The Kids Are All Right: How Social Media Created a Generation of Activists












This week marked the nation’s inaugural  “Giving Tuesday,” a UN sponsored initiative, which utilized social media to encourage businesses, schools, and community members to give back. The effort resulted in $ 10 million worth of donations made in a single day, a 53 percent increase over the same day last year.


Conceived as a means to promote activism and charity, the campaign’s use of social media to spread its message is most likely a large part of the initiative’s success. 












Certainly people from every age group use Twitter and Facebook, but social media activism is especially resonant with young adults. According to TBWA, people between the ages of 18-29 strongly identify as activists and count social media as their first point of engagement when they learn about a new cause.


MORE: ‘Tis Always the Season to Give: Creating a Corporate Culture That Gives Back


In fact, about half believe that activism is important to their personal identity and about a third look to it as a means of socializing and relating to one another.


But more than identifying with activism, this younger generation’s aptitude for social media can effect real change. Look at the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Earlier this year, when the organization announced it would pull its funding for breast cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, cutting off medical access for millions of women, Twitter and Facebook lit up with vitriolic statements, claiming the organization had become a puppet of the religious right. The ensuing bad press proved to be too much and within days, the organization reversed its decision and issued a public apology.


Similarly, when Florida law enforcement officials refused to arrest George Zimmerman after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin, the case lay dormant for almost a month. But an online petition started by Martin’s parents went viral and galvanized a nation demanding justice for the boy’s death. Zimmerman was arrested and charged as a result.


For all we hear about “kids these days” and their irresponsible use of social media−posting questionable pictures of themselves doing kegstands or letting Twitter corrode their ability to hold a thought for more than a nanosecond−it turns out that most are using it to express a genuine passion for changing the world around them. And they’re succeeding.


And these trends extend well beyond the U.S. That same age group in other countries shows similar interests in contributing to larger causes. China’s young adults for instance, lead the world in online political discussions and offline they donate the most money to charities. India’s younger generation ranks the first in the world when it comes to staying informed, and they’re the most optimistic about the impact their activism has on the world around them.


It seems that our youngest generation of adults are the ones leading the charge when it comes to effectively making a difference.


Do you consider yourself an activist? Let us know in the Comments what social causes inspire you to get involved.


Related Stories on TakePart:


• Secret Santas: Profiles in Anonymous Holiday Generosity


• Rwanda Genocide Survivor Wins Grant for Giving Back


• 40 U.S. Billionaires Pledge Half of Fortunes to Charity



A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com


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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico












SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.


The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.












“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.


Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.


“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.


Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.


“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”


Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.


“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.


Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.


“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.


Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.


Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.


“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”


Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.


He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.


“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”


Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.


Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.


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Study: DVRs now in half of US pay-TV homes












NEW YORK (AP) — A new survey finds that digital video recorders are now in more than half of all U.S. homes that subscribe to cable or satellite TV services.


Leichtman Research Group‘s survey of 1,300 households found that 52 percent of the ones that have pay-TV service also have a DVR. That translates to about 45 percent of all households and is up from 13.5 percent of all households surveyed five years ago by another firm, Nielsen.












The first DVRs came out in 1999, from TiVo Inc. and ReplayTV. Later, they were built into cable set-top boxes. The latest trend is “whole-home” DVRs that can distribute recorded shows to several sets.


Even with the spread of DVRs, live TV rules. Nielsen found last year that DVRs accounted for 8 percent of TV watching.


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No charges against Chris Brown in Fla. phone grab












MIAMI (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown won’t be charged with a crime after a woman claimed he snatched her cell phone when she tried to take his photo outside a Miami Beach club.


A memo released Friday by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney‘s office concludes there is no evidence that Brown intended to steal the phone in February or that he deleted the photo. One or the other is necessary for him to be charged.












Prosecutors say that Brown tossed the phone from his limo and that it was picked up by security.


A felony charge against the 24-year-old might have triggered a violation of his probation for his 2009 assault on singer Rihanna, who was his girlfriend at the time. The two have recently collaborated on a new duet.


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Study links relaxation method to reduced hot flashes












NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Although studies of the effects of relaxation techniques on menopause symptoms have yielded mixed results so far, a new report from Sweden comes down in favor of the approach as an alternative to hormone therapy.


Postmenopausal women trained to relax before and during the onset of hot flashes cut the frequency of those events in half during the three-month trial, researchers say. Women in a comparison group that got no treatments experienced little change in their symptoms.












