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On October 30, President Joe Biden issued an executive order. It outlines the nation’s first regulations on artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These are standards for companies that make AI programs, such as ChatGPT. The new regulations require AI companies to…

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Playing Video Games Means Sitting on the Sidelines

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Playing Video Games Means Sitting on the Sidelines

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Picture this: You're searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They're actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad is to get you to buy something. How do you, the reader, tell the difference between a news story and an ad?

Back when I was growing up, it was easier. We got most of our information from newspapers. Big news stories appeared on the front page, and ads were boxed off and clearly labeled. But on the Internet, the two are often presented together. It can be hard to tell which is which.

That's why the research group I direct conducted a study. (MediaWise is a collaboration, funded by Google, between the Stanford History Education Group, the Poynter Institute, and the Local Media Association to address issues of digital literacy × digital literacy SIDEKICK-GETTY IMAGES a person's ability to use digital technology to find, evaluate, and express information (noun) By using the Internet to do research for your homework, you are improving your digital literacy. .) My research team showed kids like you the home page of a popular digital magazine. We asked them to tell us what was a news story and what was an ad.

Most were great at identifying certain types of ads. "It has a coupon code, a big company logo, and the words limited time offer," one student wrote about an ad on the site. So where did kids get stumped?

Some ads seem identical to real news stories. They have headlines and contain information. But they may also include the words sponsored content. Sponsored means "paid for," and content refers to the information in the story. "Sponsored content" is a way of saying that something is an ad. Most kids in our study, even if they used the Internet often, didn't know this.

Just because something is sponsored doesn't necessarily mean it's false. It means someone paid money for it to appear. Companies pay so that readers will see their stories, buy their products, and like what the company stands for.

As a reader, you have a right to know who's behind the information you're consuming. So look for the phrase sponsored content. (And look carefully. Sometimes, it will be written in tiny letters.) The Internet is a vast sea of information. To use it well, we not only have to know how to swim but also how to avoid the sharks. Learning to tell the difference between an ad and a news story is an important step to becoming Internet-smart.
Sam Wineburg is a professor at Stanford University, in California.

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Picture this: You're searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They're actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad...

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Piper Leypoldt, 11, of Durham, North Carolina, likes to watch cooking videos on YouTube. Recently, she learned that the site collects users’ data, such as search history and location­. She’s not concerned. “Other websites I use at home and school…

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This year, Peter Paccone has a new aid in the classroom. The social-studies teacher in San Marino, California, plans to let his helper explain some simple topics to his high schoolers. This will free up time for Paccone to focus on more-complex concepts. His new assistant is ChatGPT.

"What I feel that I don't have to do any longer is cover all the content," Paccone told educators in a Zoom workshop in May. He's one of many teachers who have been experimenting with AI in the classroom.

ChatGPT is a chatbot. It was created by OpenAI. Earlier this year, the company's website became one of the world's 50 most-visited. When asked a question online, the chatbot will produce an answer that reads like an essay. Students and teachers are grappling with the implications implication a possible effect (noun) Josie hadn't considered the implications of putting off her homework until Sunday night. of that as they start a new school year.

A New Tool

Some school districts have banned ChatGPT. They need time to make rules about how it's to be used. "Teachers are panicked because they see [it] as a cheating tool," says Rachael Rankin, a principal in Newton Falls, Ohio.

But a growing number of educators say it's too late to keep AI out of their classrooms. Randi Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers. She says the panic about AI is a lot like the panic caused by the Internet and graphing calculators when they were new. ChatGPT, Weingarten says, "is to English and to writing [what] the calculator is to math."

In a recent Walton Family Foundation survey, 73% of teachers said they'd heard of ChatGPT, and 33% had used it to come up with "creative ideas for classes."

In Gig Harbor, Washington, students used the program to write math raps, which they performed in a classroom competition. In Scotland, a teacher used ChatGPT to simplify texts for students not fluent in English.

ChatGPT doesn't always get things right. (See "Far from Perfect.") But teachers say this can provide a way to engage students. Some are having students fact-check essays generated by the program. Sarah Millard, a teacher in Rochester, Michigan, had students critique critique to review or examine something critically (verb) The reviewer critiqued the movie after the premiere. a ChatGPT essay on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. "They have never been so engaged in writing," Millard says. "They wanted to beat the computer" and were "tearing apart" the AI-generated essay.

Impact Unknown

It's not clear how much AI will change schooling. Some are calling it a revolution. "There's a tidal wave coming," according to Dan Fitzpatrick, who runs a Facebook group devoted to AI. Others say that while AI is a useful tool, it won't change the basics of schooling. "AI is certainly not, in my opinion, some kind of enormous breakthrough that's going to transform education," says Chris Dede of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

For Millard, one thing is certain: There's no substitute for human connection. "I've been to former students' weddings and baby showers," she says. "I've high-fived my students. I've cried with my students. A computer will never do that. Ever, ever."

Far from Perfect

Text generated by ChatGPT is rarely perfect. It often contains factual errors. It can get the formatting or tone wrong. And it can contain bias from the data used to train it. "What's going to be less represented are the perspectives, knowledge, and experiences of underrepresented communities," Ezekiel Dixon-Román says. He's director of the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education and teaches at Columbia University's Teachers College, in New York.

Some educators say allowing the use of AI for schoolwork will unfairly benefit some students over others. Only those with access to a high-speed Internet connection will be able to use AI consistently. Many students do not have that access.

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This year, Peter Paccone has a new aid in the classroom. The social-studies teacher in San Marino, California, plans to let his helper explain some simple topics to his high schoolers. This will free up time for Paccone to focus...

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One day, Ammaar Reshi was playing around with a chatbot called ChatGPT. A chatbot is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to imitate human thinking and writing. Reshi wondered if he could use the program to produce a children's book.

The idea for the book's story came from a conversation Reshi had with the chatbot, about a girl named Alice. He created illustrations using another AI program, Midjourney, which translates words into images.

COURTESY AMMAAR RESHI

A couple of days later, Reshi had completed a 12-page book, Alice and Sparkle. "Anyone can use these [AI] tools," he told TIME. "[They're] readily accessible, and not hard to use."

Not everyone was pleased. When Reshi posted about the book on Twitter, a debate started. Some people praised him for his ingenuity ingenuity creativity; inventiveness (noun) The students showed their ingenuity by writing a song for the teacher's birthday. . But artists were critical. The problem, they said, was not just the poor quality of the artwork (for instance, in one drawing, hands look like claws). It was the way the art was made.

COURTESY AMMAAR RESHI

Midjourney searches through millions of images across the Internet. It uses algorithms algorithm a set of instructions that tells a computer program how to accomplish a task (noun) The company used an algorithm to recommend its product online. to find patterns in those images and create new ones. Think of the artists who upload their work online. Midjourney could be using their work without their permission.

"The main problem to me about AI is that it was trained off of artists' work," illustrator Adriane Tsai says. "It's our creations, our distinct styles . . . that we did not consent to being used."

For Art's Sake

COURTESY AMMAAR RESHI

Many artists and writers are nervous about their future. Will people pay them for their work if it can be done cheaper using AI?

Some companies are already choosing AI over human talent. The San Francisco Ballet used images generated by Midjourney to promote its production of The Nutcracker. At a comedy club, an AI- powered robot delivered jokes.

"As somebody who makes my money and finds my joy in writing, it's deeply troubling to see people seeking cheap alternatives to actual human writing," journalist Abraham Josephine Riesman says.

Reshi says there should be protections for artists and authors whose work might be used in AI algorithms. "There's real concern," he says. "It's really important that the tech industry that's working on these tools involves [artists] in the process of creation."

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One day, Ammaar Reshi was playing around with a chatbot called ChatGPT. A chatbot is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to imitate human thinking and writing. Reshi wondered if he could use the program to produce a...

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Students at Capital Preparatory Magnet School, in Hartford, Connecticut, are watching a video of a basketball drill. "Keep track of how many passes the players dressed in white make," Marcus Stallworth, a media-literacy educator, tells them. Many of the kids correctly tally the number of passes. But they don't notice a man in a bear suit who moonwalks across the screen.

Why did so many kids miss the large, furry bear? That's exactly the question Stallworth asks them. The answer, he says, tells us something important about the purpose of media literacy.

For Stallworth, cofounder of a group called Welcome 2 Reality, the video reveals that people miss much of what's going on around them. And that doesn't just apply to moonwalking bears. "It's the same when we're reading information online," he told TIME for Kids. "It's important to be aware of the messages, and the ways authors are trying to capture our attention."

NATAKI HEWLING FOR TIME FOR KIDS

Stallworth worked with Connecticut lawmakers to craft and pass two of the country's most far-reaching media-literacy . The laws this type of education and provide resources to develop a statewide curriculum.

Connecticut is one of several states, including Florida, Minnesota, and Washington, to strengthen media-literacy instruction. All are part of a movement promoted by the group Media Literacy Now. The goal is to enhance student skills and push for legislation.

"It's important for children to be able to navigate all this information," state senator Terry Gerratana says. She proposed both of Connecticut's bills. "Even as an adult, it's very hard to sort it all out."

SAHA ENTERTAINMENT/GETTY IMAGES

Fact or Fiction?

The rise of fake news and Russia's attempts to social media during the 2016 election fueled the media-literacy movement. "Four years ago, people were not returning my calls," says Michelle Lipkin of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. "I would have to spend 30 minutes explaining what we do. Now people are seeing media literacy as a part of a solution."

What is media literacy, exactly? "It's thinking critically about the information we see, read, and hear," says Kelly Mendoza of Common Sense Education. The goal is to give students the tools to identify sources and real from fake news. A 2017 study by Common Sense found that just 44% of kids feel they can accurately spot fake news.

Not every state has gone as far as Connecticut and others to support media literacy. Lawmakers in Arizona and Virginia proposed bills. But laws have not been passed. In Missouri, most legislators were not receptive to similar efforts. "We got blank stares," Donnell Probst says. She is part of the Missouri-based Gateway Media Literacy Partners. "We decided that we first needed to create more awareness around media literacy if we wanted legislation to succeed in the state."

Despite these setbacks, Lipkin of the National Association for Media Literacy Education is optimistic. "Progress has been slow but steady," she says. "We need states and the country as a whole to recognize the significance of these skills to allow our kids to succeed in the world."

SAM KITTNER-NEWSEUM

A Free Press

The Newseum (above) in Washington, D.C., is a museum about news. Its mission is to increase understanding of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The amendment guarantees five freedoms, including freedom of the press. Many countries do not have a free press. In North Korea and Iran, for example, the government controls what journalists can report.

"It's the first amendment for a reason," Newseum spokesperson Sonya Gavankar says. "It's what our freedom is based on."
Assessment: Click for a printable quiz. Teacher subscribers can find the answer key in this week's Teacher's Guide.

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Students at Capital Preparatory Magnet School, in Hartford, Connecticut, are watching a video of a basketball drill. "Keep track of how many passes the players dressed in white make," Marcus Stallworth, a media-literacy educator, tells them. Many of the kids...

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A new study shows that meeting three benchmarks for health can strengthen kids' brains. The benchmarks are getting nine to 11 hours of sleep each night, exercising at least 60 minutes a day, and spending less than two hours a day on recreational screen time.

The study was published September 27. It examined the habits of more than 4,500 children in the United States from ages 8 to 11. Only 5% of them met all three health benchmarks. Nearly 30% met none.

The kids were given tests to measure memory, attention, language skills, planning, and mental processing. Children who met all three benchmarks scored highest. The study's authors wrote that the findings show "the importance of limiting recreational screen time and encouraging healthy sleep."

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A new study shows that meeting three benchmarks for health can strengthen kids' brains. The benchmarks are getting nine to 11 hours of sleep each night, exercising at least 60 minutes a day, and spending less than two hours a...

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The video game sector is the fastest growing entertainment industry and second only to music in profitability. Global sales of video game software hit almost $17 billion U.S. in 2011. [1]

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The recent Facebook whistleblower scandal in 2021 revealed that Facebook had tons of research that social media platforms like Instagram are toxic to the mental health of kids and teens. The whistleblower documents discussed how photo sharing apps like Instagram can negatively impact teens' body image and self-esteem. Recently, the U.S. Congress accused tech giants like Facebook of prioritizing profits over safety when it comes to teens and children.

