As if mannequins weren’t already creepy enough Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University in conjunction with Takashimiya, a department store in Tokyo, has developed an android mannequin that interacts with shoppers. The android, who as far as I can tell doesn’t really have a name, sits in the display window of a store, staring at her phone and yawning. She apparently is capable of 40 different facial expressions, though in the video she appears to only know how to look bored, creepy, or tired.

This story was originally published on L.A. Youth. 

Distractions are all around us—Facebook, YouTube, texting, TV. It’s sometimes so overwhelming that it can be hard to focus on homework. So we challenged these teens to do their homework without distractions for three days. They were allowed to take breaks to do things like check their Facebook, go on YouTube, talk to their friends or watch TV, but they couldn’t do those things while doing their homework.

By Moviz Dar 18, Hawthorne HS

I usually come home after school and eat, sleep for one to three hours and then watch videos on YouTube. I promise myself that I’ll start my homework the next hour but it never happens. I do my homework from 9 p.m. until midnight. I knew that starting my homework at 9 was bad because I wasn’t getting all my work done.

On the first day of the challenge, I deactivated my Facebook account and put my phone on silent. My brain was telling me every second that I had to log onto Facebook and reply to text messages I assumed I had. But I was able to resist. I finished my economics homework in half an hour. I usually take two hours. And I finished all of my homework one hour earlier than normal and got eight hours of sleep. Even though I got homework done faster, I felt like I was stuck in a cage and being forced to do it.

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Asha Richardson

 Every day I check my Gmail and tell my Macbook Pro how much I love it. But when I graduate from college next year, I’m not sure how much these companies will love me, and by love me I mean hire me.

This year as a part of Youth Radio’s App Lab, I visited the headquarters of one of the world’s biggest tech giants four times and was never introduced to a single black engineer or executive.

Silicon Valley often identifies as a place where people advance based on their ideas and achievements, but what gets glossed over is that it’s only a meritocracy if you’re in the club.

It seems like membership requires attending a well funded high school, doing well on the SATs, and earning top grades…preferably from an Ivy League College. Race, privilege, and class continue to affect Americans’ opportunities.

Hopefully, more tech companies will recognize the value, and profitability, of ideas and input from a variety of demographics. As an emerging entrepreneur, I don’t want my ideas to be funded because I’m a black woman. I want them to succeed on their merits. But for that to happen, I need to be in the room.

The following originally aired on KQED-FM.

By: Asha Richardson

Every day I check my Gmail, chat with friends on Facebook and tell my Macbook Pro how much I love it. But when I graduate from college next year, I’m not sure how much these companies will love me, and by love me I mean hire me.

Less than 1% of startups funded last year were founded by African-Americans. This year as a part of Youth Radio’s App Lab, I visited the headquarters of one of the world’s biggest tech giants four times and was never introduced to a single black engineer or executive. Maybe they were in a different building or all at a meeting?

That experience reminded me of visits to my father’s office in the 90’s. He worked at Intel for ten years, and I could count the number of his African-American colleagues on my little hands.

The tech industry argues that there’s a pipeline problem. In other words not enough African-Americans are entering the industry. And there’s some truth to that. Until recently tech was considered Steve Urkel nerdy, not Steve Jobs cool. Plus where are black kids going to gain exposure to programming? For example, In Oakland, only 2 of 20 public high schools offer classes in computer programming.

A lot of my friends think current music is way too reliant on technology instead of good old fashioned musical talent but a new video by bd594 turns that argument on its head.

A recent study contradicts the notion that teenagers are “sexting” non-stop. In fact, only 9.6 percent said they had either sent or received an image that included nudity in the past year, according to the New York Times.

The survey, conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CACRC) at the University of New Hampshire, asked 1,560 children across the country about the messages they had seen, sent, and forwarded on their cell phones. Only two percent of “sexters” said they were in the pictures themselves, and the other seven percent said they were on the receiving end, and only three percent forwarded messages they received.

According to Lisa Jones at the CACRC, the researchers were not surprised by the results. She said previous studies about sexting often included 18, 19 and 20 year-olds, and while the behavior is still risky, there are no legal concerns about child pornography in this demographic. Additionally, many previous studies used a broad definition of nudity, and might have included pictures of children in bathing suits. However, law enforcement would not consider “sexy poses in bathing suits” to be sexually explicit.

Jones said that most youth are aware that sexting is potentially dangerous. However, in one third of the cases when it happens, drugs and alcohol are involved. “Sexting is like any kind of sexual risk taking, there is an element of something possibly going wrong. But it may be happening in a context where other kinds of risk taking are happening,” said Jones.

The CACRC also did a study that specifically looked at the sexting incidents that involved law enforcement agencies. They found that one-third of all sexting incidents that are brought to the police involve adult sex offenders soliciting images from children. “In a lot of the incidents that are largely publicized, the most serious element is bullying, it’s more serious than the photo itself,” said Jones.

2011 statistics show that college students are highly dependent on their technological devices.

* ¾ of students say they wouldn’t be able to study without technology.

* In a study done at the University of Maryland, when asked to go 24 hours without technology, many students experienced symptoms similar to drug and alcohol withdrawal.

* Sophomores in college use Facebook the most.

Check out the infographic below for more information about students and technology by OnlineEducation.net.

By Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and President of the Thiel Foundation announced the first class of 20 Under 20 fellows last week. Each under-20-year-old receives $100,000 to leave school and pursue their visions in science and technology for the next two years.

