Podcast research URLs

Oops! I forgot to mention what websites I used to research about teenage suicide!

Here's the works cited page^^

Works Cited

“About Teen Suicide”. Kids Health from Nemours. June 2008. 19 December 2009. http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/suicide.html#

“Teenage suicide in the United States”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 16 December 2009.
21 December 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_suicide_in_the_United_States

“Teenage Suicide Prevention”. TEEN SUICIDE. 21 December 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_suicide_in_the_United_States

Podcast Evaluation

A. Investigate


Before we started researching about podcast, we interviewed peers and one of our parents to ask about their teenage life. I interviewed five friends and my mom. While I was interviewing people, I was very busy since it was the time which I came back to UB from Seoul. Therefore I was rushing through all the processes, and I realized that I should have worked on these interviews while I was in Korea. Interviewing was not a hard work to do; creating some questions about adolescence, send the notes to people, and organizing and publishing their answers were basically all the processes I was supposed to do. However, bad time managing has resulted me being procrastinating, and cramming. Therefore, I thought a good plan and pushing myself to follow the plan were very important.


Investigating about podcast was a very interesting task, especially when I was listening to some examples of podcasts. I was supposed to research what podcast is and how it is made. Also I needed to listen to at least three different podcasts in order to get some ideas that what I should include in my podcast. While I was researching, I was able to learn a lot about podcast. I have heard of podcast, but I did not know much about how it is created. Through out researching, I got information of the definition of podcast, and how people, or an organization explain their thoughts or ideas through podcasting. (I firstly thought that podcast was one of products from Apple company :p) Furthermore, iTunes helped me a lot while I was struggling to find examples of podcasts. I listened to podcasts that were based on sciences and meditation for teenagers. All three podcasts were very informative, and I was very impressed by the way how they speak; very clear with nice music. No mistakes... (While I was recording my script, it was VERY hard to finish it without making mistakes!)


I think I could've done some more researches on podcast, because when I was publishing a podcast, the recording system was not in a very good quality, and it was pretty hard to record it without any noise. I could've researched what equipmetns that I could use in order to record in a better way. I finished investigating on time, but I was sort of rushing in the end. I always mention it on my evaluation, but I seriously need to manage my time better. From now on, I should make myself to work on a project everyday, even though I use only a few minutes on it, so that I can get used with good time management without procrastination.

B. Design

Brainstorming for podcast designs were very interesting. Since the topic needed to be related to adolescence, I wrote down some ideas; however, most of them were sort of depressing. (such as teen suicide, stereotypes, etc) Because I'm also a teenager, I think making a design on these topics tend to be easy. When I was working on some previous projects, I needed some further research in order to get some sketch, or design ideas. But for this one, a lot of ideas just came into my head.

My three designs were based on: teenage suicide, wild teen life (drugs, smoking...) and stereotypes. I thought these themes were very interesting for me, and since the I chose topics that I liked, it was pretty easy to organize what I'm going to put for my podcast.

The final design, which was about teenage suicide, was created well without any big problems. I didn't want to make my podcast to controversy (since the topic itself is already controversy), so I just organized some simple lists of what would be included as contents.

I posted the designs on time, and I think there were no big problems happened while I was working on the process. One thing that might be weakness of my designs is that I got some ideas from some of my friends designs. I did not exactly follow what I was going to put in my podcast, but when I couldn't come up with some topics, I looked into others' blogs and got a few from theirs. Lucklily, I do not think no body else worked on teen suicide for thier final product, but I think I could've come up with some more original ideas. Therefore, I need to spend more time to consider what topics might be original enough and creative so that I could make better designs.

C. Plan

Creating plan was a very complicated process, especially for this project. I created a plan that I could work on my product during the break; however, the plan didn't work at all. The plan was specific enough, with all the steps I need to do and how much time I should spend for each day. But the problem was that A) since it was break, there were some other events that I did not expect, which I could not follow the plan as I planned, B) many people were on a trip to other countries, which made me hard to interview them. Even though I could contact them through the internet, the time difference was also a problem. On the whole, the plan seemed it was impossible to follow.

