Les Miserables...Larger Than Life

Les Miserables...larger than life - brad howell

I had the great opportunity to take in Les Miserables on Christmas Day. What an experience...at least I knew what I was in for. Others we brought with us...well, not so much.

Three minutes into the film, my sister leans over to me and asks if they will be singing the entire movie.

Yup, that's about how it works...sorry for the Wolverine bait and switch.

But as they say in the rest of the world, if not at least in France...C'est la vie!

A couple of decades ago I had seen the broadway style musical. Maybe it was my youth or maybe it was because all that I could afford was the cheap seats in the nose bleed section, but for the whole thing, I never knew what was going on. For all of these years I thought the good guys won. Didn't they in history?

The only thing I knew with any certainty was that things truly were miserable. Miserable for the hero...miserable for me...

For those of us that are theater challenged, the story line in the movie production is far easier to track. This truly is a good thing. But the movie version is far more gut wrenching. Its gritty, difficult at times to watch, and personally walks you through a truly horrible world experience. As for the singing...well its better than Momma Mia and if you can get past that every phrase is a lyric, the movie is well worth the extraordinarily long sit through.

Just remember the popcorn so you can blame tearing up on the salt...

This Year: Resolve to Text Your Teen More

As it stands, the teens in our household do not have texting on their phones. Our high schoolers get it from two angles. As a researcher of adolescent social media use, I don't necessarily want them growing up experiencing the cellphone as an extension of their friendship cluster. As an accountant, my wife sees no financial reason to do it.

brad howell

Poor kids - if they ever want to do anything, they pretty much have to pay for it themselves.

However - within boundaries - I do not believe teen texting is bad!

I actually think its a positive trend and a great way for teens to interact with each other when they are not physically present.

It certainly is less disruptive to the family than the days when teens would tie up a land line for hours on end.

Teens need the support that their friendships provide. Texting can be a healthy supplement to that. It works for parents too!

Almost every parent who texts their teens feels closer to them. The majority of teens who text with their parents in turn also feel closer to them.

Teens and parents feeling closer to each other? Sounds like a positive outcome for a counter-intuitive New Year's Resolution...

The Unanswered Question of Skyfall: Is James Bond Bisexual?

***SPOILER ALERT***

The latest Bond is loaded with all of the action you would expect it to be, but what you might not expect is an inference that 007 may have had a previous bisexual experience.

What are we supposed to make of that?

The villan of Skyfall uses overwhelming amounts of cyber technology to confuse, manipulate and dismantle the world of MI6. It is a form of sensory overload that seems quite effective at creating disruptive mayhem in the life of the English spy community.

For James Bond though, our perpetrator uses a very different form of sensory overload: homosexual eroticism. 

Chained to a chair, in submission to his captor, it seems that a hyper-heterosexual such as James Bond would come unglued by this type of torture - yet Bond side steps the advance with a simple question: "What makes you think this is my first time?"

This is an interesting social commentary.

The movie seems to suggest that we are easily overwhelmed by cyber technology, running in fear of those who seem intuitively capable of manipulating it for their own ends; in contrast, while homosexuality may still make some feel uncomfortable, we need not be afraid of this form of sensory overload - it has become common place...even in longstanding institutions such as the 50 year old James Bond franchise.

What do you think? Is this part of a systematic agenda to reframe human sexuality or the reflection of a culture that embraces various forms of sexual expression?

When To Make Sure You Say 'Goodbye' Online

© Rhphotos | Dreamstime.comBe

Among social media users, younger teens are the most likely to filter online interactions only from their own perspective of reality. They have little capacity to view life from another's shoes without being prompted to do so. Additionally, they use their new found Internet independence to gather positive interactions with people they know online - they are very in tune with whether interactions would suggest you like them or not. Consequently, more than anyone else in your SM network, younger teens are the most likely to get a sense that they have been ignored online. This seems to be especially true of younger females, but there are plenty examples of young men that are quick to send an IM the moment they see a green icon light up online and looking for affirmation from you.

