anastasia, on her ypulse blog (are there any youth workers who don’t have her blog bookmarked? come on!) reports on a harris interactive study that includes a bunch of statistics on youth spending, the reality that parents don’t pay attention to or understand video game/tv/movie ratings and interesting research on U.S. vs. Chinese youth.

anastasia highlights “the Ambitions Index” showing what youth are dreaming about doing someday.

– 54 percent of 8-12 year olds and and 66 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Travel the world.”

– 46 percent of 8-12 year olds and 59 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Speak another language”

– 40 percent of 8-12 year olds and 36 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Invent something”

– 40 percent of 8-12 year olds and 42 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “See a rainforest”

– 28 percent of 8-12 year olds and 26 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Fly a plane”

– 26 percent of 8-12 year olds and 20 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Be in the Guiness Book of World Records”

– 24 percent of 8-12 year olds and 21 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Go to Mars”

– 18 percent of 8-12 year olds and 30 percent of 13-21 year olds want to try “Bungee jumping”

– 16 percent of 8-12 year olds and 31 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Sky dive”

– 20 percent of 8-12 year olds and 28 percent of 13-21 year olds want to go “Whitewater rafting”

– 16 percent of 8-12 year olds and 23 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Climb a Mountain”

– 15 percent of 8-12 year olds and 42 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Live in another country.”

– 11 percent of 8-12 year olds and 12 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Bike across country”

– 11 percent of 8-12 year olds and 20 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Backpack across country”

– 9 percent of 8-12 year olds and 19 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Run a marathon”

– 6 percent of 8-12 year olds and 10 percent of 13-21 year olds want to “Finish a triathlon”