Young Adults

With the school year winding down, Tufts University administrators met recently with students planning to study abroad, outlining what they should do before they leave and what to expect when they arrive. Above all, they stressed the risks - and ways to minimize them. But with an audience of young adults eager to see the world and seize adventure, it was hard to know whether the warnings truly hit home. "I think the message gets through," said Sheila Bayne, who directs the university's study-abroad program.

With the school year winding down, Tufts University administrators met recently with students planning to study abroad, outlining what they should do before they leave and what to expect when they arrive. Above all, they stressed the risks - and ways to minimize them. But with an audience of young adults eager to see the world and seize adventure, it was hard to know whether the warnings truly hit home. "I think the message gets through," said Sheila Bayne, who directs the university's study-abroad program.

One in 3 young adults with autism have no paid job experience, college or technical schooling nearly seven years after high school graduation, a study finds. That's a poorer showing than those with other disabilities including those who are mentally disabled, the researchers said. With roughly half a million autistic kids reaching adulthood in the next decade, experts say it's an issue policymakers urgently need to address. The study was done well before unemployment peaked from the recession.

Fewer American teenagers and young adults are lighting up as cigarette taxes have broken the $3-a-pack threshold in some states, making smoking too costly, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Daily smoking, the nation's leading cause of preventable illness and death, fell to 15.8 percent in 2010 among young adults ages 18 to 25, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported Thursday. That share is down from 20.4 percent in 2004.

NESS CITY, Kan. -- Eric Depperschmidt faces a hard sell whenever he talks to high school students about the virtues of their hometown. He can see the wanderlust in their eyes. "They want to run out and slam the door and never look back," he says. He tells them "not to slam the door too hard. " In recent years, a dozen or more young adults who blew out of this small town like the south winds of summer have come back, Depperschmidt, 33, included. They'd gone to college, married, had babies, and seen enough of the world to know that what they left was what they now wanted.

NEW YORK - Young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries despite the ease with which they can access a wealth of information over the Internet from the comforts of their homes, according to a new study. That's especially true for those who had questions related to health conditions, job training, and government benefits. Twenty-one percent of Americans 18 to 30 years old who have such questions have turned to public libraries, compared with about 12 percent among the general adult population with those problems to solve.

Skin cancer cases among young adults increased more than sixfold from the 1970s to the 2000s in one Minnesota county, a study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic found. The findings suggest that rates of skin cancer among the young are higher than previously reported in nationwide government data. The researchers reviewed medical records and identified 256 young adults aged 18 to 39 years old from Olmstead County, Minn., who were first diagnosed with melanoma between 1970 and 2009.

NEW YORK — All the dirty laundry younger people seem to air on social networks might lead older Americans to conclude that today’s tech-savvy generation does not care about privacy. Such an assumption fits happily with declarations that privacy is dead, as online marketers and social sites such as Facebook try to persuade people to share even more about who they are, what they are thinking, and where they are at any given time. But it is not quite true, a new study finds.

A recent study by Ohio State University found that many young adults think debt is a good thing. They feel a boost to their self-esteem from carrying credit card and education debt. Not all debt is bad, and there is some benefit to carrying debt and managing it well — you can boost your credit score which results in lower interest rates on future loans, and debt is a way to leverage your money. But there are also dangers to carrying debt. Sound financial management entails managing your debt wisely.

ATLANTA - College-age drinkers average nine drinks when they get drunk, government health officials said yesterday. That surprising statistic is part of a new report highlighting the dangers of binge drinking, which usually means four to five drinks at a time. Overall, about 1 in 6 US adults surveyed said they had binged on alcohol at least once in the previous month, though it was more than 1 in 4 for those ages 18 to 34. And that's probably an underestimate: Alcohol sales figures suggest people are buying a lot more alcohol than they say they are...