With recent studies showing how social media negatively affects kids' mental health, body image, and social skills, parents are more concerned than ever about social media sites and the impact of screen time and the internet on their kids and teens. This is the first generation of children to have grown up with the internet and social media as a constant presence in their life from a young age. Many parents are concerned with how growing up with the internet will impact Gen Z and younger kids later in life.

Even for those of us who had the internet at the tail end of our childhood and adolescence, social media was not in existence until the early 2000s. Even in the MySpace days, these websites were mostly just another source of entertainment and communication. However, now online communities and online relationships play a major part in most kids' lives. As parents, we have no real-life childhood experience dealing with social media, smartphones, and cyber-bullying, making it difficult to know how to help our kids.

The COVID-19 pandemic only increased the amount of time young people (and adults) spent on social media platforms, and experts have pointed out a correlation between more screen time and low self-esteem. Our social media feed is a constant barrage of keeping up with the Joneses. And as hard as it is for us as adults to stay positive when it seems our entire friend list leads perfect lives, kids and teens have a much more difficult time separating a social media persona from the real world.

Social media does have some positive aspects. For example, it allows us to communicate and see each other, if not face-to-face, at least over a screen, and can be a valuable tool for outreach, community building, and social interaction; however, its use must be tempered and managed in a healthy way.

As parents, it can be challenging to know where to turn for help, so in this article, we have broken down five different ways social media affects our children's health and ways to help.

1. Social Media Causes Low-Self Esteem

The effects of social media and self-esteem are probably the most widely documented area concerning social media and mental health problems. Scrolling through the average person's Instagram feed usually displays countless pictures and posts of people having fun. People share pictures of their new homes, posts about their seemingly perfect children, or how they just landed their dream job. While on the surface, the natural reaction is to be happy for those we care about, the deeper reaction is an immediate comparison to what they have that we don't.

With the introduction of the social media age, teens aren't only faced with social comparisons during the school day but on a 24-hour cycle. High school kids can share a Snapchat of their new Nike's or the PS5 they got for their birthday in less time than it takes to count to five. Additionally, apps like Snapchat, which are meant to disappear, make it much easier for kids and teens to send negative pics, bully and emit peer pressure, all of which have negative consequences on a child's self-esteem.

How to Help Kids Feel More Confident

To help your child who may be dealing with low self-esteem due to peer pressure or social media, maintain an open-door policy with your child. Let them know they can come to talk to you at any time about anything, and when they do, don't become angry if they tell you something upsetting. Lashing out at your child for a mistake made will only serve to push them further away and more likely to hide important information next time.

If they do come to you with something heavy, try to reserve judgment and ask questions to further your understanding. Use open-ended questions like, "I am not sure I understand why you sent that text, can you help me understand better?" or "I don't like you using those types of words so can you help me understand why you used them?" You don't have to approve of their actions to support and help them through a difficult situation.

If you have concerns about your child being the victim or perpetrator of cyberbullying, check out the resources at stopbullying.gov for more help and ideas.

Additionally, You should build up your child with specific praise as much as possible. Notice them and what they do. For example, "Hey, I saw you took the trash out without my asking, thank you so much that really helps me out." or "I notice you've been studying really hard for your math test; your dedication to your schooling is impressive."

Even if your teen seems capable of pushing all of your buttons at once, and it may feel impossible to find something positive, but the small stuff adds up. "Thanks for washing your hands and coming to the dinner table when I asked; I enjoy sitting and talking with you at dinner."

2. Too Much Screen Time Causes Sleep Issues

We've all heard the reports over the years to turn off our electronics at least one hour before bed (two is even better!) because the light emitted from electronics disrupts our circadian rhythm. Unfortunately, the same is true for our kids. Additionally, the stress and anxiety social media can cause also affects our children's ability to fall asleep.

Lack of sleep leads to additional health issues and can affect your child's academic performance, behavior, appetite, lead to depression, and have a negative effect on their overall wellbeing. In addition, the growing brain needs sleep to develop properly; the average child and teen need 9.5 hours of sleep to support development and maturation.

How to Help Kids Sleep Better

The easiest thing you can do is to set screen time limits, especially before bed. While it may be challenging at first, especially if your child has a computer to TV in their room, stick to the plan, and you will begin to see less and less resistance after a week or two.

If you've never set limits for screens in your home before, start with a family meeting to discuss the new policy. Make it clear that it will be happening and that it is not up for debate, but also listen and answer any questions or concerns your children may have.

Good sleep hygiene involves replacing screen time with something relaxing. Perhaps your child has an hour of quiet playtime with LEGOS, drawing, or reading. You could play a game or read together, or make that when bathtime happens.

If needed, use a timer device to turn off Wi-Fi in your home at a specified time; that way, they can't get on even if they tried. You can also collect all phones and devices in a communal spot and lock them with a key.

It is essential you set the tone and the example for your children. For example, don't tell them "no electronics," and then go and watch TV, leaving them on their own. Yes, you are the adult and get to make the rules, but a good leader leads by example. Besides, you can always watch your favorite show after they fall asleep.

3. Social Media Dependence Leads to Less Independence

Screen time and the use of social media fall under passive activities and do not stimulate the growth or development of your child's brain. In addition, watching TV and social media apps do not prompt children to engage in critical thinking or hands-on learning.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under two, and children over two should have no more than an hour or two daily. Based on research by the APA, the average child aged 8-12 in the U.S. spends four to six hours a day using electronics; teens spend seven to nine hours daily.

Too much screen time contributes to behavioral problems, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, and deters overall cognitive development. Children are hands-on learners and they need experiences that engage and stimulate their brains.

The APA has recommended the following guidelines for children and screen time:

For children under 18 months, avoid screen-based media except video chatting.

For children 18 months to 24 months, parents should choose high-quality programming and watch with their children.

For children 2 to 5, limit screen time to one hour per day of high-quality programming.

For children 6 and up, establish consistent limits on the time spent using media and the types of media.

How to Help Kids Be More Independent

Not all screen time is terrible, and there are some ways parents can use it as a positive and productive learning experience. For example, turning screen time from a passive activity to an active one can stimulate a child's brain and develop the critical thinking skills passive media suppresses.

Watch programs together. Pause the TV and ask questions to prompt thinking

Have post-movie discussions about the plot, characters, conflict, and resolution

Act out stories or puppet shows based on their favorite shows and movies

Use their favorite shows to expand their interests.

If they love a dinosaur show, take them to a museum to see dinosaur skeletons.

If they love music, enroll them in a dance or music class.

Look for games and apps that engage critical thinking and problem solving

Understand it's OK for teens to engage in social media use and that technology is here to stay. Social media accounts are a way for adolescents to explore who they are and engage with peers.

Talk to your child about their behavior online and what is and is not appropriate for them to view, do, post, and say.

Help your child or teen understand the internet is forever. Everything they post will be part of their digital footprint.

Be a part of your child's social network so that you can view their posts when needed but don't use it to spy.

Install a monitoring app that will alert you if something questionable comes through but won't invade your teen's privacy

4. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) From Too Much Time Online

For young adults and teens, fear of missing out or FOMO is a new style of social anxiety. It seems everything is published on social media these days: parties, sporting events, shopping trips, vacations, sleepovers, the newest shoes or video game purchases, etc. Our children view social media as their lifeline to the world, so when disconnected from social media they feel disconnected from life.

On the flip side, when we see all those around seemingly having a fantastic time, it ignites feelings of FOMO in us because our peers are experiencing something we're not. A recent study showed that among millennials, the three things that cause the most FOMO when viewed on social media are vacations, parties, and food. When they experienced FOMO, it brought up envy, jealousy, and symptoms of depression.

How to Help

It's important to help your child understand that the seemingly perfect aspect of social media is not real life. Ask them to reflect on what they post and share; many people choose only to share positive traits and keep the negative private; therefore, it is likely that all their peers have negative experiences; they're just not public. Ask your child to reflect on all the positive aspects of their life. If they are old enough, they can start a gratitude journal.

Have open discussions about your child's wellbeing and any impact social media has on them. Discuss the importance of needing to take breaks from time to time. Encourage them to unplug and get outside. Fresh air and physical exercise can mitigate the negative impact of social media and is crucial for teens' mental health and physical wellness.

5. Decreased Physical Activity

It's probably no surprise that there is a direct correlation between more screen time and less physical activity. Children and teens spend more and more time online and in front of screens and less time engaged in active play. In addition, people tend to eat and drink mindlessly while sitting in front of the TV or playing online, packing on more calories.

Too much screen time can affect your child's ability to sleep, contributing to weight gain. Obesity and lack of physical activity lead to a myriad of health problems, including diabetes, heart diseases, respiratory issues, and depression.

How to Help Kids Get More Exercise

Encourage your child to get active by participating in it yourself. For example, you could take an exercise class together or go to the gym, have a dance party, or go for walks. If your child is inclined towards a specific sport or activity, sign them up for a season or some classes.

Set time limits for your child's screen time to encourage them to get active. Even if they choose to spend their non-screen time drawing or building LEGOs, they are actively engaging in cognitive skill-building, which also battles depression and other negative thoughts associated with screen time.

Use screen time as an active activity. Some games encourage movement and dance, and countless dance and yoga workout videos are available online. Engage in fun physical activities with your child, which sets the example that physical health is essential.

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5 Ways Social Media Affects Kids' Mental Health (And How Parents Can Help!)

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The recent Facebook whistleblower scandal in 2021 revealed that Facebook had tons of research that social media platforms like Instagram are toxic to the mental health of kids and teens. The whistleblower documents discussed how photo sharing apps like Instagram can negatively impact teens' body image and self-esteem. Recently, the U.S.

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Twitter loves lies. A new study finds that false information on the social media network travels six times faster than the truth. And reaches far more people.

And you can't blame bots. It's us. That's what the authors of the study say. It is the largest study of online misinformation.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at more than 126,000 stories. They were tweeted millions of times. They were tweeted between 2006 and the end of 2016. This was before Donald Trump took office. It was during the combative presidential campaign. They found that "fake news" sped through Twitter "farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information." That's according to the study in Thursday's journal Science.

"No matter how you slice it, falsity wins out." That's according to co-author Deb Roy. She runs MIT's Laboratory for Social Machines. She is a former chief media scientist at Twitter.

Twitter funded the study. It had no say in the outcome. That's according to the researchers.

The scientists calculated that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 Twitter users. But it takes about 60 hours for the truth to reach Twitter users. On average, false information reaches 35 percent more people than true news.

True news stories almost never got retweeted to 1,000 people. But the top 1 percent of the false ones got to as many as 100,000 people.

Researchers looked at how stories cascade. That is how they link from one person to another. It is like a family tree. False information reached as many as 24 generations. But true information maxed out at a dozen.

Concern over bogus stories online has escalated in recent months. This is due to evidence the Russians spread disinformation. It was spread on social media during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Social media companies have experimented with using computer algorithms and human fact-checkers. They are doing this to try to weed out false information and abuse online. Twitter earlier this month said it is seeking help from outside experts. They can better deal with the problem. And Facebook this week announced a partnership with The Associated Press. They want to identify and debunk false and misleading stories about the midterm elections.

"We have witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulation through bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns and increasingly divisive echo chambers." That was according to a tweet by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. "We aren't proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough."

The MIT study took the 126,285 stories and checked them against six independent fact-checking sites. They used the sites to classify stories as true, false or mixed. Nearly two-thirds were false. Just under one-fifth were true. And the rest were mixed.

The six fact-checking websites agreed with each other on classification at least 95 percent of the time. Two outside researchers did some independent fact-checking to make sure everything was OK. That is according to co-author Sinan Aral. He is an MIT management professor.

The Lead author is Soroush Vosoughi. He is an MIT data scientist. He identified three false stories. They traveled the farthest and fastest. The first was about a Muslim guard called a hero in the Paris bombings of 2015. The second was about an Iraq war veteran finishing as runner-up to Caitlyn Jenner for an ESPN courage award. And the third was about an episode of "The Simpsons." It had a story line in 2000 about a Trump presidency. (It was in 2015.)

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a University of Pennsylvania communications professor. She is a co-founder of factcheck.org. She had problems with the way the study looked at true and false stories. The MIT team characterized a story's truth on a 1-to-5 scale. One was completely false. Factcheck.org, Jamieson said, looks more at context. It does not label something either true or false.