“The results tell you that, yes, this seems to work,” said Kim Innes of West Virginia University, who has studied mind-body therapies for menopause symptoms but was not involved in the new study. “This was a moderate-sized trial that yielded promising – although not definitive – findings regarding the efficacy of applied relaxation,” she told Reuters Health.


In a review of more than a dozen previous clinical trials involving mediation, yoga and Tai Chi therapies, Innes concluded that these techniques may hold promise for relieving menopause symptoms, but it’s too soon to tell.


In the years just before and after menopause, fluctuating hormone levels can generate a wide variety of symptoms, among the most bothersome are sudden flushing, night sweats and insomnia.


Hormone replacement therapy is thought to help by stabilizing the fluctuations, but not all women can take hormones because of other health conditions or risk factors, and many don’t want to because of possible risks from the hormones themselves.


“A lot of women in Sweden do not want to or cannot use hormone therapy due to side effects,” said lead author of the new study Lotta Lindh-Åstrand of Linköping University.


So Lindh-Åstrand’s team set out to test the effects on menopausal hot flashes and quality of life of a method called applied relaxation that was developed in Sweden in the 1980s, based on type of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy.


The researchers recruited 60 healthy Swedish women and randomly assigned a little more than half to practice applied relaxation and the rest to a comparison group that received no treatment. The women, mostly in their fifties, had all stopped menstruating a year or more earlier but still experienced hot flashes and night sweats.


The 33 women in the therapy group learned how to focus on breathing and releasing muscle tension before and during hot flashes.


For the first week, the women observed and recorded what they felt before and during a hot flash or other menopausal symptom. Next, the women were encouraged to spend 15 minutes twice a day tensing and relaxing muscles from head to toe. Gradually, women learned how to decrease the time needed to relax by focusing on controlled breathing and not tensing the muscles. Toward the end of the study, the women were instructed to practice relaxation 20 times a day in 30-second sessions. The final “homework” exercise required the women to use these breathing and relaxation skills to quickly relax during a hot flash situation.


At the beginning of the study, all the participants experienced an average of 10 hot flashes a day. After three months, researchers report in the journal Menopause, the applied relaxation group had an average of four flashes a day while the comparison group averaged eight.


The researchers also found modest improvements in quality of life measures, including sleep problems and aches and pains, among women in the relaxation group, while the comparison group reported no changes.


Innes and other researchers said the mechanism behind mind-body therapies and their effect on menopausal symptoms is not completely understood, but it could be linked to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for “fight or flight” responses as well as basic functions like heart rate, blood pressure and sweating.


Lindh-Åstrand and her colleagues warned that the results were not final and more research is needed.


“The next step,” Innes said, “would be a larger randomized controlled trial” that includes an active comparison, for instance, between relaxation techniques and physical exercise.


Such a study could help build a stronger argument for applied relaxation as a treatment, experts agreed.


Lindh-Åstrand stressed that relaxation techniques are not for everyone, especially for women who suffer from severe depression or anxiety. Women with these conditions could paradoxically feel more tense under the treatment, she said.


But for many women, she added, “this gives them a tool for managing hot flashes.”


“Over time, the women can be more self-confident because they know they can do something when the problem appears,” Lindh-Åstrand said.


SOURCE: http://bit.ly/XWJkv5 Menopause, November 12, 2012.


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Boehner: ‘At a stalemate’ on debt talks

Republican House Speaker John Boehner (Alex Wong/Getty Images)


WASHINGTON—House Speaker John Boehner on Friday said that despite receiving a counterproposal from the White House as part of a deal to avoid a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, no progress had been made between Republicans and Democrats.


"There's a stalemate, let's not kid ourselves," Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, told reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill. "It's not a serious proposal. Right now we're almost nowhere."


The White House on Thursday sent Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to deliver a proposal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff by increasing taxes by $1.6 trillion over the next decade, including $50 billion in stimulus spending for mostly infrastructure and $400 billion in savings in popular entitlement programs such as Medicare.


Republicans rejected it right away. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly laughed in Geithner's face.


"Our original framework still stands," Boehner said the next day, reiterating his opposition to raising tax rates on any income bracket. He added that he remains open to "closing loopholes [and] getting rid of special interest deductions" within the tax code to raise the same amount of revenue.


"I'm not trying to make this more difficult," he said. "You've watched me over the last three weeks; I've been very guarded in what I have to say. Because I don't want to make it harder for me or the president, or members of both parties to be able to find common ground."


While negotiators continue talks behind closed doors, both parties continue to engage in their own public relations tour to promote their own plans. President Barack Obama on Friday traveled to Pennsylvania, and Republican lawmakers plan to meet with small-business owners over the next few weeks.


