Providing information and resources for parents, youth workers and educators to help kids navigate their digital world.
Many children growing up today will discover that their digital footprint began in utero and didn’t stop there. This phenomenon has come to be known as “sharenting”—when parents share pictures and videos of their kids on social media, creating an indelible trail of digital bread crumbs. Watch a video report covering this issue here.
What parents need to know about AirDrop, the Apple feature that lets you instantly share photos, files, and other content and can expose kids and teens to inappropriate content. Read the article from Common Sense Media here.
The three teenagers regularly shared silly videos, trying to one-up each other and trusting the group text messages would remain private.
But one especially sensitive text did not stay among them – landing the teen who first sent it at the center of a novel court case over a sexually explicit video she made of herself and shared.
Read the rest of the article here.
My teenagers face a constant stream of information and a culture encouraging them to never unplug. No wonder our kids are under pressure. Read the rest of this opinion piece here.
People are literally risking their lives for the “gram.” So what could be so worth it to risk it all for a sensational self-portrait? Read the article here.
Time Elmore takes a look at the issue of teens using burner phones. Read his blog post here.
Reducing blue light exposure at night may decrease fatigue and mood swings, researchers find. Read the article here.
A generation that lives online is redefining dating; ‘We only met for 20 minutes and that was the first and last time we ever saw each other.’ Read the article here.
The massively popular dating app claims to block underage users. The only workaround? Lying. And everyone is doing it. Read the article here.
Selena Gomez is voicing her concern about the “terrible” effect that social media has had on her generation, and says she advocates taking breaks from the platforms. Read the article here.
The internet is a dangerous place for a lonely teen to be. Read the article here.
One South Carolina family confiscated multiple phones their daughter had gotten from school friends or elsewhere. Read the article here.
Just how much is social media use affecting children? Read the article here.
Today’s cyberbullies no longer rely on chat-based venues, such as texting or instant messages. Instead, social media platforms, sometimes used anonymously, are employed to strengthen mob mentalities and the shame of victims. Read the article here.
Netflix’s UK office explained a little bit more about how the lists work via its Twitter account on Thursday. Read the article here.
The singer says her children’s lives became dominated by the technology. Read the article here.
How should some recent experiments and changes on Instagram inform our leadership? Read the blog post from Tim Elmore here.
A look at esports and other video game insights from Neilsen. Download the report here.
One of the world’s foremost authorities on child mental health today warns that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children. Read the article here.
US video gamers spend more time watching video game content on streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube than watching esports tournaments. Read the report to learn more by clicking here.
While other generations got their start in life before the internet or smartphones, today’s teens have been online since they could walk and talk. They are the first generation of teenagers to experience the world through their smartphones. Read the insights from Viacom here.
Sometimes just have to put the phone down and admire the view across the harbor. Read the article here.
Only about 1 in 10 teenagers say they share personal, religious or political beliefs on social media, according to a recent survey from Pew Research Center. Read the article here.
If two minors share nude photos, are they felons? A change in state law signed recently by Gov. Jay Inslee clarifies the issue. Read the article here.
The NPD Group has released its report for the month, shining a light on the best-performing consoles and games in March. Read the article here.
Teenagers are eating banana peels, candy wrappers and more in a new viral competition dubbed the “shell on challenge.” Read the article here.
Pink, like many celebrities — and, in fairness, like most of the world — is active on social media. But recently she’s decided to change her posting habits, especially as related to her children. View the video clip here.
Listen to Albert Mohler talk about plastic surgery and the selfie culture on his The Briefing podcast. Listen to the episode or read the transcript here.
The male K-Pop group’s latest song notched 100 million views in less than 48 hours. It is the quickest to ever hit the milestone on YouTube. Learn more here.
From the Momo Challenge to the Mannequin Challenge, internet stunts can be funny — or completely frightening — for kids. Read this post from Common Sense Media here.
Some teenagers develop a craving to use a cell phone during inappropriate times, and new research suggests it is not something that is likely to change as they become young adults. Read the article here.
Does posting photos of children online endanger them? Read the article here.
There has been a recent surge in research examining the impacts of screen time on children and adolescents amid rising concerns that too much time in front of smartphones and constant access to social media is disrupting development and increases the risk of behavior, mental, and mood disorders. Read the article here.
Gone are the days of the male-dominated gaming landscape, as the activity has expanded to include a wider variety of players on more devices. Read the article here.
Distracted driving is already enough of a hazard—thousands are killed each year in accidents where a driver is messing with a phone, texting or reading a text, talking, whatever. Read the full article here.
The video-sharing app by the Chinese-owned Bytedance, the world’s most valuable startup, has a younger audience than Facebook, an algorithm that learns you, and different ideas about free speech. Read the article here.
