

- The Teen behind Breaking News Online (how 19-year-old Michael von Poppel launched a successful news aggregation business) (ReadWriteWeb)

- From cell phones to Celluloid (Japanese cellphone fiction makes the leap to the big screen with a recent trend of film adaptations. Plus more details on Harlequin Teen) (USA Today)

- Hispanic youth market (continues to become force to be reckoned with. Plus Raven L. Hill from The Root shares first impressions of Mattel's new line of African American dolls)

Correction:MediaPost issued a correction on an earlier post and confirmed that Target's clothing line by fashion designer Anna Sui will be associated with "Gossip Girl.")

Gary H. Schoenfeld is set to take over as Pacific Sunwear’s chief executive. He’s replacing Sally Frame Kasaks, who has lead Pacific Sunwear since 2006. Kasaks, who is also chairman, is set to stay on Pacific Sunwear's board as a director. Schoenfeld is best known for leading Cypress-based shoe and clothing maker Vans up to its 2004 sale to North Carolina's VF Corp. (Orange County Business Journal)

HarperCollins Publishers appoints David Linker as Executive Editor/HarperFestival, HarperCollins Children's Books. Linker will handle all movie and TV tie-in programs, superhero tie-in efforts and Fisher-Price, in addition to overseeing other programs. Linker joins the publisher from Innovative Kids where he was Editorial Director (Cynopsis Kids)

MTV Networks International promoted Roger James to senior vice president, general counsel for MTV Networks International and MTVN UK & Ireland. James is currently vice president of business and legal affairs for MTV Networks UK, Ireland and International and will expand his role to include all of MTVNI's business and legal affairs (MediaPost, reg. required)

Michael Hope has been named executive director of the interactive entertainment unit at Bender/Helper. He had been manager of global public relations at Championship Gaming series. (Release via mediabistro, reg. required)

Kerri Brusca is upped to VP/Media & Artist Relations, Razor & Tie Entertainment. Most recently Sr. Director/Media & Artist Relations, Brusca is based at the company's headquarters in NYC and reports to Alyson Shapero, SVP/Sales & Marketing. She previously worked for KB Entertainment, Kathy Schenker & Associates and Edelman Public Relations (Cynopsis Kids)

Jack D. Ferraiolo has been named development executive at Scholastic Media's Soup2Nuts. He had been developer, writer, and director at PBS's WordGirl. In his new position, Ferraiolo will develop new and existing properties at Soup2Nuts' studios in Boston and Scholastic's New York offices.(Animation Magazine)

Margaret Loesch, a children’s entertainment veteran, will serve as the president and CEO of Hasbro and entertainment company Discovery's joint venture. She will assume the position on Aug. 17. Loesch has helped launch the Fox Kids Network and was a co-founder of The Hatchery, a family media company.

Jessica Sigelbaum has been named publicity manager at Fuse.tv. She had been PR manager, global licensing at Playboy. (MediaBistro, reg. required)

Hollywood Records names Aaron Simon as VP/Strategic Marketing & Promotions. In his new role, Simon will identify and develop deals between the Disney label and partners across various categories (e.g. food and beverage, auto, media, fashion, sports and gaming) for acts including Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, etc. Most recently, Simon spent the last two years as VP/Strategic marketing and U.S. Partnerships, Roptus, which specializes in Latin entertainment. (Cynopsis Kids)

MTV Games taps Scott Guthrie to head up the company, while David Cox will run sales. Guthrie, who most recently served as exec VP of publishing at gamemaker THQ, will serve as exec VP-general manager of MTV Games, overseeing which titles the company makes, as well as marketing and distribution of those properties (Variety)

Metaverse Mod Squad announced the appointment of Sharon Duke Estroff as its Director of Youth Strategy.  In this new role, Sharon will develop communication strategies aimed at parents and youth in the digital age and head special projects. (press release)

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For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection.

Alongside the slogan "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away," it says: "Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?"