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Boehner: ‘At a stalemate’ on debt talks

Republican House Speaker John Boehner (Alex Wong/Getty Images)


WASHINGTON—House Speaker John Boehner on Friday said that despite receiving a counterproposal from the White House as part of a deal to avoid a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, no progress had been made between Republicans and Democrats.


"There's a stalemate, let's not kid ourselves," Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, told reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill. "It's not a serious proposal. Right now we're almost nowhere."


The White House on Thursday sent Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to deliver a proposal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff by increasing taxes by $1.6 trillion over the next decade, including $50 billion in stimulus spending for mostly infrastructure and $400 billion in savings in popular entitlement programs such as Medicare.


Republicans rejected it right away. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly laughed in Geithner's face.


"Our original framework still stands," Boehner said the next day, reiterating his opposition to raising tax rates on any income bracket. He added that he remains open to "closing loopholes [and] getting rid of special interest deductions" within the tax code to raise the same amount of revenue.


"I'm not trying to make this more difficult," he said. "You've watched me over the last three weeks; I've been very guarded in what I have to say. Because I don't want to make it harder for me or the president, or members of both parties to be able to find common ground."


While negotiators continue talks behind closed doors, both parties continue to engage in their own public relations tour to promote their own plans. President Barack Obama on Friday traveled to Pennsylvania, and Republican lawmakers plan to meet with small-business owners over the next few weeks.


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African Union asks UN for immediate action on Mali












DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — In an open letter Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the president of the African Union urged the U.N. to take immediate military action in northern Mali, which was seized by al-Qaida-linked rebels earlier this year.


Yayi Boni, the president of Benin who is also head of the African Union, said any reticence on the part of the U.N. will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by the terrorists now operating in Mali. The AU is waiting for the U.N. to sign off on a military plan to take back the occupied territory, and the Security Council is expected to discuss it in coming days.












In a report to the Security Council late Wednesday, Ban said the AU plan “needs to be developed further” because fundamental questions on how the force will be led, trained and equipped. Ban acknowledged that with each day, al-Qaida-linked fighters were becoming further entrenched in northern Mali, but he cautioned that a botched military operation could result in human rights abuses.


The sprawling African nation of Mali, once an example of a stable democracy, fell apart in March following a coup by junior officers. In the uncertainty that ensued, rebels including at least three groups with ties to al-Qaida, grabbed control of the nation’s distant north. The Islamists now control an area the size of France or Texas, an enormous triangle of land that includes borders with Mauritania, Algeria and Niger.


Two weeks ago, the African Union asked the U.N. to endorse a military intervention to free northern Mali, calling for 3,300 African soldiers to be deployed for one year. A U.S.-based counterterrorism official who saw the military plan said it was “amateurish” and had “huge, gaping holes.” The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.


Boni, in his letter, said Africa was counting on the U.N. to take decisive action.


“I need to tell you with how much impatience the African continent is awaiting a strong message from the international community regarding the resolution of the crisis in Mali. … What we need to avoid is the impression that we are lacking in resolve in the face of these determined terrorists,” he said.


The most feared group in northern Mali is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, al-Qaida’s North African branch, which is holding at least seven French hostages, including a 61-year-old man kidnapped last week.


On Thursday, SITE Intelligence published a transcript of a recently released interview with AQIM leader, Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, in which he urges Malians to reject any foreign intervention in their country. He warned French President Francois Hollande that he was “digging the graves” of the French hostages by pushing for an intervention.


Also on Thursday, Islamists meted out the latest Shariah punishment in northern city of Timbuktu. Six young men and women were each given 100 lashes for having talked to each other on city streets, witnesses said.


___


Associated Press writer Virgile Ahissou in Cotonou, Benin and Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali contributed to this report.


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Emmy Awards date announced by CBS












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Health officials warn of spiraling HIV in Athens












ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Health officials warn that the Greek capital is seeing an alarming increase in new HIV infections, particularly among intravenous drug users, as the country struggles through a protracted financial crisis in which funding has been slashed for health care and drug treatment programs.


Officials said while there were about 10-14 new HIV infections per year among Athens drug users from 2008 to 2010, that number shot up to 206 new cases last year and 487 new cases by October this year — a 35-fold increase.












Epidemiology and preventive medicine professor Angelos Hatzakis described the situation as a “big and rapidly developing epidemic in Athens.”


Marc Sprenger, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said the situation must be dealt with quickly to prevent it from spiraling further.


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