She also suggested that calling this bogus information "false stories" does not capture how bad it is. She said it would "better be called viral deception."

The researchers looked at obvious bots and took them out. Bots are automated accounts. The bots tweeted false information at a higher rate than humans. But it wasn't that much of a difference. And even without bots, lies still spread faster and farther, Roy said.

David Lazer is a political and computer scientist. He works at Northeastern University. He wasn't part of the study. But he wrote an accompanying report. He praised the MIT research. But he said the scientists may have missed a lot of bots and cyborgs. Cyborgs are sort of in-between humans. His ongoing research has found that about 80 percent of false stories come from just one-tenth of 1 percent of users. His research has not been published yet.

The researchers dug deeper to find out what kind of false information travels faster and farther. They looked at false political stories. But researchers didn't separate conservative versus liberal. Stuff that was surprising or anger-provoking spread faster than other types of lies, Aral said.

"Falsehood was significantly more novel than the truth," Aral said. "It's easy to be novel when you make things up."

That fits perfectly with previous research on the psychology of fake information. That is according to Yale University's Dan Kahan. And also Dartmouth College's Brendan Nyhan. They are scientists who study the phenomenon.

"The more strange and more sensational the story sounds, the more likely they are going to retweet," Kahan said.

Nyhan and Lazer said that more fact-checking and education of people on how to tell fake from real can be helpful. But the more effective solution will have to come from the social media platforms themselves.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/junior/false-stories-travel-way-faster-truth/

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False stories travel way faster than the truth

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Twitter loves lies. A new study finds that false information on the social media network travels six times faster than the truth. And reaches far more people. And you can't blame bots. It's us. That's what the authors of the study say. It is the largest study of online misinformation.

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Screen Time is Slate's pop-up blog about children's TV, everywhere kids see it.

In 1996, Julie Aigner-Clark was a stay-at-home mom in Colorado frustrated by a lack of sufficiently educational entertainment for her 18-month-old daughter. She shot the first Baby Einstein video in her own basement with a borrowed camcorder, a few puppets, and an $18,000 budget. Five years later, she sold the company to Disney for a reported $25 million. Aigner-Clark appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and President Bush praised her as representing "the great enterprising spirit of America" in a State of the Union address. In 2009, however, the jig was up: Disney was forced to admit that the videos had no educational value and offered full refunds to parents who had bought them. What a dramatic rise and fall! It was like something out of Baby Shakespeare.

The big idea, before it (mostly) fell apart, was to expose children as young as 6 months to high culture and foreign languages, though many parents, desperate for a shower, seemed to start the curriculum even earlier. When "Baby Einstein" became a hit, Aigner-Clark produced other videos: "Baby Mozart," "Baby Galileo," "Baby Van Gogh," and yes, "Baby Shakespeare." The videos featured montages of toys, puppets, and simple shapes set to snippets of music and poetry. "We always think of these things as being for adults," Aigner-Clark told a reporter, "but my theory is you certainly see the beauty in these things if you are exposed to them in the right way, no matter what age you are."

For millions of parents, that theory made intuitive sense-or at least, they were eager for it to make sense, since the videos were also dynamite babysitters. Baby Einstein's website featured testimonials from parents who gushed about their children's obsession with the series; one mother proudly reported that her 20-month-old son watched the videos up to 10 times a day. It's hard to overstate how thoroughly Baby Einstein dominated the screens of family homes with small children in its first few years. By 2002, Baby Einstein videos were "mesmerizing babies across the country," one newspaper profile reported, "and turning that cranky hour at the end of the day into a more peaceful time." According to one study cited by the New York Times, a third of all American babies between 6 months old and 2 years old had at least one of the company's videos.

In retrospect, this was a golden era of screen time for the very young. Producers were offering increasingly sophisticated products targeted specifically at very young children. Teletubbies, a show intended for children as young as 1, premiered in the United States in 1998. Other productions made explicit claims that they would make babies smarter. "It's true!" the Baby Genius series reassured parents, "Classical music and powerful images stimulate your child's brain." Your Baby Can Read!, a $200 program of DVDs and books, promised that children as young as 9 months old could be on their way to literacy. There wasn't much pushback on this from experts. The American Academy of Pediatrics' first recommendations on children's TV consumption, published in 1999, sounded a cautious note about kids under 2 but didn't forbid it. It was the Wild West of babies staring at screens.

The Baby Einstein glow began to dissipate by the mid-aughts as studies doubting their efficacy started to roll in. For every hour a day that babies watched Baby Einstein videos, they knew 6-8 fewer words than their peers. Watching "Baby Wordsworth" did not improve 1- and 2-year-olds' language development. The earlier a child started watching Baby Einstein videos, in fact, the smaller his vocabulary.

The writing was on the wall, and even a baby could read it. An advocacy group complained to the Federal Trade Commission in 2006, prompting Baby Einstein to drop the word educational from their advertising. A few years later, the group threatened a class-action lawsuit, citing estimates that Baby Einstein products represented 90 percent of the "baby media" market.

Under pressure, Disney announced it would offer refunds of up to $16 for up to four DVDs per household, which many interpreted as a tacit admission that the videos were not producing Einsteins after all. The refunds were estimated to cost the company $100 million. (The FTC also successfully filed suit against Your Baby Can Read! in 2012. Your baby could not, in fact, read.) Disney sold Baby Einstein in 2013 for a presumably much less astronomical cost, and the brand still exists as a purveyor of toys, walkers, bouncers, baby mats, and other analog baby products. Aigner-Clark and her husband sued the researchers who published the most explosive debunking of their claims, saying they wanted to acquire the raw data in at attempt to clear her legacy.

The idea that a vaguely highbrow video can make a child smarter now sounds like a kind of old-timey tech utopianism, like the idea that social media would democratize the flow of information and unite people around the globe. The question now is not whether screen time might make your babies brilliant but whether it actively harms them.

Twenty years after Aigner-Clark sold her first Baby Einstein video, there's remarkably little real-life consensus. The AAP has tweaked its recommendations several times, with the latest guidelines allowing that FaceTime is OK for babies less than 18 months old and that toddlers can benefit from educational media if parents are next to them while they watch. We're still figuring this stuff out. With gruesome imitations of popular kids' shows looping on YouTube and toy companies trying to push " tabletop digital nannies" for kids' rooms, the worst-case scenarios for kids and screens have gone way past These cute videos might not boost my infant's IQ. While Baby Einstein may have overpromised, in retrospect, anodyne puppetry set to synth-y Mozart doesn't look so bad.

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Once Upon a Time, Parents Thought Videos of Puppets Playing Mozart Would Make Babies Smarter

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Screen Time is Slate's pop-up blog about children's TV, everywhere kids see it. In 1996, Julie Aigner-Clark was a stay-at-home mom in Colorado frustrated by a lack of sufficiently educational entertainment for her 18-month-old daughter. She shot the first Baby Einstein video in her own basement with a borrowed camcorder, a few puppets, and an $18,000 budget.

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Media Consumption: How Much Is Too Much?

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What's the average age when kids get a social media account? | CNN

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About 56% of US youth have their own social media accounts, according to Common Sense Media. The average age when signing up for an account was 12.6 years.

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NIH study tracks effects of social media on adolescent brains

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If you thought you could coast when it comes to talking to your younger child about social media, think again. Your tween may be counting down the days until they turn 13. Not only do they officially become a teenager, but they are also now technically allowed to use social media accounts like Instagram.

If it were up to the country's top doctor though, 13 is still too young for children to be on social media. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says kids this age are still developing their identities, and the environment on social media often creates a distorted view of self-worth and relationships. The Surgeon General adds he knows it's hard to keep kids off social media due to its popularity. But, he suggests parents create a united front and not allow their kids to get accounts until later in their teenage years.

Still, children will find a way online anyway. The number of children under 13 using fake birthdays and a parent's email address to create accounts on popular social media sites (whether they have permission or not) is a bit startling.

According to 2022 research from Ofcom, the regulator for communications services in the United Kingdom, 33% of parents of children ages 5 to 7 said their child had at least one social media account. About 60% of children ages 8 to 11 owned an account. That means instead of kickball, conversations at recess for your fourth grader may very well be focused more on who posted what on Instagram or TikTok last night. Scary, we know.

That's why the American Psychological Association (APA) came up with a new set of guidelines for parents and children to help them create safe social media habits.

Guidelines for Safe Social Media Usage

We all know teens and tweens are going to use social media no matter what, so it's important to set boundaries and expectations. That was the basis for the APA's new recommendations on social media use. The APA's advisory group came up with 10 recommendations.

One of the first points the APA makes is that kids should have some kind of social media literacy training. "Social media is neither inherently harmful nor beneficial to our youth," APA President Thema Bryant, Ph.D. says in a news release. "Just as we require young people to be trained in order to get a driver's license, our youth need instruction in the safe and healthy use of social media."

Among the other recommendations, the APA says social media use should be tailored to kids' developmental capabilities. For kids on the younger side, adults should closely monitor their usage, which includes discussions around the content they are seeing. Tweens and teens should also be limited in how they're using social media to compare beauty and appearance, as well as be monitored for any signs of problematic social media use, which may interfere with their daily routines, sleep, or physical activity.

"We hope these recommendations will be helpful as we all try to keep pace with the rapidly shifting social media ecosystem," says APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D. in the news release. Still, the APA says more investment is needed in research to further determine the impact of social media on our young people.

Positives of Social Media for Kids

There are undoubtedly perks to having kids of the proper age and with parental consent connecting with their peers on social media. Even the APA acknowledges there are benefits, including promoting healthy socialization.

Platforms like Instagram are full of inspiration and allow kids to creatively express themselves. But parents should also be aware of potential exposure to cyberbullying and inappropriate content. Younger children in particular may not realize the consequences of their online actions, which may put them in compromising situations. These are risks that the popular photo-sharing app is taking seriously.

Over the years, Instagram has unveiled numerous safety upgrades to protect kids and teens online. Some recent implementations: an education hub for parents, supervision tools, automatic private accounts for young users, a "Take a Break" feature that discourages endless scrolling, and more.

But Eddie Ruvinsky, director of engineering at Instagram, says monitoring isn't the end-all solution. "It's really about making sure that you have trust and you have ongoing dialogue for any activity that they do," he says.

Here are a few tips to get you started when it comes to teaching your child good social media habits.

Start Talking About Social Media Early

Ana Homayoun, M.A., P.P.S, a social media expert and the author of Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World, who worked with Instagram to create parental safety guides, says parents should start the conversation around social media early. "Even if kids aren't on social media, many are online from an early age and using different websites," she says. "In my experience, kids aren't being informed about Instagram and other social media apps from their parents-they are learning from friends, peers, older siblings, and other influencers-so it's important that parents take an active role in encouraging conversations."

Make a Game Plan

"I encourage coming from a place of curiosity and asking open-ended questions to help children identify why they want to join Instagram, what they think a positive experience on Instagram would look like for them, and who they could turn to if something feels uncomfortable and doesn't go as planned," says Homayoun. "Doing so allows them to proactively think about how they would define and create a positive online user experience," She suggests using the three S's-healthy socialization, effective self-regulation, and overall safety-as a guide for framing the discussion.

Prioritize Privacy

"A lot of people don't always know they have the ability to be private on Instagram," says Lori Malahy, research lead at Instagram. Turning your account on "private" mode means that only approved followers can view, comment, and like your content. This could prevent your child's personal information from ending up in the wrong hands. Take a cue from Dan Zigmond, former director of analytics at Instagram, who required his kids to have a private account and personally know all their followers. (Note that Instagram automatically signs up teens for private accounts).

Enforce Good Social Media Etiquette

Receiving mean comments on social media can hurt a child's self esteem-and writing the comments can get them into trouble. Talk with your child about proper social media etiquette, and utilize the tools outlined in Instagram's resource guide. For example, the app lets you filter out offensive or inappropriate words from your comments.

Set Time Limits

Tweens are still developing self-discipline, so it's not unusual for them to spend hours on social media platforms. Work together to determine an appropriate amount of time they should spend on apps each day, whether it's 15 minutes or one hour. You can also take advantage of Instagram's Activity Dashboard, which lets you set daily time limit reminders, mute push notifications, and more.