Cloud Gaming holds the promise of a future where high-fidelity gaming is accessible across every device and available to everyone – streamed effortlessly, with no lag or latency. Read the latest Game On! Newsletter from Nielsen here.
The adult industry saw the highest number of mobile users at 84% for the third straight year, followed by gambling at 80%. Read the article here.
Gone are the days of the male-dominated gaming landscape, as the activity has expanded to include a wider variety of players on more devices. Read the research here.
Tim Elmore lists five rules of thumb for adults using social media. Read his blog post here.
Through their social media feeds, teens have access to a constant flow of news and information. Research suggests that this is taking a toll on them and increasing their anxiety. Read the article here.
NBA commissioner says many of the stars he meets are unhappy. The criticism they face on Twitter and Instagram could be to blame. Read the article here.
Is Instagram safe? How does it work? And what’s a “finsta”? Everything parents need to know about this popular image-sharing app. Read the article from Common Sense Media here.
Distracted driving is putting emergency first responders at risk, according to a new study. Read the article here.
Love it or hate it, parents have made their way on to social media, and seem to be there to stay. Read the article here.
L.A.-based startup Imbellus plans to upset the SAT and ACT’s monopoly with a test it says accurately gauges critical thinking. Read the article here.
From the Growing Leaders blog:
“A recent article on the Fortnite epidemic found that alarmed doctors are now treating Fortnite-obsessed kids for mental and physical health problems; including everything from “carpal tunnel to sedentary obesity.” Dr. Kate Roberts, a psychologist from Wenham, Massachusetts found that the most disturbing part of the addictive trend is how it changes young kids’ behavior.”
Read the rest of the blog post here.
As social change has altered the structure of family households in the US, digital technology has brought its own transformations. Amid these developments, parenthood today has characteristics that simply didn’t exist a couple generations ago. Read the report here.
Phone calls are made to the family demanding ransom money, but the scammers don’t actually have the child held hostage—they’re getting information from the parents’ social media. Read the article here.
Smartphones and social media are now an almost universal feature of teenage life in the United States. More than nine-in-ten U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 say they have access to a smartphone or use social media, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey. Read the research here.
Preschoolers who spend too much time in front of the bedroom TV are at risk of not getting enough physical and social interactions to promote proper physical and socio-emotional development, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatric Research. Read the article here.
The mobile era is also largely the app era, with mobile apps now dominating our time and web usage. View an infographic here.
A new study finds that young people are reporting loneliness in increasing numbers and at a rate outpacing that of their elderly counterparts. Read the article here.
Social media is a constant river of change. Whether it’s the users, the platform, or the content being shared, it is evolving relentlessly. We’re steadily into 2019 and there are a lot of new trends hitting the surface and innovative ways users are utilizing social media. Read the article here.
The impact of porn on men has been studied, but little is known about how it could affect women. Read the article here.
Gaming brands are developing streaming services. Read the article here.
While YouTube’s popularity doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, a recent phenomenon is making many people question the safety of this giant video platform, especially for kids. Read the article here.
What makes an effective influencer is “mass popularity and a continual personal narrative — where they party, who they date, where they shop. It’s all just part of the fantasy lifestyles that regular people want to live.” Read the rest of the article here.
How a writing tool became the new default way to pass notes in class. Read the article here.
Up to a third of young men now experience erectile dysfunction. Some are turning to extreme measures such as penile implants – but is kicking their pornography habit the only solution? Read the article here.
Is TikTok safe? How does it work? And can I do a duet with my kid? Everything you need to know about this popular musical singing and sharing app. Read the article from Common Sense Media here.
These Top 10 lists from Nielsen are compiled on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. View the lists here.
Oftentimes, news stories with the words “teenager” and “challenge” reveal some dangerous thing teens are daring each other to do, all for views online. This is not one of those stories. Read the article here.
Competitive video gaming is a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar industry, presenting new opportunities for marketers to reach and engage with fans worldwide. Read the report here.
What will these teens expect of tech based on their current experiences? Read the article here.
Culture shock can be an instigator of change. Read the blog post here.
“In a tech-ubiquitous world, I fear our reality is becoming more ‘tech’ and less ‘world.'” But how do you fight that? Read the rest of the article here.
Fortnite vs. Apex, video game tracking, and top 10s. Read the report here.
Females are engaging with esports, and at increasing rates. According to a recent Nielsen Esports Fan Insights survey, 22% of esports fans around the world are female. Read the article here.
