A Week's Worth: Quick takes on the world of work and money

Many students miss money lessons; retirement, consulting, or a new job? Americans are stuck on screens.

•The Dow Jones Industrial Average wound up another troubled week Friday with a 233-point gain, but still shed 1.2 percent of its value overall.

•Only 5 percent of adults learned the "vital life skill" of money management in school, compared with 41 percent who taught themselves or learned "the hard way," a poll by credit-card giant Visa has found. Largely for those reasons, 91 percent of the 1,000 people polled favored mandatory financial education in every high school. But there's a long way to go before that becomes a reality. Only 15 states require such instruction in their public high schools, Visa says.

•Nearing retirement? If you're like two-thirds of the respondents to a new survey for Robert Half Management Resources, you intend to – or will need to – keep working even if you've cut the ties to your employer. Twenty-four percent said they expect to seek employment in a different field for such reasons as continuing financial obligations and a desire to remain mentally and physically active. Fourteen percent planned to go into consulting or return to the same employer but work fewer hours.

•Four years ago, you probably spent a little more than one-third of the time at your computer searching for and viewing "content." Now, it's likely to be 52 percent, according to results of a study by the Online Publishers Association. In the meantime, OPA says, conducting "commerce" has shrunk from 16 percent to 15 and sending e-mail or instant messaging fell from 46 to 33 percent.