Teach Kids Accountability

Cyberbullying is increasingly common nowadays. According to the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 16% of surveyed high school students said they were electronically bullied in the previous 12 months. That percentage goes up for those students who identify as female or LGBTQ+.

Thankfully, Instagram lets users control bullying by removing hateful comments, reporting negative behavior, and blocking individuals. "One of the most important things I'd like my son to understand is that things that happen online can affect how people feel offline," says Ian Spalter, former director of design at Instagram. "It's really important for them to take that into account with whatever actions they take online."

Practice What You Preach

You know that kids are sponges, and they're constantly learning by example. By practicing positive social media habits yourself, you're setting up your children for a rewarding and inspiring experience.

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Why It's Never Too Early to Teach Your Child Good Social Media Habits

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Teens and even tweens are going to use social media no matter what. The American Psychological Association issues new guidelines for parents and children to stay safe online.

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The reality is that we have not yet successfully defined violence and aggression, whether when analyzing the content we consume, or investigating the potentially resultant aggressive behaviour. Because individual studies define these notions differently, the goal posts are constantly moving for anyone who is trying to get a big picture look at the situation. The difficulty of quantifying aggression and violence in a strict way makes it nearly impossible to accurately answer the question "Does media violence cause people to commit violence?"

Many Studies, Many Conclusions

Back in 1994 Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on media violence for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three "grey areas" or constraints contained in the research itself. These grey areas still apply today.

First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as the late George Gerbner, defined violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. As such, Gerber included cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically excluded cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation. (How they would view some of the increasingly realistic violence in many of today's cartoons aimed at teens - such as the gruesome injuries suffered by many of the characters on South Park and Family Guy - is an open question.)

Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Others say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection (that both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor) while others say the data supports the conclusion that there is no relationship between the two at all.

Third, even those who agree that there is a connection between media violence and aggression disagree about how the one affects the other. Some say that the mechanism is a psychological one, rooted in the ways we learn. For example, L. Rowell Huesmann argues that children develop "cognitive scripts" that guide their own behaviour by imitating the actions of media heroes. As they watch violent shows, children learn to internalize scripts that use violence as an appropriate method of problem-solving.

Other researchers argue that it is the physiological effects of media violence that cause aggressive behaviour. Exposure to violent imagery is linked to increased heart rate, faster respiration and higher blood pressure. Some think that this simulated "fight-or-flight" response predisposes people to act aggressively in the real world.

Still others focus on the ways in which media violence primes or cues pre-existing aggressive thoughts and feelings. They argue that an individual's desire to strike out is justified by media images in which both the hero and the villain use violence to seek revenge, often without consequences.

In her final report to the CRTC, Martinez concluded that most studies support "a positive, though weak, relation between exposure to television violence and aggressive behaviour." Although that relationship cannot be "confirmed systematically," she agrees with Dutch researcher Tom Van der Voot who argues that it would be illogical to conclude that "a phenomenon does not exist simply because it is found at times not to occur, or only to occur under certain circumstances."

With that in mind, based on a number of recent studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals, there are some things we can say:
What's the good news?

Violent video games are not causally related to incidents like high school shootings. [1]

Video games are not causally linked to youth crime, aggression, and dating violence. [2]

Violent video games have not led to an increase in violent crime; in fact, violent crime has decreased in the years since game playing became a common activity for youth. [3]

Even though consumers tend to gravitate towards violent media, we are generally more satisfied by and take more joy from non-violent media. [4]

What's the bad news?

Violent video games may desensitize players to other violent images and emotional stimuli. [5]

Violent media often portray violent acts and situations but rarely represent the consequences of violence. [6]

Violent video games may lead to increased aggression in some young children and youth by making aggression seem like a reasonable response to everyday conflicts. [7]

What else needs to be considered?

Despite the emphasis placed on the possibility of violent media as a risk factor for youth violence, there are a number of far more relevant risk factors that are less frequently discussed. These include poverty, education, discrimination, and home life. [8]

Many sources of violent media content are satirical and not intended to be taken literally or as a valorization of violence. The problem is that many of these media products are also intended for adults or older audiences. Children don't generally develop the ability to recognize satire until around age 12. [9]

We need to keep in mind that all children are not the same and what may disturb one child may have no effect at all on another. Moreover, development issues, emotional maturity, and relationships with peers and family seem to play a much more significant role in determining if a child is at risk for violent behaviour. [10]

A number of older studies and the criticisms about them remain relevant today as well. Ever since the 1950s, laboratory experiments have consistently shown that exposure to violence is associated with increased heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration rate, and a greater willingness to inflict pain or punishment on others. However, this line of enquiry has been criticized because of its focus on short term results and the artificial nature of the viewing environment.

A number of surveys indicate that children and young people who report a preference for violent entertainment also score higher on aggression indexes than those who watch less violent shows. L. Rowell Huesmann reviewed studies conducted in Australia, Finland, Poland, Israel, Netherlands and the United States and reported that "the child most likely to be aggressive would be the one who (a) watches violent television programs most of the time, (b) believes that these shows portray life just as it is, [and] (c) identifies strongly with the aggressive characters in the shows." [11] However, it may equally be that youth with tendencies towards violence are more likely to enjoy violent media.

In a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2003 [12] nearly half (47 per cent) of parents with children between the ages of four and six reported that their children had imitated aggressive behaviours from TV. However, it is interesting to note that children are more likely to mimic positive behaviours - 87 per cent of kids do so.

Kansas State University professor John Murray [13] concluded in his research that "the most plausible interpretation of this pattern of correlations is that early preference for violent television programming and other media is one factor in the production of aggressive and antisocial behavior when the young boy becomes a young man."

A number of studies have reported that watching media violence frightens young children, [14] and that the effects of this may be long lasting.

In 1998, Professors Singer, Slovak, Frierson and York [15] surveyed 2,000 Ohio students in Grades three through eight. They reported that the incidences of psychological trauma (including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress) increased in proportion to the number of hours of television watched each day.

A 1999 survey of 500 Rhode Island parents led by Brown University professor Judith Owens [16] revealed that the presence of a television in a child's bedroom made it more likely that the child would suffer from sleep disturbances. Nine per cent of all the parents surveyed reported that their children had nightmares because of a television show at least once a week.

Tom Van der Voort [17] studied 314 children ages nine through 12 in 1986. He found that although children can easily distinguish cartoons, westerns and spy thrillers from reality, they often confuse realistic programs with the real world. When they are unable to integrate the violence in these shows because they can't follow the plot, they are much more likely to become anxious. This is particularly problematic because the children reported that they prefer realistic programs, which they equate with fun and excitement. Similar studies[18], [19] have since been conducted in the 90s with results corroborating Van der Voort's findings. As Jacques de Guise [20] reported in 2002, the younger the child, the less likely he or she will be able to identify violent content as violence.

In 1994, researchers Fred Molitor and Ken Hirsch [21] found that children are more likely to tolerate aggressive behaviour in the real world if they first watch TV shows or films that contain violent content.

George Gerbner conducted the longest running study of television violence. His seminal research suggests that heavy TV viewers tend to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with the images on TV. As viewers' perceptions of the world come to conform with the depictions they see on TV, they become more passive, more anxious, and more fearful. Gerbner called this the "Mean World Syndrome." [22]

Gerbner's research found that those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to:

overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime

believe their neighbourhoods are unsafe

believe "fear of crime is a very serious personal problem"

assume the crime rate is increasing, even when it is not

André Gosselin, Jacques de Guise and Guy Paquette decided to test Gerbner's theory in the Canadian context in 1997 [23]. They surveyed 360 university students, and found that heavy television viewers are more likely to believe the world is a more dangerous place. However, they also found heavy viewers are not actually more likely to be more afraid.

A number of studies since then suggest that media is only one of a number of variables that put children at risk of aggressive behaviour. For example, a Norwegian study [24] that included 20 at-risk teenaged boys found that the lack of parental rules regulating what the boys watched was a more significant predictor of aggressive behaviour than the amount of media violence they watched. It also indicated that exposure to real world violence, together with exposure to media violence, created an "overload" of violent events. Boys who experienced this overload were more likely to use violent media images to create and consolidate their identities as members of an anti-social and marginalized group.

On the other hand, researchers report that parental attitudes towards media violence can mitigate the impact it has on children. Huesmann and Bacharach conclude, "Family attitudes and social class are stronger determinants of attitudes toward aggression than is the amount of exposure to TV, which is nevertheless a significant but weaker predictor."

What should be apparent to us when we look at these kinds of claims and studies is that media violence is a highly complex and nuanced issue. There are clearly concerns with regards to violent media content such as age-appropriateness, saturation, desensitization, and instilling fear or unease in viewers. At the same time, many of the media products through which we are exposed to violent imagery provide benefits as well. Games and movies may expose young people to some violent content, but studies increasingly show that they also offer positive benefits. There is no way to completely shut out violent content, or to guarantee that children will never play video games that are rated as too old for them, or to make certain that everyone's feelings on what is inappropriate content will coincide with industry self-regulation practices. What concerned adults and parents can do, however, is promote critical engagement with the media that young people and children consume, monitor their children's media use, and discuss and establish rules at home to let young people understand what is or is not appropriate. More on how to talk about media violence with children can be found in the subsection Critically Engaging with Media Violence. If you are interested in legislation and industry tools that can help you to understand laws or give you a better idea of what to look out for, see our Government and Industry Responses to Media Violence.

[1] "The School Shooting/Violent Videogame Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?" Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling Volume 5, Issue 1-2, Article first published online: 9 DEC 2008. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jip.76/pdf)
[2] "A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents." Ferguson, Christopher J., et. Al. Journal of Psychiatric Research. Volume 46, Issue 2 , Pages 141-146, February 2012. (http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/PIIS0022395611002627/abstract)
[3] "Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime." Cunningham, Scott. Benjamin Engelstätter and Michael R. Ward. April 7, 2011. (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1804959)
[4] "The Relationship Between Selective Exposure and the Enjoyment of Television Violence." Andrew J. Weaver, Matthew J. Kobach. Aggressive Behaviour Vol. 8 14 FEB 2012. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.2012.38.issue-2/issuetoc)
[5] "Does excessive play of violent first-person-shooter-video-games dampen brain activity in response to emotional stimuli?" Biological Psychology, Jan. 2012. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21982747)
[6] "Violent Entertainment Pitched to Adolescents: An Analysis of PG-13 Films". Theresa Webb, Lucille Jenkins, Nickolas Browne, Abdelmonen A. Afifi, and Jess Kraus. Pediatrics June 2007. (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/6/e1219.full)
[7] "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States". Craig A. Anderson, Akira Sakamoto, Douglas A. Gentile, Nobuko Ihori, Akiko Shibuya, Shintaro Yukawa, Mayumi Naito, and Kumiko Kobayashi. Pediatrics November 2008. (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/5.toc)
[8] "The Roots of Youth Violence": Government of Ontario. 2008.
(http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/youthandthelaw/roots/index.aspx)
[9] Dr. Lawrence Steinberg, Developmental Psychologist. Temple University. Qtd. In: Grand Theft Childhood. Kutner, Lawrence and Cheryl K. Olson. Simon & Shuster, NY, 2008.
[10] Grand Theft Childhood:Kutner, Lawrence and Cheryl K. Olson. Simon & Shuster, NY, 2008.
[11] Huesmann, L.R. Television and Aggressive Behaviour. Television and Behaviour: Ten Years of Scientific Progress and Implications for the Eighties. Institute of Mental Health. Rockville, MD. 1982
[12] Rideout, V et al. Zero to Six. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2003
[13] Murray, John. The Impact of Televised Violence. Hofstra Law Review V. 22. 1994
[14] Owens, J., Maxim, R., McGuinn, M., Nobile, C., Msall, M., & Alario, A. (1999). Television-viewing habits and sleep disturbance in school children. Pediatrics, 104 (3), 552.[15] Singer, Mi. et al. Viewing Preferences, Symptoms of Psychological Trauma, and Violent Behaviours Among Children Who Watch Television. Journal of American Academic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 1998.
[16] Owens J, Maxim R, Nobile C, McGuinn M, Alario A, Msall M. Television viewing habits and sleep disturbances in school-aged children. Pediatrics, 1999;104(3):e 27
[17] Van der Voort, T.H. Television Violence: A Child's Eye View. Amsterdam. Elsevier, 1986.
[18] Wright, John C. et al. Young Children's Perceptions of Television Reality. Developmental Psychology, VOl. 30. 1994.
[19] Chandler, Daniel. Children's Understanding of What is Real on Television. 1997
[20] DeGuise, Jacques. Analyse des émissions de fiction diffusées par les six réseaux généralistes, 2002.
[21] Molitor, Fred, & Hirsch, Kenneth W. (1994). Children's toleration of real-life aggression after exposure to media violence: A replication of the Drabman and Thomas studies. Child Study Journal, 24(3)
[22] Gerbner, G. Violence and Terror in the Mass Media. Reports and Paper on Mass Communication No. 102). France: UNESCO.
[23] Gosselin, A. et al. Violence on Canadian Television and Some of Its Cognitive Effects. Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol. 22, No2. 1997
[24] Karlsen, Faltin and Trine Syvertsen. Media Regulation and Parents. Statens Filmtilsyn. 2004

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It is difficult to set down in a definitive way what effect media violence has on consumers and young people. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main issue is that terms like "violence" and "aggression" are not easily defined or categorized.

