To a teenager, "When I was your age" usually signals that an adult is about to hold forth on just how different -- and awful -- the world is these days. But the latest version of an annual study, out today, suggests that since the mid-1970s a few key features of teens' lives have remained essentially the same.
Among the most vivid similarities: Today's teens read about as well (or as poorly) as their parents did a generation ago and aren't much more likely to have earned a high school diploma.
Also unchanged: suicide rates. Then, as now, they were about 4.5%
The study, by the Foundation for Child Development, a New York-based private philanthropy group, tracked well-being measures for two groups a generation apart, comparing three-year spreads of statistics from 1975 to 1977 with the same measures in 2003 to 2005.
It found that although a few things have changed substantially -- family mobility is down, teen birth rates are down and rates of smoking, drinking and drug use are on the decline -- teenagers today read no better than their parents did, though their math skills have improved slightly.
The academic results come from a series of tests administered nationwide by the federal government that show a 28-year statistical flat line for 13- and 17-year-olds in reading and modest jumps in math.
Two possible culprits: More students enter school today with English as their second language, and video games and the Internet are ubiquitous, meaning teens spend less time reading after school and in the evening.
"It's a matter of competing opportunities for spending time," says Kenneth Land, a Duke University sociology and demography professor who coordinates the foundation's Child Well-Being Index, published since 2004. Such cultural changes, he says, "have been quite substantial."
Actually, Land notes, it's amazing that the results aren't worse.
"We haven't lost ground in these test scores, despite the fact that teachers and school systems have to deal with quite a different student population than a generation ago, as well as changes in lifestyles," he says.
High school graduation rates have inched up, from 80.6% to 82.7%. Among other findings -- many of which have been widely reported -- teenagers these days are:
*At much lower risk of death from accidents, violence or disease.
*Slightly more likely to live below the poverty line.
*Substantially more likely to be overweight or obese.
*Less likely to attend church but more likely to believe religion is important.
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