Then I created a new plan. It's not like a totally different plan, but I re-organized it. I wrote down the dates that I actually worked and followed the plan. After that I put some changes on it.

Making a plan always helps me to be organized and disciplined. However, I still need to be more used with following plans, and creating a realistic one.

D. Create

For create process, I wrote my scipt for the podcast, recorded it, and published the podcast. Writing script was very fun, and I really enjoyed writing my script. The information that I got from websites about teenage suicide helped me to make my script more interesting. I included causes of teen suicide, some interviews and ways to prevent suicides. I was kind of worried that what if people feel bored about my contents of podcast; however, after I asked for several people to read my script, the result was pretty good. People enjoyed reading my script, and they were looking forward to listen to my podcast.

Then I recorded my podcast. First, I used iPod voice recorder, but there were so much noises so my voice was not clear enough. Then I used my laptop recorder, and the quality of voice was better. The thing that annoyed me so much was that I made so many mistakes while I was recording. I tried to record the entire script without pausing the recorder, but it was impossible. I sometimes pronounced words awkwardly, and I often skipped some lines while I was recording. Then I decided to record one paragraph at one time. So, overall there were about 9 recordings, and I used moviemaker to combine them into one mp3 file. Since I recorded my script separately, my voice tend to sound different for each recording, so the flow of the voice was not smooth enough. I thought if I had a professional equipment to record the script, I think it would have been better. After I published my podcast and listened to it, I felt kind of funny since I was listening to the recording of my own voice :p. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting process.

The biggest problem that I faced while I was working on podcast was testing my podcast. My original plan was to publish on youtube and ask for people to listen to my podcast and make a comment either on my blog or facebook. I've sent messages to people so that they could listen to my podcast; however, it was exam week and everyone was busy. So, no one actually made a comment about my podcast. Therefore, I needed to ask my classmates face-to-face to listen to my podcast. I put the link on my blog and after they listened to my podcast, they made some comments. They were saying that my voice was not very clear, but the contents were interesting and very related to adolescence. So I think that the result of testing is pretty good, even though I had to change my testing plan.

To sum up, making a podcast was very new to me, and I learned a lot from this project. I learned not only about podcasts, but also some facts about teenagers and their lives. Sometimes I felt we spent too much time on this project, and I got sort of bored. However, after I'm done with all the processes, I think it was an unique experience that gave me a lot of information. :)

Podcast Plan with changes added

There have been a lot of changes occurring to my plan. The biggest change was about the interviews. I was going to interview people about teenage suicide during break; however, many of them left to other countries for vacation, and I was not able to keep in touch with them. Therefore, the previous plan that I was going to interview people during the break needed to be canceled. Also, I skipped some of plans during the break, and now I noticed that I was wasting so much time during the break.

Click the image to view it larger :)

Podcast Final Product

Dear Audiences :)

I finally published my podcast!
Here's the link:
http://hayoungr.podOmatic.com/entry/2010-01-18T22_18_37-08_00

Please listen to my podcast and make a comment on my blog^_^ Thanks!






"Teenage Suicides... Yes or No?"

Image Cited

"Schools Confront Teen Suicide". Edutopia. October 2006. 26 January 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_suicide_in_the_United_States

Podcast Script

“Mom, dad... I’m tired of everything… and now, I think it is time to end up. I love you, goodbye.” (Pause) Several months ago, I found an image of letter that was written with blood while I was web surfing. It was from a teen girl, making a farewell to her beloved parents, saying that she doesn’t want to live anymore. Then, there was a big argument whether it was a right decision of her to finish her life this early. Well, I do not know what happened to the girl after she wrote her letter, and yet I wished that she did not commit suicide.

(Short pause)

Hello everyone. My name is HY, and I’m an ordinary sixteen year old girl. Today I’m going to talk about teenage suicide. Many of you probably have heard of teenagers committing suicide on newspaper, magazines, and even on TV programs. Teenage suicide is becoming a big social issue and the rate of suicides has increased rapidly these days. Even though there is a low rate of children committing suicide, it starts to increase amazingly during adolescence. According to CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teenage suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15 to 24 old teenagers and adults. If so, what would be the main causes for these “young adults” to commit suicide? People might just say that too much schoolwork or having a bad family relationship would be the main reasons. Well, they ARE some parts of the causes. However, I want to remind people that there are actually more than those two factors that teenagers finish their lives.