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Young people - who have disposable income and a tremendous influence on family purchases - are the perfect target for marketers and advertisers. This section covers various issues related to marketing that targets children and youth.

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In this section, you will find our collected writings on issues related to the ways that media represents and sometimes misrepresents specific groups of people; how media influence our attitudes and behaviours; and the ethical decisions we make daily as media consumers.

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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Amid growing concern over social media's impact and influence on today's youth, a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens finds that many young people acknowledge the unique challenges - and benefits - of growing up in the digital age.

Today, social media use is nearly universal among teens. While notable shares say they at times feel overwhelmed by the drama on social media and pressure to construct only positive images of themselves, they simultaneously credit these online platforms with several positive outcomes - including strengthening friendships, exposing them to different viewpoints and helping people their age support causes they care about.

Roughly eight-in-ten teens ages 13 to 17 (81%) say social media makes them feel more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives, while around two-thirds say these platforms make them feel as if they have people who will support them through tough times. And by relatively substantial margins, teens tend to associate their social media use with positive rather than negative emotions, such as feeling included rather than excluded (71% vs. 25%) or feeling confident rather than insecure (69% vs. 26%).

Young people also believe social media helps teens become more civically minded and exposes them to greater diversity - either through the people they interact with or the viewpoints they come across. Roughly two-thirds of teens say these sites help people their age interact with individuals from diverse backgrounds, find different points of view or show their support for causes or issues. And they see digital environments as important spaces for youth to connect with their friends and interact with others who share similar interests. For example, 60% of teens say they spend time with their friends online on a daily or nearly daily basis, and 77% say they ever spend time in online groups and forums.

The survey also illustrates the ways in which teens navigate social norms around what - and how often - they post to these sites. It is much more common for young people to post about their accomplishments or family life than to discuss their personal problems or political beliefs on social media. And while Millennials - some of whom are just older than teens - have been deemed the "selfie generation," roughly half of today's teens say they rarely (25%) or never (26%) post selfies on social media.

For some teens, sharing their life online can come with added social burdens: Around four-in-ten say they feel pressure to only post content on social media that makes them look good to others (43%) or share things that will get a lot of likes or comments (37%).

At the same time, the online environment for today's teens can be hostile and drama-filled - even if these incidents may fall short of more severe forms of cyberbullying. Some 45% of teens say they feel overwhelmed by all the drama on social media, with 13% saying they feel this way "a lot." And a similar share of teens (44%) say they often or sometimes unfriend or unfollow others on social media. When asked why they've digitally disconnected from others, 78% of this group report doing so because people created too much drama, while 52% cite the bullying of them or others.

These are some of the key findings from the Center's survey of 743 teens, ages 13 to 17, conducted March 7-April 10, 2018. Throughout the report, "teens" refers to those ages 13 to 17.

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Teens' Social Media Habits and Experiences

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Teens credit social media for helping to build stronger friendships and exposing them to a more diverse world, but they express concern that these sites lead to drama and social pressure.

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How social media makes adolescence even harder

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Niamh Baldock / Alamy

The claim always seemed too good to be true: park your infant in front of a video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter than the neighbor's kid. In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as the "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" series, researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good. And they may actually delay language development in toddlers.

Led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, both at the University of Washington, the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," says Christakis. "These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos." (See the top 10 children's books of 2008.)

It's not the first blow to baby videos, and likely won't be the last. Mounting evidence suggests that passive screen sucking not only doesn't help children learn, but could also set back their development. Last spring, Christakis and his colleagues found that by three months, 40% of babies are regular viewers of DVDs, videos or television; by the time they are two years old, almost 90% are spending two to three hours each day in front of a screen. Three studies have shown that watching television, even if it includes educational programming such as Sesame Street, delays language development. "Babies require face-to-face interaction to learn," says Dr. Vic Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. "They don't get that interaction from watching TV or videos. In fact, the watching probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development." Previous studies have shown, for example, that babies learn faster and better from a native speaker of a language when they are interacting with that speaker instead of watching the same speaker talk on a video screen. "Even watching a live person speak to you via television is not the same thing as having that person in front of you," says Christakis.

This growing evidence led the Academy to issue its recommendation in 1999 that no child under two years old watch any television. The authors of the new study might suggest reading instead: children who got daily reading or storytelling time with their parents showed a slight increase in language skills.

Though the popular baby videos and DVDs in the Washington study were designed to stimulate infants' brains, not necessarily to promote language development, parents generally assume that the products' promises to make their babies smarter include improvement of speaking skills. But, says Christakis, "the majority of the videos don't try to promote language; they have rapid scene changes and quick edits, and no appearance of the 'parent-ese' type of speaking that parents use when talking to their babies." Read "Parenting Advice: What Moms Should Learn From Dads.")

As far as Christakis and his colleagues can determine, the only thing that baby videos are doing is producing a generation of overstimulated kids. "There is an assumption that stimulation is good, so more is better," he says. "But that's not true; there is such a thing as overstimulation." His group has found that the more television children watch, the shorter their attention spans later in life. "Their minds come to expect a high level of stimulation, and view that as normal," says Christakis, "and by comparison, reality is boring."

He and other experts worry that the proliferation of these products will continue to displace the one thing that babies need in the first months of life — face time with human beings. "Every interaction with your child is meaningful," says Christakis. "Time is precious in those early years, and the newborn is watching you, and learning from everything you do." So just talk to them; they're listening.

Read "Advice for Coddling Parents: Put Baby to Bed Alone."

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

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Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com

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The claim always seemed too good to be true: park your infant in front of a video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter than the neighbor's kid. In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as the "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" series, researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good.

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A few weeks ago I wrote a study that showed that exposing premature babies to Mozart music may lead to metabolic changes that facilitate weight gain and better medical outcomes. That study is an example of one credible and positive outcome that came out of the "Mozart effect' craze. Unfortunately, most of the other claims, such as that listening to Mozart improves intelligence, have been discredited. So today I'm discussing a similar fad: making babies watch educational dvds or movies. For example, an entire industry has been developed to provide 'educational' dvds designed for infants and toddlers, such as the Baby Einstein DVD series reduced and marketed by Walt Disney. These dvds are marketed as developmentally appropriate for young children and able to facilitate the development of various cognitive skills such as language. For example, the dvd Baby Wordsworth is supposed to help babies learn 30 English words using child-friendly scenes (e.g., puppets, etc).
But do they work?
The journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine just published a study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of California at Riverside. The study included 95 babies/toddlers between the ages of 12 and 25 months. These children were randomly assigned to a Baby Wordsworth DVD condition or to a no DVD group. Parents of the children in the DVD group were asked to use the Baby Wordworth DVD as they would use any other media at home. The no DVD group simply completed a series of laboratory tasks but were not provided with a dvd to watch at home. The study lasted for 6 weeks. Before and after the 6 weeks, the children went through a battery of tests and the parents completed a series of scales designed to measure the baby's language and cognitive skills.
The results:
1. By the end of the 6 weeks, there was no difference between those infants who were repeatedly exposed to the dvd and those who were not exposed to the dvd in regards to their general language and cognitive abilities.

The above finding is not really surprising as it would be unrealistic to expect that the dvd would have a major impact on the childrens cognitive or language function in just 6 weeks. So a better question would be: Does the dvd help children learn those 30 words?

2. By the end of the 6 weeks, those infants who watched the dvd during this time were not more likely than those who didn't watch the DVD to say the words, recognize the words, or identify the words using pictures of the objects.

The findings suggest that the educational DVD does not facilitate the learning of these words by infants when exposed to the dvd in a naturalistic setting for 6 weeks. So far, I had not been surprised by these results, but I was a bit surprised by the following:

3. Those infants exposed to the dvd at an earlier age (closer to 12 months) had lower overall language scores at the end of the 6 weeks than those exposed to the dvd at a later age (closer to 24 months) or those not exposed at all.

This seems to suggest that early exposure to the dvd can actually negatively impact language development. Although a couple of previous studies have found similar effects, this study is critical because it helps us answer one key question: does early exposure to the dvd affect language development or do children with language delays simply tend to watch more tv/dvds? For example, it is possible that parents of children who have more language delays buy the educational DVDs in order to help their children. If this is the case, there would be an association between watching dvds and language delays, but it would not be the DVD that contributed to the language delay. But this study suggests that this may not be the case because the participants in this study were randomly assigned to the DVD or the no DVD group. That is, in this study, the use of the DVD is unlikely to be due to parental concerns about the children's language development.

So what can explain the possible detrimental effects of watching these educational dvds at an early age? The authors mentioned a couple of possibilities. It is possible that having the dvd as a tool kept the parents from engaging verbally with the infants leading to a delay in language development. It is also possible that the dvd lacks one major component of the language learning process: The Authors explain:

Regarding word learning specifically, a large body of language acquisition research suggests infants are more likely to learn words for novel objects if a speaker is looking at an object rather than attending elsewhere or looking directly at the child.18 Thus, learning words from a television screen requires children to be paying attention to the screen and also to be aware of the relevant referent object to which the on-screen labeler is referring. In the case of the DVD used in this study, the onscreen character looked directly at the children and signed the name for the object while a voice-over spoke the label. This scenario is very different from the optimal word learning scenario for children younger than 2 years.

Regardless of the reason, the results of this and previous studies seem to suggest that exposing young infants to television, even when such media was specifically designed as an educational tool for babies, may be associated with a delay in language development.
The reference: Richert, R., Robb, M., Fender, J., & Wartella, E. (2010). Word Learning From Baby Videos Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine DOI: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2010.24

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Do Baby Einstein DVDs work? Exposing infants to educational dvds may affect their language development. - Child Psychology and Parenting Blog

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But do they work?The journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine just published a study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of California at Riverside. The study included 95 babies/toddlers between the ages of 12 and 25 months. These children were randomly assigned to a Baby Wordsworth DVD condition or to a no DVD group.

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Too Much Screen Time Can Have Lasting Consequences for Young Children's Brains

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A new study found that too much screen time is linked to developmental delays in very young children

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‘Advergames’: how games platform Roblox became a corporate marketing playground

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Advertising to children is strictly regulated – but household brands are flooding the gaming platform Roblox with interactive marketing. Is this a danger to young users?

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How Fortnite and Roblox are becoming marketing tools for the music industry

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Musicians and music rights holders are gradually realizing that they are leaving money on the table by not engaging more actively with audiences inside metaverse platforms. For many users of platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox, virtual worlds are one of the main ways they discover new music.

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For years, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no more than two hours of screen time for children and teenagers, and absolutely no screen time for children under 2. However, they've now updated their guidelines to reflect the realities of today's digital world.

The AAP's new recommendations acknowledge that technology is integrated into our daily lives, making it nearly impossible to police a strict two-hour per day limit on school-age children.

Additionally, technology can be a valuable component of learning. Children access computers and tablets at school and use computers to do their homework.

But, some kids are growing dependent on their devices. They're using video games and TV as their main form of entertainment and they're replacing face-to-face communication with text messages and social media.