Teens reaching out to you online is a great thing - it reveals that they value your relationship. Using social media to reinforce relationships with younger teens in your life is good for them - it helps build 'social capital' - an important ingredient on the journey to adulthood. The reason they view the interaction pretty much only from their definition of reality is because they are concrete thinkers. It goes with the territory. So, when the conversation needs to be wrapped up (and it would practically never end without a pop up video of a dancing kitten), it is an important practice to concretely end the conversation with a solid 'good-bye'.

And, for good measure, why not throw in an emoticon? Everyone loves to stick out their tongue when they get the chance...no?!

  

Want to Feel Closer To Your Teen? Text Them

© Stanislav Butygin | Dreamstime.com

One supporting area teens need to successfully transition from childhood to adulthood is a sense of closeness to emotionally encouraging adults - like parents for example. Feelings of closeness is about the strengths of bonds between parents and kids. Like all needs, closeness is rated from the perspective of the child, not the parent. To that end, research indicates that almost 2/3 of teens feel closer to their parents when they exchange text messages with them. That in itself is a pretty good reason to start adding text messages to your relational connection repertoire. For parents however, the number who feel closer to their teens when texting them jumps to 90%. That means almost every parent can feel closer to their teen by exchanging texts. Though no technological tool can replace a quality offline relationship, positive affirmation is always a good thing, and good things tend to replicate themselves.

So send a text to your kids today...just wait until they get out of school to do it - their teachers will thank you.

R U An Inadvertent Cyber Bully?

Have you ever left an app with instant message abilities open on a different tab or even different window? Then you might have been a cyber bully perpetrator and didn't even know it!

© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com

This is common practice for many of us to have multiple tabs open online at the same time. Some of those tabs are open to social media sites like Facebook that have IM features to it. No big deal?

Well, probably not, unless you have any early adolescents as part of your IM contacts.

Cyber bullying is most prevalent among younger teens. More than half of teens who have experienced cyber bullying in the past several months are most likely to report that the form of bullying was by being ignored online.

That's right...being ignored.

This can happen intentionally, but it can also happen accidentally. Early adolescents tend to be concrete thinkers, they take the world at face value - everything is what it appears to be. Mr. Bean is a caricature of this. If they want to IM with you and your online icon is lit up, then subconsciously to an early adolescent you are available.

But if you are not? The lack of response is unnerving to a young person.

However, there is hope!

If you have a habit have using multiple tabs, make sure your message alerts are activated. If you are going to be away from your computer for a while, take the time to log off any IM enabled sites. Finally, teach younger teens and pre-teens to understand that a lit icon does not necessarily mean another person is there. They can understand this, they just need prompting. Also, teach them to be aware of how their icons may appear to their friends. This learned behavior can vastly reduce the number of perceived cyber bullying incidences.

How have you seen misunderstandings happen online because people were not physically sharing the same space?

Is Mr. Bean Really That Funny?

The presence of Mr. Bean was one of a several entertaining highlights in last week's Olympic opening ceremonies. There are those who find him painfully funny and other's who simply dismiss him as British humor. Regardless, Mr. Bean is one of the few characters that is embraced across a wide range of cultures. Why?

Rowan Atkinson has described this character as a 10 year old boy trapped in a grown man's body. 10 year old boys intuitively accept the world at face value. On top of that, this particular 'trapped' boy appears to be fairly introverted and has an aversion to using verbal skills. An adult encountering the world as a 10 year old boy creates a sense of awkwardness that is rather humorous, if not painfully so. This childhood experience is shared across many cultures, even if adulthood has slammed it out of us. This is a life stage experience we tend to forget.

For my friends who either work with pre-teens or find opportunities to engage them online, Mr Bean is worth a second look. There are some adults who expect pre-teens to act like grown ups online and get frustrated when they don't. But the reality is that they can't - they are not adults! If you need a reminder of what the world looks to a 10 year old boy, watch some Mr. Bean sketches - he paints a great caricature of life as a boy in a world that expects more from him!

What's your favorite Mr. Bean moment? Do you see him as a 10 year old?