To begin with, I’m going to tell you some of suicide causes. The first one is bad family relationship. Adolescence is the time that teenagers become very sensitive and easy to get stressed or tired. Also, it is time which their parents should encourage their children from any hardships by giving encouraging words or some advice. However, if there is a crack on one’s family relationship, teenagers can easily get bad impacts. Divorce of parents, domestic violence, unemployment of parents or household financial problems may give fatal harms on teenagers both physically and mentally. Teenagers are not like little children who don’t know or don’t care about those problems. Most of teens are already mentally matured enough, and of course, they definitely would get pressured and depressed from bad house circumstances. They are afraid that something unexpected would happen to their family, like parents divorcing. Fear and anger toward parents… If teenagers are under these environments for a long time, they become mentally exhausted and reach the moment where they just want to give up everything by crossing the river of no return.

How would you feel after you had an argument with your friends? A bit frustrated, and depressed as well, right? Then how would you feel if you get bullied from others? What if you do not have any friends that can understand you and warm your heart? The second suicide reason is related to friends. Teenagers spend a lot of time with their friends sharing their interests and hobbies as well as telling their concerns and get cheered up from each other. In other words, teenagers need friends to express their thoughts. But what if friends turn their back on you? Personally, I would be VERY depressed. We, the humans, are social animals. We are not able to live without having any social interactions. Becoming a victim of bullying, or became socially rejected from others may give serious damage to one’s mental health. Hence, teenagers are very easily to get mental disorders, such as depression, since they can be very emotional at some moments. And if it lasts for a long time… unfortunately, yes, committing suicides might happen as a result.

School is probably one of the most important things from a teen’s life. Teenagers learn new things and have social interactions at schools. Likewise, school will be the place that teenagers would spend most of their time except their homes. The problem is that, what if they do not enjoy their school life and get stressed every day? What if they get bad grades on their studies and starting to lose hope that they can do it better next time? There are some students who are very sensitive at getting grades, and if they are not satisfied with their grades, some of them just burst into tears and they are in a panic. Sometimes there are some teenagers who just end up their lives because they became depressed and thought there is no hope for them.

Drug abuse is also becoming a very big issue among teenagers these days. Some teenagers start going on drugs because of their ultimate curiosity or occasionally by peer pressure; however, they did not notice that drugs are very fatal that can lead them to death. Once teens are addicted to drugs, they just can’t help it. They want drugs more and more. The overdose of drugs just leads these poor teenagers to finish their lives so that they can get away from addiction.

So, you’ve heard some factors that lead teenagers to commit suicide, and now I’d like to ask you this question: how do you think of teenagers committing suicide? Five teenagers already have answered the question. For their personal privacy, their names will not be read out loud. Then let me read their responses.

Teen A responded that “Teen suicide is a very depressing topic because it’s extremely hard to try and relate to these teenagers. There are many different reasons why teens commit suicide and she thinks most of them are not feasible. You have your whole life ahead of you and of course there will be times when you are unhappy and have problems but that doesn’t mean that you should kill yourself. Whenever you have a problem the answer is not to kill yourself.”

Teen B said that “committing suicide is a way for some people to get away from their stress and problems. Since most of them take their life away because they feel bad about something or stressed out, she thinks it is a serious issue for those people and she would advise them to seek professional help. It is a terrific thought of taking away your own life and she certainly believes that there are other ways to manage with stress problems. There are still much better ways to handle this situation rather than committing suicide.”

Teen C also made a comment that apparently “girls tend to think about suicide twice as much as boy do, yet four times as many boys die from suicide. Teenagers struggle to see the point of dealing with some troublesome situations and/or feel as if they can’t handle them. She believes teen suicide is a waste of a life which still has so much left in it.

So, Teen A, B and C suggest that teenage suicide should not happen.

