Tech Geek

FIFTY-THREE hours per week. For most of us in full time youth ministry, that's probably just about a regular work week. I don't track my hours that carefully, but I have some twelve hour days in my regular week, as well as some eight hour days, and every once in awhile a short day. I usually get at least one day a week off and I'm happy with how things work out. I hope that you are able to keep your work and personal schedules in balance as well. Is fifty-three hours a week normal? (Keep reading, I'm not talking about work weeks.)

According to a study released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation called Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, this is the average number of hours per week that an 8 to 18 year old spends consuming media. The news release on the study was full of fascinating information.

• 7:38 (7 hours, 38 minutes) - the amount of time an 8 to 18 year-old spends using entertainment media in a typical day.
• 10:45 - the amount of content actually consumed due to multi-tasking!
• 76% - of people studies have iPods or other MP3 players.
• 2:52 - the reduction in the amount of time consuming media spent by youth that have restrictions placed on them by there parents.
• 1:35 - the amount of time spent texting during a typical day! (Which this study did not include in the total amount.)

An Los Angeles Times article about the study quoted Becky Kirsh, a parent from Lombard, Ill.

She offered one example of how gadgetry can alter relationships with her four children, ages 9 to 15. In a simpler time, the car was an ideal place for heart-to-heart chats (captive audience, no eye contact).

But when her kids go right to their cellphones or immediately retreat into their headphones in the car, "it's no different than if they were in their bedrooms, with the door closed," said Kirsh, an educational coordinator at a local church. "That's when I really put my foot down."

When I'm on a trip with my youth group I have a rule we share what we're listening to by playing it on the stereo. I'll play any kind of music, as long as the kids vouch that it doesn't have inappropriate language in it, even if I don't like it. I also throw in music from our Lutheran friends as well! When I first started enforcing this rule, I faced a near revolt. Some students do sneak their ear-buds on, but they put up with it for the most part and sometimes I even hear them having conversations!

Have you noticed media consumption taking over the lives of the youth you work with? How do we respond to this study? What policies do you have in your youth group about media during time together? Throw some thoughts up in the comment section below. There is also a video released with the study that might provoke some additional comments or responses.

Where did I put that piece of paper that was on a Thrivent (or was it Mission Investment Fund) notepad? It had a great list of ideas that I was going to use for the Tech Geek posts. It must be somewhere. *rustle* Dig through another pile on the desk. Nope, it's not there either. If only there were a way to keep these ideas somewhere that I could always find them. Obviously to anyone who has seen it, any place in my office is not the answer.

I stumbled upon Evernote a month or two ago when I was exploring Dial2Do. It is a service that does exactly what I need a list keeper and a stack of sticky notes to do. Using Evernote I can track notes and access them from anywhere and just about any device.

First, I installed The Evernote Web Clipper extension into my FireFox browser. This lets me "save interesting stuff you see on the web. No more bookmarks, tabs, or open windows. See something you like, clip it and you'll have it forever." I also installed the Evernote for Windows application to give me direct access to my notes from a desktop application. The notes are fully accessible from any web browser at www.evernote.com. Finally, I put the iPod Touch application on my iPod Touch and I actually had the vacuum bag numbers that I needed when I was at Sears!

Along with the website, which is usable from about any Internet connected computer, net-book, or phone, Evernote has applications available for Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone/iPod Touch, Android devices, Blackberry devices, Palm Pre/Pixi, and Windows Mobile devices. Each of these will sync your notes when they have a live connection so that you are always up to date.

You can add items to your Evernote account using any of the clients above or the website. You can also e-mail to a customized e-mail address, use Dial2Do, or Tweet items into your account.

An Evernote, if that's what they're called, is a text note, an image, an audio file, or a PDF file. Free users are limited to 40MB of data transferred per month, which is a fairly generous allowance. If you start uploading every picture, you could go through that pretty quickly, but just using text like I am, it will probably take awhile.

Premium users ($5/month or $45/year) can use up to 500MB/month and upload additional types of content, including Microsoft Office documents and videos.

To learn more about Evernote, check out their page of videos at http://www.evernote.com/about/video/.

Once I find that piece of paper, I'll upload my ideas for future posts to Evernote. If you have any ideas for future posts or questions you'd like me to explore, add them in the comments or send me an e-mail them to me.

Got your Extravaganza Registrations in yet?

I imagine that many of you, like me, seldom read a printed newspaper. You may read your local paper online or you may get all of your news from Jon Stewart, America's Most Trusted Newscaster. Either way, there is something that I miss from the old newspapers I delivered during my teens. I never did read the paper all that carefully, but I do remember flipping through the pages and scanning the headlines and pictures to see what interested me. Sometimes I'd pause and read an entire article in the middle of the paper.

Google Fast Flip, a Google Labs experiment, recreates some of this experience online. Instead of flipping through one newspaper, you can flip through the web pages, complete with pictures, from a variety of sources.  The service works in all the major web browsers and also has a Mobile version which is optimized for the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android devices. You can click on a headline page to zoom in and click again to go to the original source and read the entire article. It may not sound like much to read my description, but it can be a fun way to catch up on the news of the day.

The page is broken down into 4 sections which you can customize using your Google Account. Some of them are static and others, like Topics, update depending on what or who is in the news. The sections on my page this afternoon are:

• Popular: Recent, Most Viewed, Recommended, Headlines, and My Likes
• Sections: Politics, Business, U.S., World, Sports, Sci/Tech, Entertainment, Health, Opinion, and Travel
• Topics: Hillary Clinton, Meredith Kercher, Toyota, Human Rights, Economy, Knicks, and Susan Boyle
• Sources: PRI, The Atlantic, PC World, Macworld, Technology Review, Smithsonian, and All sources.

Google is pulling information from a wide variety of online content. You can see the list by clicking on All sources. Stop reading this article and go check it out now at http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/.

P.S. - Remember to write Twenty-Ten (2010) on your checks!