Tag: Survey

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UIO Launches Wait Awhile For Teenage Girls

UIO, the podcast for teen girls, launched our  Wait Awhile initiative, to encourage teenage girls to slow down and reclaim their teenage years to avoid unnecessary regrets. For years now, I have watched the world of teenage girls change rather radically.  I had suspected for some time that due to modern day pressures, girls were being sexualised earlier and earlier, narrowing the gap between being a girl and a woman.

Our Wait Awhile survey not only confirms my concerns but also reveals the hidden story behind the trend that is seeing an increase in pressures such as sexting, tattooing, cosmetic surgery and missing out on real life experiences and often with regret.

In our news regularly now, we are hearing and seeing tragic stories about self-harm and even suicide. Much of the pressure does come from social media but social media does not happen in a vacuum.  Teenage girls tell me that this notion of being perfect and happy all the time is impossible to live up to on and offline and to try, whether it is by filtering photographs online or trying to fit into an uncomfortable space offline, requires great compromise and can therefore cause unprecedented stress and anxiety.

UIO, through our podcasts and our Wait Awhile initiative, want to relieve girls of this undue pressure. Admittedly, the teen years have always been a challenge but the modern day pressures for girls are unprecedented.

We want to hear from you–teen girls and have provided a platform on our page for you to talk about your experiences, tell us how we can help and how others can help, too.  One thing we are already doing is supporting The Telegraph’s statutory duty of care effort to be imposed on social media companies to better protect children from online harms, as related to teenage girls.

Keep watching this space for more on Wait Awhile, you can follow us on Twitter (@uiowaitawhile). And if you missed it, you can catch up with my recent BBC television appearance on the Victoria Derbyshire show on 23rd April 2019 via iplayer until mid-May.  As always, it is all about you, the teenage girl.

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New Podcast Released on Rising Above Odds

As we launch the third podcast in our new series, Rising Above Odds, more research on matters related to young people has topped the news. Loneliness is felt more intensely by 16 to 24-year olds than any other group in the UK, according to a survey by BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust.

Rising Above Odds is timely indeed, offering tips on how to deal with any seemingly insurmountable situation. Loneliness, with the onslaught of emptiness that it brings, tends to cause feelings of hopelessness and despair.

The good news is that these feelings can be managed. Still, respondents who had more friends on Facebook, for example, than real life friends felt the forlornness more than others. Not surprisingly, this theme is consistent with the high use of social media but as pointed out in Your Online Wellbeing Inside Out, there is a healthy and happy medium for engaging in social media, including making new real friends. It’s not so much about spending too much time on social media as it is about spending too little time doing other things that matter such as reading, daydreaming, exercising and so on, according to our guest for the episode Nicola Morgan. The mind really does care about how we spend our time.

In addition, this week’s guest Hannilee Fish points out that every single person is valuable and worthy and suggests engaging in sports and practicing mindfulness to overcome any difficult situation. For more insight, listen on Itunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, Soundcloud or Spotify or simply add a feedreader and subscribe to our rss feed to get UIO podcasts automatically.

Coming up in mid-October is On Dating Inside Out with Cat Williams, founder of Stay Calm and Content No Matter What Life Throws At You. Stay Tuned!

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New Survey Out: Feedback Invaluable To Improve Podcast

The feedback for the UIO: You Inside Out podcast for teenage girls continues to be invaluable for its development and improvement. Thanks to each and every girl who completed the UIO survey.

Overwhelmingly you confirmed that a podcast for teenage girls just might be a good thing. Phew! Thank you for that. And the topic that you most wanted to hear about was family. That’s great news, too.

To this end, the Your Family Inside Out episode will come out in June. More on that later and the other subjects coming up, including Body Image, Mind and Peer Pressure!

For now, I want to tell you about a new survey, designed for feedback on the episodes. Only ten questions long, the UIO survey for episodes is designed to get your feedback so that I can improve the podcast episodes as we go along.

How cool is that! So if you have listened to Your Confidence Inside Out, check out the survey on the podcast webpage and also on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In the meantime, wishing you a Happy (Healthy) Easter.