But interestingly enough, only two of the 24 fellowship winners are women. Jonathan Cain of the Thiel Foundation said they did not take gender or ethnicity into account when considering applications for the fellowship.

Eden Full, one of the female winners, received a Thiel Fellowship to pursue her research into solar energy. At the age of 19, she is "stopping out" of Princeton University to take this opportunity, but has every intention to return to school after the fellowship. She has already re-modeled the traditional rotating solar panel to make it cost-efficient, and deployed her new technology to Kenya. She plans to alter the design and apply for a patent during the fellowship.

Full said when she came to San Francisco for the finalist round of interviews for the fellowship, there were five girls out of 40 finalists. “I did feel that my work wasn’t taken too seriously,” she said. In the back of her mind, there was a fear that she was included for media purposes only to show some diversity. “I’m a minority female in engineering... I don’t mind being the underdog. I would rather have people not take me seriously and then I can go do something amazing. Or maybe not - and if I don’t, then I won’t have let anyone down,” she said.

“I do wish that more women were selected, but If I am the under dog, fine. I’ll use that to my advantage,” said Full.

Laura Deming, also a female fellowship winner, feels completely different about the lack of gender diversity. She is adamant that gender doesn’t matter, and thinks it’s a great sign that there was no affirmative action in the Thiel Fellowship. Deming began doing anti-aging research at the age of 12 at in a lab at UCSF, and matriculated into MIT at the age of 14. At 17, she is dedicated to curing aging.

“Growing up, I knew I wanted to be a biologist. I idolized scientists like Nikola Tesla and Micheal Faraday. But I didn’t know I wanted to focus on curing aging, until one night when I was eight years old. It suddenly hit me that we were all going to die – I and everyone I knew – from a horrible, painful, degenerative disease that nobody could cure. Ever since, I haven’t been able to imagine anything more important, or interesting to work on,” she said.

Female Scientists Weigh In

Teachers and educators are vibrantly discussing if and how technology should be integrated into the classroom.  

Are students happy with this trend?

According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed, the majority of college students surveyed said  they are concerned about their technology habits. They admit to being constantly on Facebook and Twitter, but they’re not necessarily happy while being technologically engaged. One student quoted in the article said, "I don't realize how much time is passing while on my phone and computer. I'm so preoccupied, I'm not paying attention to what else is going on around me."

On the other hand, the New York Times recently spotlighted a teacher who is using technology in her classroom to give students a voice - resulting in her students spending more intentional time on their digital devices. The featured teacher has her students use a Twitter “backchannel” to ask questions and post comments during a class discussion. She says it has increased student participation by almost a third - contrasting dissenting voices that technology in the classroom is a distraction.

The article reads, “The real-time digital streams allow students to comment, pose questions (answered either by one another or the teacher) and shed inhibitions about voicing opinions. Perhaps most importantly, if they are texting on-task, they are less likely to be texting about something else.”  

Students asked about using the “backchannel” had positive things to say. “When you type something down, it’s a lot easier to say what I feel,” said Justin Lansik, 17, according to the Times.

Are students looking for an escape from the digital world? Or are students eager to have their social networks integrated with their education? 

The following commentary was written by Belia Mayeno Saavedra, who leads Youth Radio's Community Action Project, a program designed specifically for Oakland youth who have had encounters with the criminal justice system or who are struggling to stay in school. Her position combines both of her professional passions: youth development and media production.

As a teacher, I get schooled by my students just about as much as I actually teach. They put me up on new music and new sneakers. But more than anything, they constantly (if not always consciously) remind me to check my privilege and figure out how to meet them where they are. Like this moment:

“Miss Belia, I’m not done with my assignment yet. Can I give it to you later today?”

“Sure. Just email me the word doc as an attachment.”

The student looked up at me from his handwritten paper like I was speaking a foreign language. I might as well have been. Turns out, he didn’t have an email address, was unfamiliar with Microsoft Word, and didn’t know what was an attachment was either.  The student explained that he only ever really got online through his phone- and the other young people in class said they mostly did too.

According a Pew Research Center study of internet access and the digital divide released in summer 2010, African-American & Latino users are much more likely to use their phones as a primary means to access the internet than white users.  Phones could be a good start to addressing web access inequities. But they are also much harder to use for functions which can help with school and employment, like tapping into academic research databases or writing and formatting a resume.

Which is why I was so happy to learn that Youth Radio is collaborating with Get Connected Oakland!, a citywide initiative to eliminate the digital divide and provide internet access, computers and tech support to underserved communities. In order to best meet impacted populations where they are, The Alameda County Housing Authority is working to get even more tech centers available to the 15,000 families who live in public housing in this county. And there are services focused on youth, like OTX West. They provide free computers for high school and middle school, and also equip the computers with tutoring software so that young people can step their learning game up outside of school. 

America Works focuses on supporting adults recently released from incarceration, and offers them free computers so that folks can use technology to cultivate alternative income, education and employment opportunities.

But it’s not only about education and employment. Information access and interpersonal and community engagement are key factors in challenging violence and abuse. As Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County District Attorney and founder of The Family Justice Center points out, perpetrators often use extreme isolation as a way to cover up and continue cycles of abuse. That’s why Get Connected Oakland! partner organizations also provide tech training and access specific to domestic violence survivors, commercially sexually exploited minors, and elders who’ve experienced caregiver abuse.

Facebook procrastination notwithstanding, at the end of the day, access to information is and always will be a matter of social and economic justice. So Get Connected here!