Check out this article about social media at Wikipedia.
If you wonder about the still-new world of social media, and are continually amazed when a few comments on a social media site affect prompt change (whether it’s a political movement, corporate policy, or an unsatisfied customer quieted down) this New York Times article, Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media, provides helpful background. The article, by Stuart Elliott, describes the evolutionary and revolutionary changes in the digital public relations world.
A Few Interesting Thoughts from the Article
Internet and social media like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are transforming the relation between those of us in the general public and the people communicating with us. It’s no longer top down communication. Continue reading “Redefining Public Relations in Our Digital World”→
If you are a parent helping an adolescent get started on the first hunt for a job or internship, or if you know someone who is searching for a job right now, Business Insider has just published an unusual infographic to help you understand that a resume may not always be the best — or at least not the only — job seeker’s tool.
This infographic offers an overview of the personal characteristics that employers cannot discover just by reading resumes. Any individual who seeks a position in this day and age needs to think about how to expand a resume and more clearly demonstrate these additional traits to potential employers. These include:
Do you sometimes wonder about the meaning of all those shortened words and acronyms that arrive in kids’ e-mails and text messages?
Check out the Texting Dictionary of Acronyms, published by C.G. Publishing in 2011. I purchased mine at a gift shop, but it’s available on the web. I’ve fun pulling it out of my purse or book bag when someone mentions one the lesser known shortened words that often arrive in text messages of people under twenty-five years old. And there’s even a family-friendly version.
You can also check out those unfamiliar words at NetLingoand at the Common Sense MediaDigital Glossary.
I hate receiving so much unwanted e-mail! In my family we follow most of the rules. We don’t sign up for contests or take quizzes. We don’t post our e-mail addresses in strange places, and we never forward chain letters or respond to the many ridiculous things that arrive in our electronic mailboxes. Yet the message glut is frustrating everyone in my family on a daily basis
Of course some of the mail arrives because I’ve signed up for alerts or news, but other messages arrive for unknown reasons. After ordering from a catalog, I’m often asked to provide my e-mail address so a confirmation can be sent — which I like. But then, suddenly, I start receiving daily messages — which I don’t like. In fact, when a store or catalog starts sending me several e-mails a week, my inclination is not to order from them again.
I don’t mention this often, but 30 years ago when our television broke, we had a new baby and not enough money, so we decided to put off the purchase of a new TV. The delay went on for six years until our daughter was seven years old. Originally we did not make a decision out of any deep philosophical principles — and back then there was a lot less research about the effect of TV-watching on young children — we simply did not have money that we wanted to spend on a new set just then (or we had other things we wanted to purchase — I really don’t remember). However, gradually we forgot our plans to purchase a new television because we liked what happened in our family.
We read more, we listened to music more, we ate less junk food, and during the times we were at home, we played lots of games and went to the park almost every day after we returned from work. By age 2-and-a-half our daughter could beat both of us at any memory game we put out on the table. We also read aloud, all the time. In fact, we read so much that sometimes we needed to go to the public library twice a week. Listening to the radio, sometimes NPR and at other times classical or oldies was a regular activity, and we went to movies.
Recently I read Tracy Grant’s article, The Case for Spying on Your Kids, in the October 5, 2011Washington Post, and it’s well worth reading. Grant believes that parents should keep close track of their children’s online activities. After I finished the article I decided it’s unfortunate that so many people equate keeping an eye on a child’s digital activities with spying. It’s not spying.
From my perspective, it’s just fine for parents to closely supervise the digital activities of kids, just like parents supervise non-digital endeavors. Understanding what’s going on, setting limits, teaching children to follow website rules, and defining expectations — as children encounter more and smaller personal computers and digital gadgets — are important responsibilities. Knowing what’s going on is a part of parenting.
Yet learning about what’s going on takes time, a scarce resource for many adults, and the situation gets even more complicated because the digital skills of many children outpace their parents.
Grant describes her conversation with Steven Balkam of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI)(this organization has a website that parents may want to explore), and she also mentions a new monitoring service, SafetyWeb.
In Grant’s article Balkam points out, “The history button on a computer is a very important tool for parents.”
The digital world offers many opportunities to help children learn, collaborate, and grow as digital citizens, and we want our children to become literate and savvy consumers of online resources. Strong digital parenting — even when a parent is in awe of a child’s online prowess — is one of the ways to ensure that children grow into confident, respectful, and competent learners.
I recommend reading the book Born Digital, by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. The authors, from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, focus on the changing nature of growing up in the digital world.
Media! Tech! Parenting! 
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