I couldn't really see a government-funded campaign like this happening in the United States, but the push to shift the tone of classroom discussions away from the traditional sex ed slant certainly does come at a time when change is in high demand — both in the U.K. and the U.S.with the second highest and highest rates of teen pregnancies in developed countries. Granted, the wording of this particular attempt is a little troublesome, and it's hard to imagine students taking the advice seriously (or comfortably) if there was an educator brave(?) enough to repeat them verbatim, but the overarching effort to incorporate the positive aspects of sex along with information about sexually transmitted diseases and contraception (an issue for a whole other post) does resonate as a welcome change from the norm.

Critics are apparently voicing their concerns that the approach would encourage promiscuity and contribute to an even higher rate of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But we already live in a culture where teens are constantly confronted with the sexier side of sex. What are the chances that hearing a teacher tell them  "intercourse is a healthy physical activity" will kick their hormones into overdrive? Seems unlikely. If anything, by incorporating the positive with the cautionary, teens might see less of a disconnect between sex as defined by the media and sex as defined by their health class.

On that note, it should be an interesting experiment to see what happens when teens who might not otherwise seek outside resources are exposed to the "Midwest Teen Sex Show" on Comedy Central, and episodes with themes like "Birth control," "HPV" and "Prom." Not that one television show could replace comprehensive sex education, but using humor as a way to help to demystify certain aspects of sexuality might help facilitate a more informed and lighter conversation amongst teens and their peers or even with mom and dad.

- Back-to-school bargains (not surprisingly in high demand this year. And more on JC Penney's teen-targeted "Smart Looks for Less" campaign) (Los Angeles Times) (MediaPost, reg. required)

- BlackBox (Is a sex positive approach to dating sites also a response to Gen Y social network fatigue?) (ZDNet)

- Soulja Boy remix app (debuts as the first of what will apparently be a regular feature from Universal Music Group artists. For $5? Hmmm….And a "purity ring" app for virgins or born again virgins. Plus students fined for using their cell phones in school) (TechCrunch) (textually.org)

- The Generation M Manifesto (a break up letter from Millennial Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, to older generations. Also Globalistic, a book of essays and opinions from the "Millennial classroom") (Harvard Business)

- New educational startup Karooba (uses the SmartyCard model of points/rewards for playing learning games. And Beacon Street Girls joins Miss O in the tween virtual worlds neighborhood. Also details on the campaign for Disney's Wizards of Wavery Place movie. Plus a profile on tween marketer turned YA author Tina Wells) (Derek Baird) (Philadelphia Inquirer)

- 'Check Yourself' (a very cool campaign from PONY, who teams up with the Keep A Breast Foundation. for a new line that raises awareness and donates to the cause)

- Fbomb strikes a chord (with adults. The teen feminist blog we mentioned last week may have a ways to go to reach teens. Plus what happens in teenaged girls' brains as they seek peer approval) (Jezebel) (Science Daily)

- Coffee chain encourages Gen Y-ers to rock out (Gloria Jeans challenges employees to compete in a battle of the bands competition)

- SLJ spotlights culturally diverse comics (with a long, excellent list of reads. Plus a new cover story on Justina Chen Headley's North of Beautiful from Melissa Walker)

At 37, apart from the sprinkling of parents accompanying their teens, I think we may have been the oldest people in the theater. My husband seemed proud that he stayed awake while the pierced, teen guy sitting next to him crashed midway through the movie. I would say the average age of the audience was 16-17 — "Harry Potter teens" — who have, like the stars of the films, grown up reading the books and watching the movies. There were a few capes and wands but more Urban Outfitter versions of "Hogwarts-style" school uniforms, short plaid skirts with thigh high stockings and a couple of guys with "the scar" drawn on their foreheads.

In a way I was jealous of these teens for having such a beloved series of books and being able to experience them on so many platforms — the movies, online fan communities and next year, the amusement park. Even though I read fantasy as a teen (A Wrinkle In Time, The Hobbit), there was no well-oiled multi-media/multi-platform machine in place to create a universe on the scale of Harry Potter.