Imagine you’ve hacked into someone else’s phone and are consuming all his texts, videos, Snapchats, and Instagrams in real time. Now imagine that someone is a 15-year-old boy, and you’re watching his life unfold entirely through the lens of an iPhone. That’s the premise behind Pocket, a captivating new short film starring the former Nickelodeon actor Mace Coronel. Read the article here.
It will come as no surprise that teenagers today spend their time differently than a decade ago. The common answer will be that teens devote all their hours awake looking at a screen. While this may be partly true, a recent Pew Research Center analysis shows that teens are “devoting more time to sleep and homework, and less time to paid work and socializing.” Read the article here.
Gen Z’s digital natives bring followers along for the experience. Read the article here.
How much screen time teens are getting is the wrong question. Read the article here.
Short-form video sharing app TikTok has been handed the largest ever fine for a US case involving children’s data privacy. Read the article here.
Did your kids make the sudden switch from “Fortnite” to this new battle royale romp? Common Sense Media provides helpful info you need to know about the popular video game. Read their article here.
From the article:
As much as TikTok is about memes, it’s also about just looking cool, being funny, and getting likes. Somewhere in that mix of teenage yearning for identity and the drive for likes, the egirl was born. And she’s cooler than you.
Read the rest of the article here.
With countless news stories, pictures, and articles detailing social media’s hazards, parents in increasing numbers, are trying to understand the digital generation and are concerned about their teens’ use of social media. Read the article here.
Scientists need to ask better questions — and big tech needs to help. Read the article here.
Globally, the esports audience continues to broaden—and with this, the characteristics and motivations of the “average” fan continue to be moving targets. Read the article here.
When you ask a couple how they met, it’s pretty common for them to answer, “On the Internet”. So, it’s no surprise that online dating has trickled down to teens. Read the article here.
From the article: “More than a year on from a child safety content moderation scandal on YouTube and it takes just a few clicks for the platform’s recommendation algorithms to redirect a search for “bikini haul” videos of adult women towards clips of scantily clad minors engaged in body contorting gymnastics or taking an ice bath or ice lolly sucking “challenge.”
Read the rest of the article here.
In a groundbreaking study, a University of California San Diego psychiatrist is investigating whether social media affects the adolescent brain in the same way as cannabis. Read the article here.
Is TikTok safe? How does it work? And can I do a duet with my kid? Everything you need to know about this popular musical singing and sharing app. Read the breakdown from Common Sense Media here.
Newsletter from Neilsen highlights the rising popularity of the battle-royale game Apex Legends. Read the newsletter here.
While a few teens told WIRED they’re concerned about broader privacy issues and the impact Facebook is having on society, most are worried about what their parents post about them. Read the article here.
Police have revealed more than 200 terms teenagers have been using online to communicate – many of which will be unknown to parents. Read the article here.
A recent report that Facebook collected a trove of data from teens as young as 13 is sparking a new round of bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Read the article here.
Preteens who look at a phone or television screen in the dark an hour before bed are at risk of not getting enough sleep compared to those who use these devices in a lighted room or do not use them at all before bedtime, according to a new study by U.K. and Swiss researchers. Read the article here.
The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced on Tuesday that company is implementing changes that it hopes will stop younger users from being exposed to inappropriate content relating to suicide and self harm. Read the article here.
In 2018, esports captured the attention of nearly 400 million viewers worldwide—and cable and OTT platforms took note, with media rights revenues topping $180 million. Read the report here.
Many scholars have recognized and studied the links between various sources of appearance-related pressure (e.g., media and interpersonal pressures to be mesomorphic) and men’s body image and well-being. Pornography is another medium of appearance-related pressure that is very rarely considered in this research. Read more here.
There’s no escaping technology. Kids of today’s generation are raised around and with smart devices. View an infographic about the topic here.
Teens were asked to use an app to edit and filter their images. Thankfully a majority of the students said they actually preferred their original portraits. Read the article here.
As younger Millennials and especially Gen Zs embrace this activity to fit their digital-first lives, the global eSports market is projected to reach $1.65 billion in revenue by 2020. Read the article here.
Nick Gibb spoke out ahead of the government publishing new guidance for schools, expected to address internet safety, social media and online gaming. Read the article here.
A study has found that kids 2-5 years old who engage in more screen time received worse scores in developmental screening tests. Read the article here.
Here are 10 facts about Americans and Facebook, based on Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 2018. Read the article here.
At a time when many marketers obsess about appearing only in uncontroversial “brand-safe” environments, Kraft Heinz Co.’s Devour frozen food brand ran ads on pornography website Pornhub on Monday, part of a campaign built around a Super Bowl commercial with a food porn theme. Read the article here.
Where do millennials and Gen Z get their social video content? Increasingly, it is on YouTube or Instagram. Read the article here.