What Makes the New Screen Time Guidelines Different

Past guidelines offered clear recommendations about the amount of time children should be allowed to access screens. The newest guidelines offer a more flexible approach.

Parents are encouraged to allow screen time in moderation, but there isn't a strict recommendation about the number of hours kids should be allowed to use digital devices. Here's what the AAP has to say about screen time:

Media has both pros and cons. Just like everything else, technology has pros and cons. Kids can learn a lot from educational content, but they can also be exposed to inappropriate images, unhealthy advertisements, and violent content. Take steps to make your child's media use a positive experience.

Healthy role modeling is essential. Your child will likely mimic your media use so it's essential to be a good role model. Read books, engage in physical activity, and spend time outdoors. Set healthy limits on your own electronics use.

Kids need rules about technology. Establish rules about the sites your child visits, the games he plays, and the movies he watches. Don't allow your child to gain access to social media until he's mature enough to handle the responsibility.

Engage with your child's technology. Get involved in your child's digital world. Learn how to play the games your child enjoys and explore the Internet together. Look for positive activities you can do together with electronics.

Set aside time without technology. Turn off your electronics during certain times of the day or on specific days of the week. It's important for kids to have time to engage in activities that don't involve their digital devices. Even a short digital detox could improve your child's behavior and emotional well-being.

Establish reasonable limits on screen time. Most kids can't handle unlimited access to their electronics. To keep your child physically and mentally healthy, set limits on screen time. Don't let your child sit in front of the TV all day every Saturday and don't allow him to stay up all night playing video games.

Turn media mistakes into teachable moments. Monitor your child's activity and be prepared for your child to make mistakes sometimes. Whether he logs onto an inappropriate website, or he goes over the data limit on his smartphone, turn those mistakes into teachable moments so your child can do better next time.

It's OK for teens to be online. Social media is a major part of most teen's lives. Let your teenager spend time online communicating with other people. It's likely that online communication will play an even bigger role in your teen's future career.

How to Implement Screen Time Guidelines for Your Child

According to the new guidelines, you don't necessarily need to set strict limits on the time your children are using their digital devices. But, you should examine the big picture and the role electronics are playing in everyone's lives.

Consider the habits your family has fallen into. Do you watch TV while you eat dinner? Do you stare at your phones when you're in a restaurant or at a sporting event?

Examine your children's media habits too. Do they watch TV before they go to bed? Are they using their devices whenever you're in the car?

You may want to establish some new rules for the whole family, such as "No electronics while we're eating dinner," or "No electronics on Saturdays." Those types of rules can help ensure everyone is establishing a healthier relationship with their electronic devices.

Special Considerations

For children younger than 18 months, use of screen media other than video-chatting should be discouraged. Meanwhile, parents of children 18 to 24 months of age who want to introduce digital media should choose high-quality programming or apps and use them together with children because this is how toddlers learn best. Letting children use media alone should be avoided.

For children older than 2 years, media limits are very appropriate. Limit screen use to no more than 1 hour or less per day of high-quality programming. Co-view or co-play with your children, and find other activities for to do together that are healthy for the body and mind such as reading, playing together, or going outside.

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How Much Screen Time Is Really OK for Kids?

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For years, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no more than two hours of screen time for children and teenagers, and absolutely no screen time for children under 2. However, they've now updated their guidelines to reflect the realities of today's digital world.

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Key points

The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that American children spend seven hours a day in front of electronic media.

Online interactions stimulate dopamine in a child's brain, which is addictive and could lead them to prefer virtual interactions over reality.

Children need to power off their devices regularly to clearly understand the boundaries between the virtual world and the real one.

Screen time is an inescapable reality of modern childhood, with kids of every age spending hours upon hours in front of iPads, smartphones, and televisions.

That's not always a bad thing: Educational apps and TV shows can be great ways for children to sharpen their communication skills-not to mention the break these gadgets provide harried parents. But tread carefully. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that American children spend a whopping seven hours a day in front of electronic media. Other statistics reveal that kids as young as two regularly play iPad games and have playroom toys that involve touch screens.

Saturation and long-term consequences

When very small children get hooked on tablets and smartphones, says Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of Britain's Royal Society of Medicine, they may unintentionally hinder their still-developing brains. Too much screen time too soon, he says, "is the very thing impeding the development of the abilities that parents are so eager to foster through the tablets. The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people's attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary-all those abilities are harmed."

Put more simply, parents who jump to screen time in a bid to give their kids an educational edge may actually be doing more harm than good-and they need to dole out future screen time in an age-appropriate matter. Between birth and age three, for example, our brains develop quickly and are particularly sensitive to the environment around us. In medical circles, this is called the critical period, because the changes that happen in the brain during these first tender years become the permanent foundation upon which all later brain function is built. In order for the brain's neural networks to develop normally during the critical period, a child needs specific stimuli from the outside environment. These are rules that have evolved over centuries of human evolution, but-not surprisingly-these essential stimuli are not found on today's tablet screens.

Much of the issue lies with the fact that what makes tablets and iPhones so great-dozens of stimuli at your fingertips, and the ability to process multiple actions simultaneously-is exactly what young brains do not need.

Tablets are the ultimate shortcut tools: Unlike a mother reading a story to a child, for example, a smartphone-told story spoon-feeds images, words, and pictures all at once to a young reader. Rather than having to take the time to process a mother's voice into words, visualize complete pictures and exert a mental effort to follow a storyline, kids who follow stories on their smartphones may get lazy. The device does much of the thinking for them.

Social development

The brain's frontal lobe is involved in decoding and comprehending social interactions. It is in this corner of the mind that we empathize with others, take in nonverbal cues while talking to friends and colleagues, and learn how to read the hundreds of unspoken signs-facial expression, tone of voice, and more-that add color and depth to real-world relationships.

So how and when does the brain's frontal lobe develop? Not surprisingly, the most crucial stage is in early childhood, during that same critical period, and it's dependent on authentic human interactions. So if your young child is spending all of his time in front of an iPad instead of chatting and playing with teachers and other children, his empathetic abilities-the near-instinctive way you and I can read situations and get a feel for other people-could potentially be dulled.

Life has no on/off switch

Have you ever seen a mother chuckle as her baby tries to "swipe" a real photograph, or punch their fingers onto a poster or book as if it were a touchscreen? It may seem cute, but it points to something much deeper in the child's brain-an internalization that all actions have an immediate effect, and all stimuli elicit a quick response.

This is true in the on-screen world, but not elsewhere. When every finger swipe brings about a response of colors and shapes and sounds, a child's brain responds gleefully with the neurotransmitter dopamine, the key component in our reward system that is associated with feelings of pleasure. Dopamine hits in the brain can feel almost addictive, and when a child gets too used to an immediate stimuli response, he may learn to prefer smartphone-style interaction-that is, immediate gratification and response-over a real-world connection.

Don't trash those tablets for good

Despite the risks, there are a lot of benefits to letting little ones use technology. Once a child is over the age of two, feel free to allow limited screen time-think an hour, max, of playing with tablets and iPhones each day-to help develop coordination, hone quick reactions, and even sharpen language skills. As with all the other toys and tools available to your developing child, smartphone use should stay in moderation, and never stand in for human interaction or real-world face time.

The bottom line? Power off regularly to help your child understand the clear boundaries between the virtual world and the real one.

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What Screen Time Can Really Do to Kids' Brains

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Too much at the worst possible age may have negative consequences.

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https://newsforkids.net/articles/2019/02/23/surprise-secret-cameras-and-microphones/

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People are using computer assistants (helpers) more and more. But as these assistants, such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, become more common, people are also discovering more problems with them.

Almost half of the adults in the US have used an assistant like this. Most people use them through their phones. But 1 in 6 adults in the US also has a "smart speaker" in the house. People can use these systems to make calls or send texts, to look at websites, or even to control their homes.

These systems are getting better and better at understanding what people are saying. They can even seem to talk back and forth with a person.

But underneath the fake voices, the systems are still just computer programs. They can make mistakes and they can be tricked. They can also trick humans.
Fooling Computers
Recently computer scientists have found ways to fool these "helpers". They can make the assistant think you said something that you didn't say - even something that might be the opposite of what you want. For example, the assistant might be tricked into taking you to a bad website, buying something you don't want, or sending your money to someone else. If you can control your house with your phone, it could even turn on the lights or unlock your house.

Computers don't really understand the things that people say. They break the noise coming into the computer into small pieces. Then the computers make guesses about how to put the pieces back together as words. Finally, they make the best guess they can about what the person using the computer meant.

Scientists were able to use this weakness to trick a computer. They changed the sounds in a recording so the computer hears something completely different from what a human hears. In one example, a human would hear: "Without the data set, the article is useless." But a computer would hear: "Okay, Google, browse to evil.com." The scientists were also able to hide commands in music.

https://newsforkids.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/adversarial0.wav

Another way the assistants have been fooled is called "DolphinAttack". Computer microphones can record sounds that are too high for humans to hear. A command can be recorded at such a high pitch that only the computer can hear it. The recording can be hidden in music or a YouTube video, for example.
Fooling Humans
Another problem can come up when a computer voice is too good. Last week Google showed off a new assistant they call Google Duplex. The system is meant to help people by making phone calls for them. The voice can have conversations with people at shops or restaurants so that you don't have to.

People were amazed when they heard the voice because it sounds just like a human. It even stops and says things like "um" and "er", as if it is thinking.

https://newsforkids.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/google-duplex-hair-appointment.mp3

After Google played some of the Duplex conversations, many people complained. They said the voice was too natural. They said that humans should be able to tell whether they were talking to a computer or not.

Google now says that it agrees. Google Duplex will now say that it is a computer before it begins "talking to" people on the phone.

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Problems With Computer Assistants - News For Kids

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People are using computer assistants (helpers) more and more. But as these assistants, such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, become more common, people are also discovering more problems with them. Almost half of the adults in the US have used an assistant like this. Most people use them through their phones.

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A family in Portland, Oregon was surprised to learn that their digital assistant had recorded them talking, and sent the recording to someone they knew.

A woman called Danielle and her husband live in Portland. They have five Amazon Echo devices in their house. The Echo is a "smart speaker" - a small computer that allows people to use Amazon's digital assistant, Alexa. The family used Alexa to answer questions, send messages, and to control the lighting, heating, and alarm system in their house.

About two weeks ago, Danielle's husband got a phone call from a person who works for him. The man said, "unplug your Alexa devices right now. You're being hacked." The man thought someone was spying on them.

At first they thought the man was joking, but then he was able to tell them exactly what they had been talking about - hardwood floors. He had been sent a recording of their conversation. Danielle and her husband were so worried that they unplugged all of their Echoes.

This is not the first time that this has happened. Last year, Alexa sent another man's conversation to a business friend of his. Like Danielle and her family, this man had no idea how his conversation got recorded and sent.

Smart speaker systems like the Echo are always recording. They listen for a "wake word", such as "Alexa", which tells them to start working. If they don't hear the wake word, they throw out the recording about once a second. Once they get woken up, though, they send the recording off so the computer service can try to figure out what the user wants to do.

Amazon says that Alexa must have heard some small parts of the conversation that sounded like commands, such as "send message". Amazon says that Alexa asked out loud before sending the message, and that Alexa heard something that sounded like "Right."

Danielle says they were not talking to Alexa and they never heard Alexa say anything. Some people have pointed out that Alexa had to hear things wrong at least five times in order for this mistake to happen.

Amazon believes that it was an "unlikely...string of events" that made Alexa record and share the conversation. Amazon says it is working to make sure this kind of mistake doesn't happen again.

Danielle has thought of another way to keep the mistakes from happening. "I'm never plugging that device in again, because I can't trust it," she said. Amazon has agreed to let the family return their Echoes and get their money back.

Many people have been worried about digital assistants. They think that when devices are always "listening", the people around them will lose their privacy. Problems like the one Danielle's family had with Alexa seem to support that idea.

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Alexa Records, Shares Family's Conversation - News For Kids

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A family in Portland, Oregon was surprised to learn that their digital assistant had recorded them talking, and sent the recording to someone they knew. A woman called Danielle and her husband live in Portland. They have five Amazon Echo devices in their house.

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The popularity of Amazon's Alexa shows that many people don't mind trading some privacy to have a computer assistant always around to help them. But Bloomberg News recently reported that humans are also listening to many Alexa recordings.