My husband mused about how dark the series gets and wondered about the 8 or 9 year olds who are just starting the books now and whether parents let them read the whole series or wait for the later books with darker themes or wait to watch the later films on DVD. I have a feeling my YA librarian readers have lots of opinions on this one, but what struck me most about the audience last night was that they had grown up with the character of Harry Potter — and could now relate to all of the 16-17 year-old awkwardness around teen romance that offers most of the comic relief in "Half Blood Prince."

Sorta Related:

Help! My Ten-Year-Old Wants to Read Twilight (School Library Journal)

For more coverage of YA books and publishing, check out the Ypulse Books Channel sponsored by Pick a Poppy – the home of today's hottest fiction.

So was I. And with the question of how to keep an energetic youth vote engaged fresh in mind from the Personal Democracy Forum, and the threat and fear of the downturn only becoming more palpable among my peers and in my newsfeed, I tuned in with interest via the live-blog and Twitter to see just what this intersection of young people and government officials — speakers include White House Chief Economist Jared Bernstein, Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Current Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — would produce. So far, though the conference has stumbled through a few obstacles including tech issues and moderator difficulties, it's also stirred up some interesting ideas. A few highlights that I thought would strike a chord with Ypulse readers…

Fostering the love between young people and public service.

The top policies for public service:
1) Establishing a Public Service Academy
2) Creating a Tax-free Education Award
3) Making AmeriCorps more viable for lower-income people by raising wages

Not a surprising list of recommendations from a conference full of non-profits, but the growing appeal of the public service industry to Gen Y has undeniably spread with recent research on college students identifying healthcare, education and non-profits, as the top three industries to explore a career in, and the State Department, Teach for America and Peace Corps as the most desirable employers (for the same poll 10 years ago, Gen X chose Microsoft and Cisco). Promising?  Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior noted that 40 percent in the Department of the Interior will turnover within the next four years, as will other government agencies full of Boomers.

Equal Access to Internships

The top policies for internships:
1) Grants/loans towards summer internships don't count toward student's total aid/allowable amount
2) Government sponsored transportation/housing assistance during internships

You can't get experience without an entry level job, and you can't get an entry-level job without experience. Not so much a riddle, as the catch-22 circumstance that compels anyone with a hope of entering a competitive industry after college to seek out internships. As Youth Advisory Board member Bernadette put it in her recent post, "a rite of passage." Addressing the obstacles that prevent access is one of the more positive ways to approach the situation, meanwhile, others take a more opportunistic route.

More Than A New Curriculum

The top policies for education:
1) Community Scholars Program – free state university education for low-income students in exchange for volunteer public service.
2) Developing a curriculum to implement in high schools that includes aspects of financial literacy
3) Finding solutions to student loan/debt crisis
4) Pass the Dream Act – legal residency for undocumented students

It's a tall order, but steps like colleges offering grants to students who defer a year for public service, and President Obama proposing to sink nearly $12 billion into revamping the country's community-college system to account and provide for the rapid increase in students are promising steps toward making higher education affordable.

Vive Youth Entrepreneurship!

Top policies for youth entrepreneurship:
1) Youth Innovation Fund – government grants for young social entrepreneurs
2) Encourage creation of "Youth Entrepreneurial Resource Centers"
3) Amend the Small Business Act to include young Americans 16-29 for 7(m) micro-loans

We've come across a lot of amazing young entrepreneurs (flashback to our Totally Wired panel at Mashup) in our time, and the idea of incentivizing and enabling these types of ventures seems not only timely, but worthwhile.

Whether Congress will actually adopt the policies lobbied for by these Millennial advocates remains to be seen. But the call to action and the onus to respond is now officially out there.