Then Teen D answered in sort of different way. “She doesn’t think suicide is something that she has much experienced with. She doesn’t know any people who have done it. However, through watching movies and documentaries she has seen some of the factors that indicate whether a person commit suicide or not. She does not think suicide is that common in her environment here in Mongolia because of the support we can get from friends, family and school, all things which can make a person commit suicide. Overall, she was in neutral whether teen suicide is right or wrong since she did not have any experiences.”

Lastly, Teen E replied with a lot of background information. He thinks that “teen suicide is a colossal problem in the world, especially in the US and East Asian countries. The major cause of this is stress from school. This is not such a great issue in the States, where the only problem teenagers face is the conflict between students, and assimilating into the school society, but in countries like Korea, Japan, and China, the issues are aggravated by the competition of “academics” for admission of college, as well as corporal punishment. It has been studied that one of the largest adolescent suicide rates come from Korea, where students prepare to go to college ever since elementary school.” Wow, thanks for very detailed info.

(Short Pause)

Most of responses tend to have negative image against teenage suicide. They suggest that teens committing suicide is not a very appropriate way, and therefore there should be some ways to prevent suicides. In my opinion, I also believe that teenage suicide should be stopped. I totally agree with what others have said. I am a teenager as well, and I also sometimes feel depressed, hopeless and desperate to give up. I also have thought that finishing my life would be the best way to have a comfortable rest. BUT, in fact, it’s NOT TRUE. One’s life is very worthy. It belongs not only to him or her, but also to his/her family, especially mom and dad. I would like to ask those who attempt to commit suicide whether they have considered about their parents after they end up their lives. Furthermore, we, the teenagers, are still growing both mentally and physically. After we grow up, we will be facing a lot of problems in our lives, and some of them might be even worse than the problems that we have now. Therefore, all the hardships that we are struggling at the moment are like some practices for our future. If we overcome them, then we will be able to enjoy our lives after we become adults.

Okay then, what should people do in order to prevent teenage suicides? Basically, the most important factor for family members and friends to help teenagers attempting suicides is to understand their minds and behaviors well. I found out that there are some warning signs of teens committing suicide. For example, when he or she talks about death or suicide in general, it can be one of signs that she is depressed or feeling guilty. Having no desire to participate in favorite activities or having a trouble to concentrate or think clearly may also be some dangerous signs. Furthermore, if he/she starts to make some self-destructive actions, such as drinking alcohol, or going on drugs heavily, you should be aware of him or her. Dramatic mood swing can also be a significant warning sign. If your friend or child seems to have a lot of mood changes, then you should consider whether he/she is having a trouble or depressed at the moment.

Parents should keep a close eye on their teenagers who seem very depressed and try to have more time to have a conversation with their children. Reassure teenagers that parents can be a help whenever they need for it. Also, Parents should be able to listen openly without making any judgments and believe what he or she says. Also parents need to understand seriously about the threats that are bugging their child. If teenagers do not feel comfortable sharing their concerns with their parents and try to avoid them, parents can suggest their children to talk to someone who is more neutral, such as other relatives, or school member.

Some parents hesitate to ask their teens whether they have thought of committing suicide because they may give the idea of suicide to their children. However, I would suggest parents to ask their children if they are thinking about suicide. Asking directly often helps people to talk about their concerns more easily. Likewise, teenagers may feel more comfortable to tell how they feel like when their parents directly ask them whether they think about committing suicide.
Furthermore, if teenager’s symptom of being depressed seems severe, it is better to take him/her to the psychologist and look for ways to cure his/her depression.

If you want to help a teen from committing suicide as a friend, having a serious conversation about a teen’s problem may help to release one’s depression as well. Tell him/her that you will be always there if there is a need of help. A comforting word can warm a teen’s mind and it will lessen the tension of depression.

For those who think of committing suicide, I would like to encourage them to think positively. I know it will be hard for them just to be optimistic when they are in blue mood; however, at least trying to think positive things would be able to give changes in their moods.

(Short pause)

This is all for today, and I would like to thank everyone who listened to my podcast. Also, I really appreciate for those who answered the survey question. You were listening to HY’s podcast, and I’ll be back with another interesting topic to discuss. See you!