South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world [the article says "lower even than neighboring Japan" -- that sounds like an "oh snap!" to me. A dorky, demography "oh snap!". "Your birth rate is SO low...it's lower than Japan's! BURN!], and increasing the birth rate is a priority of the government. Because of the low birth rate, South Korea is experiencing an aging society which has ramifications including decreased levels of manpower and production, as well as increased health care costs. The Ministry of Health (which is sometimes jokingly referred to as the "Ministry of Matchmaking") is trying to come up with incentives to encourage people to have children. They are starting to experiment with incentives for their staff (they believe their staff should lead by example). Gift vouchers are given to officials who have more than one child. The department organizes social gatherings with the hopes of setting up its workers. Now they are trying out a new experiment: Today they are closing down the Ministry of Health building to encourage workers to go home and, essentially, get down to baby-making. They plan to repeat this experiment every month. Eww...There's just something gross about your bosses canceling work because they want you to go have sex. Hopefully they don't start demanding proof...
Critics say what is really needed is actual incentives: widescale reforms to address the expensive cost of childcare and education that prevents many young people from having kids. (Full Story)
A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that the average young American (age 8 to 18) spends 7.5 hours a day using an electronic device such as a smart phone, computer, television, etc. This number represents recreational media use and does not include school-related media use. The 7.5 hours also does not include the hour and a half that they spend texting or the thirty minutes they talk on their cellphones. Moreover, because so many multi-task (e.g., surf the internet will listening to their ipod), they actually pack an average of 11 hours of media content into that 7.5 hours. The study was last conducted five years ago, and back then young Americans spent an average of 6.5 hours a day using electronic devices.
The study found that heaviest media users (those who consumed media for at least 16 hours a day) reported a similar amount of time exercising as the light media users (those who consumed media three hours a day or less). But they added that other studies have established a link between screen time and obesity. In addition, while most of the young people in the study got good grades, 47% of heavy users had mostly C's or lower compared to 23% of light users. Moreover, the study found that the heaviest media users were more likely than the lightest users to report they were bored or sad, that they got in trouble, that they did not get along well with their parents, and that they were not happy at school. The study could not say whether the media use was the cause of the problems, or that troubled youths were more likely to turn to heavy media use. (Full Story)
As a side note, my spellcheck is telling me I have the following misspelled words: texting, internet (they want it capitalized), and ipod. My spellcheck needs to get with the times...
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