- J.C. Penney makes a back-to-school push (for teens with a new website. Plus MediaPost, reg. required, looks at how college students spend their money, and what brands get them to spend it) (Reuters)

- My Fabulous 15 (Verizon targets Hispanic teens with a contest to win the Quinceanera of their dreams. Also British teens call for an affordable way to watch BBC shows on their phones) (Revolution)

- NAACP celebrates centennial with a new wave (of youth activists, reporting the number of members under 25 as "significantly higher." Plus, check out the live blog for the "80 Million Strong" National Summit for young Americans) (BET) (Future Majority)

- 'Miss O launches virtual world (the tween social network expands with virtual world. Also Wired questions the "life lessons" taught by a new wave of tween girl games)

- Anna Sui's Target line does without 'Gossip' (forgoing the heavy product placement on the show after Target execs express concerns over the scandalous content. Also "Hard Times" a new scripted series from MTV draws comparisons with HBO's series "Hung." Hmm. Also Universal Pictures releases a tamer version of Bruno for UK teens) (Daily News) (Reuters) (Los Angeles Times)

- 'The perils of teen travel' (Daily Beast reports on the dangers of studying abroad)

- Skate the web (Adverblog pays heed to Nike and Converse for their low-key collaborations with skate sites. Plus Sunkist launches a charity campaign to "refresh the lemonade stand" on Facebook)

- Born to boomerang (Hyphen Magazine on why Asian American Millennials moving home is nothing new)  (Hyphen Magazine)

The poll showed that 73 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were generally happy with life, compared with 66 percent in 2007, even though more of them, including Lagrappe, think they'll have a harder time finding work, buying a house and raising a family than their parents did.

Compared to 2007 results, the poll, which included young people ranging in age from 13 to 24, showed respondents are less happy with the amount of money they have — 36 percent to 31 percent, with 53 percent saying they believe it will be harder to find a job than it was for their parents, compared to 30 percent two years ago.

Fifty-nine percent said they'll have a harder time buying a house, compared to 41 percent in 2007, and 48 percent said it will be harder to raise a family, compared to 36 percent in 2007.

Of respondents ages 13-17, 75 percent said they were happy, up from 65 percent two years ago and 72 percent of those polled from age 18 to age 24 said they were happy, up from 66 percent in 2007.

The psychiatrist interviewed added that the tough times could be heralding a return to less materialistic means of being happy, i.e. focusing on relationships vs. our addiction to material goods.  But he also raised the issue I alluded to in my opener:

Part of the reason for the disconnect between happiness and the new economic reality could be the definition of happy, Rosenfeld said.

"It's much too simple a term, and I think our teenagers and young adults are far more complicated," he said.

And, in this country, people may be afraid to describe themselves as unhappy.

My gut says this is probably more likely, or at least that there is a lot more complexity behind young people self reporting that they are "happy." As the psychiatrist said, "Everybody's supposed to put on a happy face. I don't find teenagers to be unhappy, but I do find them to be quite concerned about the future, quite concerned about finding their place in the world." mtvU's recent study of college students, which is available online, gives you an idea of how young people can feel both happy and optimistic while also being quite stressed.

For marketers, the message is to focus on products for youth that can make them happy on a budget. The message for anyone who cares about young people is even if they say everything's "fine," ask a lot more questions to find out what's really going on and figure out how you can help them manage the increasing amounts of stress in their lives resulting from the economy — whether they're happy or not.

For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection

If Matthew Robson, the skeptical 15 year old intern behind the sensation-inducing media report on teen habits, wasn't being paid by Morgan Stanley before, the job offers are surely rolling in now. From the Financial Times:

" [The report was] one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen – so we published it", said Edward Hill-Wood, executive director of Morgan Stanley's European media team.

'We've had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day.' He said the note had generated five or six times more responses than the team's usual research.

On the one hand, it's an encouraging turn of events. To generate that type of enthusiasm from fund managers and CEOs, not to mention incite a media frenzy, all simply by formalizing the commonplace practice of… asking the intern. I mean, haven't teens and twentysomethings always been the de facto in house youth experts in the office?