Alexa is the name of Amazon's digital assistant service. The service is built into many devices such as Amazon's "smart speakers", like Echo, and its Fire TV. Alexa can be used to answer questions, send messages, make calls, and help with many other small tasks.

Devices that use Alexa are always recording. They listen for a "wake word" like "Alexa", which tells them to start working. If they don't hear the wake word, they throw out the recording about once every second. Once they get woken up, though, they send the recording off so the computer service can try to figure out what the user wants to do.

Most people don't think too much about what they say to Alexa. They're just happy that Alexa is able to help. But one reason people don't worry about what they're saying is because they believe their words will only be heard by a machine.

Alexa uses artificial intelligence (AI) to discover what someone is asking and help them with their request. This means that Alexa's computer program is able to train itself and get better at figuring out what people want to do by finding patterns in the millions of requests it gets.

But no matter how good Alexa's computer program is, there will always be problems - unusual situations where things are hard to understand and only a human can help. Often these situations happen when some background noise, like a TV, makes Alexa think someone said the wake word.

Bloomberg reports that about 1,000 Alexa recordings a day are actually listened to by people. Amazon has people around the world who listen to recordings that Alexa is unable to understand. Once Amazon's special listeners figure out the message and type it out, they put the recording back into Alexa's system with the new information about what the user was trying to do. This process trains Alexa and helps the system get better at dealing with unusual situations.

But it also means that the details of Alexa's users lives are not really private at all. Other people, and sometimes several other people, might be listening to them, and hearing not just their words, but everything else that is going on in the recording. For example, workers have heard people singing in the shower and children yelling for help.

Amazon says, "We take the security and privacy of our customers' personal information seriously." Amazon also points out that other digital assistants, like those from Apple and Google, also use humans at times.

For people who are interested in changing their Alexa devices so that people at Amazon can't listen to their conversations anymore, it's not too hard to do. Instructions can be found here.
Did you know...?
The US state of Illinois recently tried to make a new law to prevent companies from using their devices to record people without letting them know they are being recorded. The law did not pass after Amazon, Google, and Microsoft fought against it.

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Amazon Workers Listen to Alexa Recordings

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The popularity of Amazon's Alexa shows that many people don't mind trading some privacy to have a computer assistant always around to help them. But Bloomberg News recently reported that humans are also listening to many Alexa recordings. Alexa is the name of Amazon's digital assistant service.

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Why Social Media is Not Smart for Middle School Kids

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Why Social Media is Not Smart for Middle School Kids

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Key points

A tween's underdeveloped frontal cortex can't manage the distraction nor the temptations that come with social media use.

The average teen spends nine hours a day connected to social media.

Spending more non-tech time together can help slow down kids' social media usage.

This guest post is by Melanie Hempe, BSN, founder of ScreenStrong.
I really love middle school kids. I have two of them! If you have been through middle-school parenting, you may have noticed what I see: Strange things seem to happen to a tween's brain the first day they walk into middle school.

One might sum up their main goals in life this way:

To be funny at all costs. (Hence, the silly bathroom jokes, talking at inappropriate times in class, and the "anything it takes to be popular" attitude.)

To focus on self - their clothes, their nose, their body, and their hair.

To try new things. They are playing "dress up" with their identity, trying on things to see what fits. They are impulsive and scattered, they are up and they are down, and it even seems that they have regressed in their development on their quest for independence.

As the parent, you are changing, too, as you enter the stage of parenting when you quickly depart from the naïve platform of "My child would never..." to the realization that, "I'm sure my child did that. I'm sorry, and please excuse his behavior, he is going through a phase."

Your list of daily parenting instruction may include statements like:

"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!"

"How many times do I have to tell you not the use that word?"

"Stop flipping that bottle!"

"Stop burping the ABCs!"

"You're acting like a 2-year-old."

"What were you thinking?"

Then it happens: Maybe because we are exhausted from their constant begging for a phone, or because we think that all their friends have one, or because we want to upgrade ours to the latest model...we cave. We act on impulse. Our brain seems to regress like theirs, and we give them our old smartphone.

And with that one little decision comes the world of social media access-something we haven't thought about and something none of us is prepared for. Because the midbrain is reorganizing itself and risk-taking is high and impulse control is low, I can't imagine a worse time in a child's life to have access to social media than middle school. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. Social media was not designed for them. A tween's underdeveloped frontal cortex can't manage the distraction nor the temptations that come with social media use. While you start teaching responsible use of tech now, know that you will not be able to teach the maturity that social media requires. Like trying to make clothes fit that are way too big, they will use social media inappropriately until they are older and it fits them better.

2. Social media is an entertainment technology. It does not make your child smarter or more prepared for real life or a future job; nor is it necessary for healthy social development. It is pure entertainment attached to a marketing platform extracting bits and pieces of personal information and preferences from your child every time they use it, not to mention hours of their time and attention.

3. A tween's "more is better" mentality is a dangerous match for social media. Do they really have 1,456 friends? Do they really need to be on it nine hours a day? Social media allows (and encourages) them to overdo their friend connections like they tend to overdo other things in their lives.

4. Social media is an addictive form of screen entertainment. And, like video game addiction, early use can set up future addiction patterns and habits.

5. Social media replaces learning the hard social "work" of dealing face-to-face with peers, a skill that they will need to practice to be successful in real life.

6. Social media can cause teens to lose connection with family and instead view "friends" as their foundation. Since the cognitive brain is still being formed, the need for your teen to be attached to your family is just as important now as when they were younger. Make sure that attachment is strong. While they need attachments to their friends, they need healthy family attachment more.

7. Social media use represents lost potential for teens. While one can argue that there are certain benefits of social media for teens, the costs are very high during the teen years when their brain development is operating at peak performance for learning new things. It is easy for teens to waste too much of their time and too much of their brain in a digital world. We know from many studies that it is nearly impossible for them to balance it all.

How Can Kids Slow Down?

First, we need to slow down and rethink what we are allowing our kids to do. We need to understand the world of social media and how teens use it differently from adults. Here are a few tips that work well for many parents.

1. Delay access. The longer parents delay access, the more time a child will have to mature so that he or she can use technology more wisely as a young adult. Delaying access also places a greater importance on developing personal authentic relationships first.

2. Follow their accounts. Social media privacy is a lie: Nothing is private in the digital world, and so it should not be private to parents. Make sure privacy settings are in place but know that those settings can give you a false sense of security. Encourage your teen to have private conversations in person or via a verbal phone call instead if they don't want you to read it on social media.

3. Create family accounts. Create family accounts instead of individual teen accounts. This allows kids to keep up with friends in a safer social media environment.

4. Allow social media only on large screens. Allow your teens to only use their social media accounts on home computers or laptops in plain view, this way they will use it less. When it is used on a small private phone screen they can put in their pocket there are more potential problems with reckless use. The more secret the access, the more potential for bad choices.

5. Keep a sharp eye on the clock; they will not. Do you know how much time your child spends on social media a day? Be aware of this, and reduce the amount of time your child is on social media across all platforms. The average teen spends nine hours a day connected to social media. Instead, set one time each day for three days a week for your child to check their social media. Do they benefit from more time than that?

6. Plan face-to-face time with their friends. Remember that they don't need 842 friends; four-to-six close friends are enough for healthy social development. Help them learn how to plan real, in-person, social get-togethers such as a leave-phones-at-the-door party, a home movie night, bowling, board games, cooking pizza, or hosting a bonfire. They crave these social gatherings so encourage them to invite friends over and help them (as needed) to organize the event.

7. Spend more real non-tech time together. Teens who are strongly attached to their parents and family show more overall happiness and success in life. They still need us now more than ever. It is easy to detach from them: Teens can be annoying! But attaching to family allows them to detach from the social media drama. Your child needs to feel like they can come home and leave the drama of their social world behind for a few hours. They want you to help them say no to social media and yes to more time with the family. They are craving those moments to disconnect, so make plans and encourage this at home.

Don't give that smartphone all the power in your home; help tweens choose healthier forms of entertainment. They have the rest of their life to be entertained by social media, but only a limited time with you. Go to ScreenStrong.com to learn more.

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Why Social Media Is Not Smart for Middle School Kids

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Tweens' brains are simply too immature to use social media appropriately.

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Teen Girls "Constant Social Media Pressure"

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Teen Girls "Constant Social Media Pressure"

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Teen girls open up about the 'constant pressure' of social media

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The Problem with Parents, Kids, and Social Media

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Newspapers and governments are trying to find out more about the way a company used information from FaceBook to affect (change) election results in the US and the UK.

FaceBook is one of the largest social media companies in the world. People put information, pictures, and videos on the website. FaceBook saves all of this information, which is often called "data". The data can show what people are doing, how they are feeling, and who their friends are. FaceBook makes money when companies pay to show ads or videos to FaceBook users. FaceBook wants to learn what is important to each user so they can show ads that are good at selling things.

FaceBook also shares information about its users with other people and companies. In 2014, FaceBook gave information to a man who said he was doing research. But he was really giving the information to a company called Cambridge Analytica. The man gave the company information about the thoughts and feelings of 50 million FaceBook users. The company did not have permission to use this data.

Cambridge Analytica is a part of a larger company called the SCL Group. SCL is paid to help affect the way people vote in elections. Sometimes the company uses social media and "fake news" to change people's ideas. By using the data from FaceBook, some people think the company could figure out exactly what kind of ad or video would work best to change someone's mind.

The story is important because Cambridge Analytica was part of two important elections that are changing the world. In the US, the group of people working to elect Donald Trump as president paid Cambridge Analytica $6 million to help them. SCL also had a part in the Brexit vote , where they tried to get people in the UK to vote to leave the European Union. Both the US and UK governments are trying to learn more about what happened with FaceBook, Cambridge Analytica, and SCL.

Cambridge Analytica and SCL have also been active in other places around the world. In 2017, the company's website showed 19 different places around the world where SCL had election "projects". For example, in Africa, the company worked to affect election results in Kenya and Nigeria.

FaceBook has stopped working with Cambridge Analytica. The president of FaceBook, Mark Zuckerberg, put full page ads in newspapers in the US and UK on Sunday. In the ads, he said he was sorry for not being careful with data from FaceBook's users. Mr. Zuckerberg says he thinks the company will find other groups that also used FaceBook user data without permission. The US government has said it is looking into the way FaceBook protects the privacy of its users. Mr. Zuckerberg has been asked to speak to the US Congress to explain what happened.

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Company Used FaceBook Data to Change Voters' Minds - News For Kids

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Newspapers and governments are trying to find out more about the way a company used information from FaceBook to affect (change) election results in the US and the UK. FaceBook is one of the largest social media companies in the world. People put information, pictures, and videos on the website.

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Teens and Adults say they feel tethered to their phones

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Teens and Adults say they feel tethered to their phones

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Study shows teens and parents feel tethered to phones

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Parents lament their teenagers' noses constantly in their phones, but they might want to take stock of their own screen time habits.

A study out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of parents are concerned about the amount of time their teenage children spend in front of screens, while more than a third expressed concern about their own screen time.

Meanwhile, more than half of teens said they often or sometimes find their parents or caregivers to be distracted when the teens are trying to have a conversation with them. The study calls teens' relationship with their phones at times "hyperconnected" and notes that nearly three-fourths check messages or notifications as soon as they wake up. Parents do the same, but at a lower if still substantial rate - 57 percent.

Big tech companies face a growing backlash against the addictive nature of their gadgets and apps, the endless notifications and other features created to keep people tethered to their screens.

Many teens are trying to do something about it: 52 percent said they have cut back on the time they spend on their phones and 57 percent did the same with social media.

Experts say parents have a big role in their kids' screen habits and setting a good example is a big part of it.

"Kids don't always do what we say but they do as we do," said Donald Shifrin, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who was not involved in the Pew study. "Parents are the door that kids will walk through on their way to the world."

The study surveyed 743 U.S. teens and 1,058 U.S. parents of teens from March 7 to April 10. The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.

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A study from the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of parents are concerned about the amount of time their teenage children spend in front of screens.

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Blaming video games for violence in the real world is no more productive than blaming the news media for bringing violent crime into our homes night after night. Numerous authorities have examined the scientific record and found that it does not establish any causal link between media content and real-life violence.
AT A GLANCE

Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s.

