YouthFacts seeks to debunk the barrage of modern mistruths about youth, restore a climate of fairness and integrity when discussing youth issues, advance verifiable and evidence-based information to better inform youth policy, enhance the integration of youth into democratic and multi-cultural citizenship, and build a culture that values and trusts its young people.

We have grown increasingly alarmed at the inability or refusal of aging America to respond rationally to clear, dramatic generational changes in crime, violence, drug abuse, mortality, AIDS, imprisonment, and social and political attitudes over the last 30 to 40 years.

The future of our diverse society demands more factual, alternative information and discussion than today's stifling consensus.

Spotlight

• New book by YouthFacts author challenges rampant myths
• In memory of Andrea Zojourner, generous benefactor and friend (1949-2008)
• FREE: Dynamic factual new book on California youth
• Why are books on teens today so atrocious?

Latest News

Banning youths from streets may make us less safe

Why curfews fail. Bloomberg News published our op-ed on why cities' response to newly manufactured panics over "flash mobs" and ongoing fears of "youth on the streets" resurrected a self-defeating curfew stampede that wastes police time removing law-abiding youth from the streets.

"Alarming" CASA study linking teen social media use, TV watching, and drug/alcohol use may have been rigged

After using crudely fraudulent methodology to rig yet another overwrought junk study---this one claiming that Facebook, MySpace, "Skins," "Gossip Girl," and other social and popular media impel teens to use drugs, alcohol, and tobacco---it is time for funders, Columbia University, political authorities, and the news media to shun Joseph Califano, Jr., and his anti-scholarly Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) and end the influence of this tirelessly senseless crusade to malign young people and warp sensible drug policy.

Not "youth violence" again...

President Obama launches his 2012 reelection campaign with a triple attack against young people, a legacy of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s cowardly Clinton-era politics of generational fearmongering. The White House’s calculated efforts to win “values” voters’ support by cynically trashing America’s young as bullies, rapists, and violent criminals—and its conspicuous silence on genuine but impolitic issues like youth poverty and child abuse—demonstrate the growing dishonesty of an administration that promised change and hope to win young people’s enthusiasm, then delivered the same old bigoted anti-youth clichés and exploitation.

"Teens and Torture"--more atrocious "alternative media" misreporting on youth, featuring dubious survey

The Huffington Post and Daily Beast continue their atrocious culture-war hate campaigns against modern youth with junk reporting uncritically recycling the unfounded claim from a scam survey that teens (but not adults) "support torture." On youth issues, there is no "alternative" or "progressive" media--right to left, corporate to alternative, it's all the same old anti-youth panics.

The White House's selective anti-rape politics

President Obama launches his 2012 reelection campaign with a triple attack against young people, a legacy of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s cowardly Clinton-era politics of generational fearmongering. The White House’s calculated efforts to win “values” voters’ support by cynically trashing America’s young as bullies, rapists, and violent criminals—and its conspicuous silence on genuine but impolitic issues like youth poverty and child abuse—demonstrate the growing dishonesty of an administration that promised change and hope to win young people’s enthusiasm, then delivered the same old bigoted anti-youth clichés and exploitation.

Very few teens suffer eating disorders

New study finds that contrary to the panics spread by media and interest groups bent on convincing teenagers they're all crazy, very few teenagers suffer from eating disorders.

White House "bullying summit" plays to the cheap seats

President Obama launches his 2012 reelection campaign with a triple attack against young people, a legacy of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s cowardly Clinton-era politics of generational fearmongering. The White House’s calculated efforts to win “values” voters’ support by cynically trashing America’s young as bullies, rapists, and violent criminals—and its conspicuous silence on genuine but impolitic issues like youth poverty and child abuse—demonstrate the growing dishonesty of an administration that promised change and hope to win young people’s enthusiasm, then delivered the same old bigoted anti-youth clichés and exploitation. The White House summit on bullying, like the President's sudden concern over gay teens' suicides, really shows how limited and selective Americans' compassion for young people is. Poverty, family abuses, and abandonment kill far more teens, gay and straight, but we rarely hear about these distressing realities amid politician, expert, and media eagerness to exploit easy crowd-pleasers like "student bullying."

National campaign responds to YF New York Times op-ed debunking "sexting" and other "teen legends"

National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, responding to YF's New York Times op-ed debunking myths about teens, adds another myth by weirdly denying the Campaign ever hyped "sexting"--proving again why they're right to be embarrassed about their record.

"90 pregnant teens at one Memphis high school" media splash turns out to be just grownup gossip

"90 pregnant teens at one Memphis high school"! Like the equally nonexistent Gloucester "teen pregnancy pact," this turns out to be just another phony media splash, a YouthFacts investigation finds. But not before Girls Inc., Kim Kardashian, and a host of other grandstanders grabbed some national limelight spreading moralistic foolishness and rotten statistics.

Critics of students' critical thinking ain't either

Strange, isn't it, how all the academics, experts, news reporters, and commentators deploring the lack of "critical thinking" and "rigor" among today's students fail to display rigorous critical thinking themselves?

Obama-endorsed Lilly Ledbetter "fair pay" act perpetuates wage discrimination against young

The so-called "fair pay act" promoted by President Obama perpetuates and may even worsen arbitrary wage discrimination against younger workers (as well as female and Hispanic workers, who tend to be young) and worsen the massive, growing income and wealth gap between older and already poorer, deb-ridden younger generations.

New York Times public editor will scrutinize "fake trends"

The New York Times Public Editor, responding to a detailed complaint by YouthFacts about a story on cyberbullying, agrees the story was not well documented and promises greater scrutiny of "fake trends" reports. We contend that news stories alleging supposed epidemics of teenage bullying, hooking up, sexting, dating violence, narcissism, online dangers, depression, and similar "fake trends" feature inflammatory claims, severe "problem inflation," and chronically violate fair and factual reporting standards. Dateline NBC's "My Kid Would Never Bully" is another case in point, critically reviewed here.

Student Postings on Youth Issues

Outstanding student journalism. A major YouthFacts frustration is that youths faill to stand up for themselves, many preferring either to hide their real lives until they age or to ally with adults against their peers. That's why Redwood High School's (Marin County, California) sophisticated Redwood Bark student newspaper series of editorials on targeting teens" and youth rights is so refreshing, as well as a model for the skepticism and research the mainstream and alternative media should be following, but aren't.