That's why, less notable than the insight itself [well-trodden territory for those of us who live in the youth space] was the credit and credibility Robson was awarded for his work. Sure, it had the trappings of a publicity stunt — offering the inner workings of a real, live teen to inquiring minds of the financial industry — but I couldn't help but appreciate the transparency. From the report's introduction:

..we asked a 15 year old summer work intern, Matthew Robson, to describe how he and his friends consume media. Without claiming representation or statistical accuracy, his piece provides one of the clearest and most thought provoking insights we have seen. So we published it.

Say what you will about the findings (more on that in a bit) that came out of the unscientific methodology, but the effort to recognize and reward young employees (or future employees) seems like a step in the right collaborative direction. Especially for an old-school intergenerational company like Morgan Stanley and the conventionally non-youthy space of finance.

That said, before other similarly conventionally non-youthy businesses take the cue and follow suit, let's hope this other piece of sage advice floats their way: interns are not the definitive litmus test of teenage taste. They are a starting point, and a great one at that, but one teen and their friends can't take the place of research. A couple sticking points from the report:

Personal tastes vs. fact. To his credit, Robson mostly sticks with general terms, but when he does get specific, for instance parenthetically reporting on the popularity of anime — "Many teenagers use YouTube to watch videos (usually anime which cannot be watched anywhere else)" — I feel skeptical and slightly frustrated with the language that nonchalantly implies the observation as fact. The same goes for his note that "Teenage boys (generally) watch more TV when it is the football season, often watching two games and related shows a week (for a total of about 5 hours of viewing)."

Subtle shifts get lost. After the report that came out just yesterday on UK teens downloading from file-sharing sites less and streaming more, Robson's lack of emphasis on this trend with his note that, "a large majority (8/10) [of teens are] downloading [music] illegally from file sharing sites" stuck out as off the mark.

 Of course, "real" research has its own problems, as we've discussed before on Ypulse. All the more reason why companies should ideally do both — talk to their interns or kids  and looking at research critically — to create an approach based on a combination of the two.  

For more campus coverage, visit the Ypulse Campus Channel, sponsored by Campus Media Group.

- A decade of 'Spongebob' (and the show's unique brand of absurd, wholesome humor is profiled in the New York Times. Also Ad Age, reg. required, takes a look back at how Squarepants and company grew into an $8 billion franchise. Plus PBS  turns up the voltage on the new "Electric Company" expanding the weekly series to a daily slot on weekdays) (Variety)

- Image consultants for teen girls (are apparently thriving, in spite of the recession.  Why? Peer pressure and makeover shows, according to this Washington Post piece. Not sure if that makes an expensive stylist the answer.  Meanwhile Australian teens turn away from consumerism, in favor of more traditional values)

- Are zombies the new Vampires? (Yes, according to Publisher's Weekly. And here I thought it was supposed to be werewolves. Also how the Harry Potter franchise will live on with video games and a theme park. And "Hills" star turned YA author Lauren Conrad makes the New York Times' Best Seller list causing some to prematurely ask if LC will be the next Stephenie Meyer) MTV News) (E! Online)

- ALA panel on teens and privacy (spells out the myths and realities of different teens' online habits and opens a discussion on where to go from here policy-wise. The recap is definitely worth a look. As is this preso from panelist and high school librarian Frances Jacobson Harris) (SLJ)

- More on Staples' 'Do Something 101′ (campaign on Facebook in the New York Times, reg. required)

- Surf industry stays afloat (on the passion of a young, dedicated following. Plus highlights from Michael Wood's preso at SIMA [Surf Industry Manufacturers Association] Boot Camp on how to connect with millennials) (Surf-Eat-Shop)

- Webosaurs (the most recent addition to the dinosaur-themed worlds. Also tween retailer Justice announces an exclusive partnership with My Secret Circle, the closed social network for tween girls, we mentioned last week) (Virtual World News)

- Texting teen falls into an open manhole (and her parents respond by suing. Oy. Also what teenagers' mobile mania means for the news industry) (GizModo) (Wired) (Christian Science Monitor)

- 'HSM2′ in Dubai (meets a warm reception. Plus a Canadian take on bridging the generation gap between older and younger co-workers) (Emirates Business Journal (Canada.com)