One in 3 young adults with autism have no paid job experience, college or technical schooling nearly seven years after high school graduation, a study finds. That's a poorer showing than those with other disabilities including those who are mentally disabled, the researchers said. With roughly half a million autistic kids reaching adulthood in the next decade, experts say it's an issue policymakers urgently need to address. The study was done well before unemployment peaked from the recession.

Abortion and gay marriage. For years, they've been lumped together as the paramount wedge issues of U.S. politics — hot-button topics in the vortex of sexuality, personal freedom and public policy. Yet these two divisive issues, prominent as ever this election season and still firing up the liberal and conservative bases of the two major parties, are evolving in intriguingly different ways. Partisans are taking care not to overstate how much the issues have in common. Same-sex marriage vaulted into the spotlight when President Barack Obama...

Half of U.S. adults under 30 say they have had a sunburn at least once in the past year, a government survey found — a sign young people aren't heeding the warnings about skin cancer. The rate of sunburn is about the same as it was 10 years earlier, reversing progress reported just five years ago. "I don't know that we're making any headway," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer. Experts say that even one blistering burn can double the risk of developing melanoma, an often lethal form of skin cancer.

The warnings about skin cancer from too much sun don't seem to be getting through. Half of U.S. adults under 30 say they have had a sunburn at least once in the previous year — about the same as a decade ago, according to a government survey released Thursday. In fact, the modest progress reported five years ago has been wiped out. Not only that, but women in their 20s are going to tanning salons almost twice a month on average. "I don't know that we're making any headway," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief...

By Justin A. Rice, Globe Correspondent The Beantown Jumpers qualified three teams for the 39th Annual American Double Dutch League World Championships during Saturday's Massachusetts State Double Dutch League Tournament at Northeastern University. The World Championships will be in Sumter, SC from June 14 to 16. The Beantown Jumpers seventh-grade doubles team, nicknamed the Beantown Bombsquad (Ella James, Joselyn Cotto, Janelle Vasquez and Juliette Silva), qualified for Worlds along with the Beantown Jumpers...

I vividly recall the 1978 TV documentary "Scared Straight," about inmates serving anywhere from 25 years to life trying to scare juvenile delinquents from ending up in prison themselves. The intervention was raw. It was scary. Zac Bissonnette, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst last year, has in many ways copied the "Scared Straight" tactic, hoping to prevent young adults from making the same financial mistakes their parents and other Americans have made.

A troubled, gun-wielding 23-year-old student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute goes on a campus rampage, killing 32 people and eventually himself. An MIT student commits suicide by ingesting cyanide, and another dies in a fire after an overdose. Such highly publicized occurrences underscore the sense of personal angst on today's college campuses. But contrary to popular belief, the stress young people experience has nothing to do with meeting the demands of higher education. It comes simply with being a newly minted adult.

I vividly recall the 1978 TV documentary "Scared Straight," about inmates serving anywhere from 25 years to life trying to scare juvenile delinquents from ending up in prison themselves. The intervention was raw. It was scary. Zac Bissonnette, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst last year, has in many ways copied the "Scared Straight" tactic, hoping to prevent young adults from making the same financial mistakes their parents and other Americans have made.

I was moved reading Joseph P. Kahn's article "Inclusion 2012: Headed to Harvard, four BC High classmates share bond of diversity" (Page A1, April 18). I feel that this article has some strong messages. The success of these fine young men should be an inspiration for other young adults. It shows that America, after all these years, is still a melting pot, and that background and cultural differences do not stand in the way of bonding and friendship. However, the even more important message is the wealth of opportunities that this country still makes available if one is...

Skin cancer cases among young adults increased more than sixfold from the 1970s to the 2000s in one Minnesota county, a study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic found. The findings suggest that rates of skin cancer among the young are higher than previously reported in nationwide government data. The researchers reviewed medical records and identified 256 young adults aged 18 to 39 years old from Olmstead County, Minn., who were first diagnosed with melanoma between 1970 and 2009.