Posts Tagged ‘teens’
Posted by Marti Weston on May 31, 2012
Take a few minutes to read Some Teens Aren’t Liking Facebook as Much as Older Users, a May 30, 2012 business article in the Los Angeles Times. Facebook’s growth is slowing, and many teens, after absorbing lessons about privacy and the need to share less personal information, now seek to socialize online in smaller community groups with people they know.
Reporters Jessica Guynn and Ryan Faughnder point out that students are also far more eager to use mobile services designed for their smartphones. Interestingly, parents are still avid Facebook users.
Best Quotes from the Article
- Teens… can also be more selective about what they share and with whom, and feel less social pressure to “friend”everyone in their school or friends or friends.
- Teens who belong to the first truly mobile generation — their most common form of communication is text messaging — are increasingly gravitating to services made for their smartphones and tablets.
Posted in cell phones, digital parenting, electronic communication, gadget ownership, mobile phones, parents and technology, social media friends | Tagged: digital kids, digital parenting, Facebook, Los Angeles Times, mobile devices, privacy, social networking, teens | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on December 10, 2011
Pew infographic. Click and view larger version of this image.
Take a few minutes to read at least the main points of the November 2011 report on teens and social networking, published in November 2011 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The executive summary is a fairly quick read.
During the spring and summer of 2011 researchers made calls to 799 teens between the ages of 12 and 17, and they also spoke with a parent or guardian of each adolescent. Interestingly, a large number of the teens surveyed reported that their parents and teachers provided them with the best and most helpful advice on digital citizenship issues and other virtual concerns. The media were the third most significant influence.
Browse all of the infographics from this Pew Internet report.
A Few Other Interesting Points
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital parenting, family conversations, media literacy, parents and technology, social media, social networking, teens and technology | Tagged: digital parenting, Pew Internet, Pew Internet and American Life Project, Social media, social networking, teens | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on June 21, 2011
This set of summer digital activities, 5 Things You Can Do Online With Your Child This Summer, arrived in my e-mail a week or so ago. The list includes simple, but open-ended activities, each one enjoyable by itself, but with the potential to lead parents and children in many additional and enjoyable digital directions during the summer vacation. The ideas come from NetSmartz.
NetSmartz is an interactive and educational program for parents and kids, connected with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC). NetSmartz uses its considerable resources and clout to educate, engage, and empower children and their families about digital care and safety.
Visit the NetSmartz parents’ site. — Visit the site for Kids. — Visit the site for teens.
NetSmartz also features a wide range of digital safety educational resources for educators and law enforcement professionals.
No blog, though, at least not one that I can find. Puzzling since they provide some excellent information on blogging. Why not an example of what good blogging looks like — maybe one for parents and one for adolescents?
Posted in acceptable use, Bookmark It!, digital citizenship, digital parenting, family conversations, parents and technology | Tagged: adolescents, children, digital parenting, digital safety, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, NCMEC, NetSmartz, online safety, teens | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on June 12, 2011
I recommend this documentary for a summer family movie night.
Are you thinking about digital citizenship and safety conversations? Do you want to learn more about Wikipedia? Summer is a great time for these talks. Here’s why.
School’s out and many children fill at least part of their summer days with World Wide Web activities on fast internet connections. Camps and daycamps feature computer labs and lots of specialized digital programs. On the go we increasingly carry more gadgets — mobile phones, smartphones, iTouches, Blackberries, and iPads. In fact, even on vacations and at hotels, cottages, and many of those rustic country cabins we all hope to escape to, we stay connected. After years of teaching I’ve found that my students’ digital skills usually expand during the three-month summer hiatus from school.
Adults can learn more, too. Ask your children to help you expand your own skills. Maybe you want to download videos or save podcasts to your smartphone. Perhaps you can start a family blog, really learn how to use your digital camera, or ask your child can show you how to make special ringtones from your favorite music. If you don’t know how to text, summer is a great time to learn. Read 7 Constructive Digital Suggestions from Kids to Parents.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital parenting, family conversations, online safety, online security, parents and technology, teens and technology | Tagged: children, digital citizenship, digital parenting, family conversations, summer vacation, technology, teens, Truth in Numbers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on May 30, 2011
Made with Wordle!
Day after day frightening stories bombard us with warnings about what might happen to children and teens when they use the Internet and World Wide Web, so it’s useful to remind ourselves that these digital resources can provide our children with unparalleled opportunities to learn, socialize, and become active citizens. An article, Our Overblown Paranoia About the Internet and Teens, recently published in the online publication, Salon, provides just such a reminder.
Pediatrician Rahul Parikh, who practices in the San Francisco Bay area, points out that, despite all of our anxiety about teens and Internet risks, no statistics really exist to offer a full picture of the incidence of exposure to risk. Those few that do are often biased because of a common problem for research, posing questions to get the desired answer. Situations that do occur are often covered by a hysterical media, making us feel like a problem happens over and over, just around the corner. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in cyber-bullying, digital citizenship, digital parenting, family conversations, online safety, parent child conversations, parent education, parents and technology, teens and technology | Tagged: adolescence, children, digital citizenship, digital parenting, exposure to risk, Internet, pediatricians, risks, teens, World Wide Web | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on May 26, 2011
Check out this cool graphic from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
These graphs (click on the image to go to a larger picture at the Pew site) depict the various ways teens communicate. Notice how low e-mail ranks among the electronic forms of communication that today’s teens use. The data come from a survey of teens age 12 – 17 conducted as a part of the research for Pew’s report, Teens and Mobile Phones.
From the Pew Website
The graphic below shows daily use of a variety of communication technologies – and suggests that while text messaging as a daily activity for teens has grown astronomically over the past three years, other communicative technologies have remained relatively stable or have declined slightly, suggesting that the increase in texting has layered on top of the other modes of communication that teens employ.
Other Interesting Pew Internet Reports include Social Media and Young Adults and Teens and Sexting, both released in 2010.
Thanks to Pew for reminding me of this research via Twitter (@PewInternet).
Posted in digital citizenship, digital parenting, electronic communication, parents and technology, social media, teens and technology | Tagged: adolescents, communication, digital, digital parenting, Pew Internet, Pew Internet and American Life Project, technology, teens | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on March 29, 2011
AAP Media History Form
This morning I was thrilled to read the newest American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy focusing on social media and children. The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families, written by a group of pediatricians and led by Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe (also the author of CyberSafe: Protecting and Empowering Digital Kids in the World of Texting, Gaming and Social Media), provides a set of social media guidelines for physicians to use with teen and tween patients as well as with parents. Published in March 28, 2011 edition of the journal Pediatrics, the social media statement describes the benefits and risks of the digital world, avoids judgmental comments, and suggests strategies that can make is safer for children.
For members of the American Academy of Pediatrics the social media policy adds one more element to a set of well-crafted and well-researched policy recommendations that aim to help physicians guide adolescents as they traverse a fast-changing digital landscape. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in acceptable use, American Academy of Pediatrics, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parent education, parents and technology, social media, social networking | Tagged: AAP, adolescents, American Academy of Pediatrics, digital parenting, Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe, pediatrics, Social media, social networking, teens | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on March 27, 2011
I saw this article, Want to Know What Your Cell Phone Can Do? Ask a Teenager, published in a Patch.com Reston,Virginia edition. It’s a wonderful story and presents an idea — students and seniors working together — that any family, school, or church group can easily replicate.
The article describes how middle and high school students, from the Reston, Virginia area, volunteered to be cell phone tutors with seniors, helping them learn how to use mobile phone features such as texting and checking voice mail. While many of the senior participants attending Cell Phone 101 had purchased phones for safety reasons, most were not able to use other phone capabilities. The student mobile phone mentors demonstrated how seniors could use their phone more effectively, and voicemail tutorials appeared to be especially popular. Students also explained how some of the phone capabilities cost extra money to use.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital parenting, online safety, parents and technology, service-learning, technology support, teens and mentoring | Tagged: cell phones, community service, digital citizenship, mobile phones, Patch Media, seniors, teens | 4 Comments »
Posted by Marti Weston on January 27, 2011
As usual, Common Sense Media is right on top of the latest media/television family dilemma, and the website has published a short piece to help parents talk with their teenage children about the MTV program, Skins. In Tough Talk: How Parents Can Use MTV’S Skins As a Jumping Off Point, Liz Perle writes, “MTV’s teen drama Skins (a remake of the even edgier British series) showcases every behavior that keeps parents of teenagers up at night.” Perle suggests conversation pointers that can help parents begin conversations on these all too nerve-wracking topics. While these subjects keep parents in a perpetual state of jitters, teenagers confront many of the issues the issues on a daily basis — though honestly the show itself seems overly contrived. Check out the article.
The point is – and this is a Common Sense Media mantra (about page) — no matter how uncomfortable the topic may be, the most important thing is to work hard to keep the dialogue going throughout the challenging teenage years. The conversations, even if they don’t go as smoothly as a parent wishes, nevertheless help adolescent kids think about making better choices.
Posted in family conversations, healthy media images, media literacy, parent child conversations, parent education, resources to read, risky behavior | Tagged: adolescence, Common Sense Media, digital parenting, ethical behavior, media literacy, media messages, teens | Leave a Comment »