Video games, including those with violent content, are popular in many countries with much lower violent crime rates than the US, suggesting that influences such as the background of the individual, the availability of guns, and other factors are more relevant to understanding the cause of any particular crime.

Download the full report below:

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Essential Facts About Video Games and Violence - Entertainment Software Association

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Blaming video games for violence in the real world is no more productive than blaming the news media for bringing violent crime into our homes night after night. Numerous authorities have examined the scientific record and found that it does not establish any causal link between media content and real-life violence.

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Lauren Goldbeck and Alex Pew, National Center for Health Research

After mass shootings, the media and public officials often question the role of the shooter's video game habits.

The American Psychological Association (APA) considers violent video games a risk factor for aggression.[1] In 2017, the APA Task Force on Violent Media concluded that violent video game exposure was linked to increased aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, as well as decreased empathy. However, it is not clear whether violent video game exposure was linked to criminality or delinquency.

Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?

Studies have shown that playing violent video games can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both the short-term and long-term.[2] Violent video games can also desensitize people to seeing aggressive behavior and decrease prosocial behaviors such as helping another person and feeling empathy (the ability to understand others). The longer that individuals are exposed to violent video games, the more likely they are to have aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These effects have been seen in studies in both Eastern and Western countries. Although males spend more time than females playing violent video games, violent video game exposure can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both sexes.

Aggressive behavior is measured by scientists in a number of ways. Some studies looked at self-reports of hitting or pushing, and some looked at peer or teacher ratings on aggressive behaviors. Other studies looked at how likely an individual was to subject others to an unpleasant exposure to hot sauce or a loud noise after playing violent video games.

Unfortunately, few studies have been completed on violent video game exposure and aggression in children under age 10. There is also little information about the impact of violent video game exposure on minority children.

There have not been many studies on the effects of different characteristics of video games, such as perspective or plot. However, some studies have found that competition among players in video games is a better predictor of aggressive behavior than is the level of violence.[3]

Do Violent Video Games Increase Violence?

Violence is a form of aggression, but not all aggressive behaviors are violent. Very few studies have looked at whether playing violent video games increases the chances of later delinquency, criminal behavior, or lethal violence. Such studies are difficult to conduct, and require very large numbers of children. It makes sense that since playing violent video games tends to increase the level of aggressive behavior it would also results in more lethal violence or other criminal behaviors, but there is no clear evidence to support that assumption.

Policy

In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting in Florida in 2018, policymakers are again questioning the influence of violent video games. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) affirms that their rating system is effective, but the APA Task Force on Violent Media recommends that the ESRB revise their rating system to make the level of violence clearer. The Task Force also recommends that further research must be done using delinquency, violence, and criminal behavior as outcomes to determine whether or not violent video games are linked to violence.

Bottom Line

It is important to keep in mind that violent video game exposure is only one risk factor of aggressive behavior. For example, mental illness, adverse environments, and access to guns are all risk factors of aggression and violence.
All articles are reviewed and approved by Dr. Diana Zuckerman and other senior staff. The National Center for Health Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research, education and advocacy organization that analyzes and explains the latest medical research and speaks out on policies and programs. We do not accept funding from pharmaceutical companies or medical device manufacturers. Find out how you can support us here.
References:

1. The American Psychological Association Task Force on Violent Media. (2017). The American Psychological Association Task Force Assessment of Violent Video Games: Science in the Service of Public Interest. American Psychologist. 72(2): 126-143. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040413. Accessed on March 9, 2018.

2. Anderson CA, Shibuya A, Ihori N, Swing EL, Bushman BJ, Sakamoto A, Rothstein HR, Muniba. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin. 2010.

3. Adachi, PJ and Willoughby, T. (2013). Demolishing the Competition: The Longitudinal Link Between Competitive Video Games, Competitive Gambling, and Aggression. Journal of Youth Adolescence. 42(7): 1090-104. doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-9952-2.

4. Sanstock, JW. A Topical Approach to Life Span Development 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Ch 15. 489-491

5. Lemmens JS, Valkenburg PM, Peter J. The Effects of Pathological Gaming on Aggressive Behavior. Journal of Youth Adolescence. 2010.

6. Huesmann LR, Moise J, Podolski CP, Eron LD. (2003). Longitudinal relations between childhood exposure to media violence and adult aggression and violence. Developmental Psychology. 35:201-221.

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Violent Video Games and Aggression | National Center for Health Research

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Lauren Goldbeck and Alex Pew, National Center for Health Research After mass shootings, the media and public officials often question the role of the shooter's video game habits. The American Psychological Association (APA) considers violent video games a risk factor for aggression.[1] In 2017, the APA Task Force on Violent Media concluded that violent video game exposure was linked to increased aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, as well as decreased empathy.

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Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression? 

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Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression? 

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A study tries to find whether slaughtering zombies with a virtual assault weapon translates into misbehavior when a teenager returns to reality

By Melinda Wenner Moyer

Intuitively, it makes sense Splatterhouse and Postal 2 would serve as virtual training sessions for teens, encouraging them to act out in ways that mimic game-related violence. But many studies have failed to find a clear connection between violent game play and belligerent behavior, and the controversy over whether the shoot-'em-up world transfers to real life has persisted for years. A new study published on October 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tries to resolve the controversy by weighing the findings of two dozen studies on the topic.

The meta-analysis does tie violent video games to a small increase in physical aggression among adolescents and preteens. Yet debate is by no means over. Whereas the analysis was undertaken to help settle the science on the issue, researchers still disagree on the real-world significance of the findings.

This new analysis attempted to navigate through the minefield of conflicting research. Many studies find gaming associated with increases in aggression, but others identify no such link. A small but vocal cadre of researchers have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.

Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College and a co-author on the new paper, has never been convinced by the critiques that have disparaged purported ties between gaming and aggression. "I just kept reading, over and over again, [these] criticisms of the literature and going, 'that's just not true,'" he says. So he and his colleagues designed the new meta-analysis to address these criticisms head-on and determine if they had merit.

Hull and colleagues pooled data from 24 studies that had been selected to avoid some of the criticisms leveled at earlier work. They only included research that measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression. They also limited their analysis to studies that statistically controlled for several factors that could influence the relationship between gaming and subsequent behavior, such as age and baseline aggressive behavior.

Even with these constraints, their analysis found kids who played violent video games did become more aggressive over time. But the changes in behavior were not big. "According to traditional ways of looking at these numbers, it's not a large effect-I would say it's relatively small," he says. But it's "statistically reliable-it's not by chance and not inconsequential."

Their findings mesh with a 2015 literature review conducted by the American Psychological Association, which concluded violent video games worsen aggressive behavior in older children, adolescents and young adults. Together, Hull's meta-analysis and the APA report help give clarity to the existing body of research, says Douglas Gentile, a developmental psychologist at Iowa State University who was not involved in conducting the meta-analysis. "Media violence is one risk factor for aggression," he says. "It's not the biggest, it's also not the smallest, but it's worth paying attention to."

Yet researchers who have been critical of links between games and violence contend Hull's meta-analysis does not settle the issue. "They don't find much. They just try to make it sound like they do," says Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, who has published papers questioning the link between violent video games and aggression.

Ferguson argues the degree to which video game use increases aggression in Hull's analysis-what is known in psychology as the estimated "effect size"-is so small as to be essentially meaningless. After statistically controlling for several other factors, the meta-analysis reported an effect size of 0.08, which suggests that violent video games account for less than one percent of the variation in aggressive behavior among U.S. teens and pre-teens-if, in fact, there is a cause-and effect relationship between game play and hostile actions. It may instead be that the relationship between gaming and aggression is a statistical artifact caused by lingering flaws in study design, Ferguson says.

Johannes Breuer, a psychologist at GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany, agrees, noting that according to "a common rule of thumb in psychological research," effect sizes below 0.1 are "considered trivial." He adds meta-analyses are only as valid as the studies included in them, and that work on the issue has been plagued by methodological problems. For one thing, studies vary in terms of the criteria they use to determine if a video game is violent or not. By some measures, the Super Mario Bros. games would be considered violent, but by others not. Studies, too, often rely on subjects self-reporting their own aggressive acts, and they may not do so accurately. "All of this is not to say that the results of this meta-analysis are not valid," he says. "But things like this need to be kept in mind when interpreting the findings and discussing their meaning."

Hull says, however, that the effect size his team found still has real-world significance. An analysis of one of his earlier studies, which reported a similar estimated effect size of 0.083, found playing violent video games was linked with almost double the risk that kids would be sent to the school principal's office for fighting. The study began by taking a group of children who hadn't been dispatched to the principal in the previous month and then tracked them for a subsequent eight months. It found 4.8 percent of kids who reported only rarely playing violent video games were sent to the principal's office at least once during that period compared with 9 percent who reported playing violent video games frequently. Hull theorizes violent games help kids become more comfortable with taking risks and engaging in abnormal behavior. "Their sense of right and wrong is being warped," he notes.

Hull and his colleagues also found evidence ethnicity shapes the relationship between violent video games and aggression. White players seem more susceptible to the games' putative effects on behavior than do Hispanic and Asian players. Hull isn't sure why, but he suspects the games' varying impact relates to how much kids are influenced by the norms of American culture, which, he says, are rooted in rugged individualism and a warriorlike mentality that may incite video game players to identify with aggressors rather than victims. It might "dampen sympathy toward their virtual victims," he and his co-authors wrote, "with consequences for their values and behavior outside the game."

Social scientists will, no doubt, continue to debate the psychological impacts of killing within the confines of interactive games. In a follow-up paper Hull says he plans to tackle the issue of the real-world significance of violent game play, and hopes it adds additional clarity. "It's a knotty issue," he notes-and it's an open question whether research will ever quell the controversy.

Melinda Wenner Moyer, a contributing editor at Scientific American, is author of How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes: Science-Based Strategies for Better Parenting-from Tots to Teens (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2021). She wrote about the reasons that autoimmune diseases overwhelmingly affect women in the September 2021 issue.

More by Melinda Wenner Moyer

This article was originally published with the title "Yes, Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression, but Debate Lingers" in SA Mind Vol. 30 No. 1 (), p. 6

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Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression?

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A study tries to find whether slaughtering zombies with a virtual assault weapon translates into misbehavior when a teenager returns to reality

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Technology Makes it Hard for Kids to Hold Pencils

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Technology Makes it Hard for Kids to Hold Pencils

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Doctors and teachers are saying that children who spend a lot of time on tablets are having trouble holding pencils. They are also having trouble doing other small jobs with their hands.

As children grow, they learn lots of things they can do with their bodies. These body skills are called motor skills because they are about moving. When people talk about moving, they use the word "gross" to mean "big", and the word "fine" to mean "small". Big movements like walking, skipping, and jumping are called "gross motor skills". Smaller movements, like grabbing things, using scissors, or undoing buttons are called "fine motor skills".

Doctors say that children used to get lots of practice with fine motor skills just by playing. They would pick up blocks and sticks, play with clay or Lego, draw pictures, and cut things out. Now many younger kids are spending more time on tablets and phones. Instead of building up their finger muscles by playing, they are spending a lot of time swiping on screens.

Teachers say that now many more kids don't know how to hold a pencil or use scissors when they first start school. This means that the teachers need to spend time teaching them how. Schools are spending more and more money trying to get special help for kids who have trouble with their fine motor skills. Teachers also worry that if kids have trouble holding pencils, it will make it harder for them to learn to write.

Tablets and phones are sometimes called "mobile devices". A group of scientists have done research to find out how much young kids used mobile devices. They learned that more than half of the children who were 2 years old used a mobile device every day.

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Tech Makes it Hard for Kids to Hold Pencils - News For Kids

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Doctors and teachers are saying that children who spend a lot of time on tablets are having trouble holding pencils. They are also having trouble doing other small jobs with their hands. As children grow, they learn lots of things they can do with their bodies.

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by William Cochran, MD
Fall 2005

"Doctor, is my child overweight?" "Oh no, it is just baby fat and he'll grow out it." Does your son or daughter have excess weight or obesity? Is it indeed just baby fat, and will they outgrow it?

Pediatric obesity is now of epidemic proportions in the United States. Pediatric overweight and obesity now affects more than 30 percent of children, making it the most common chronic disease of childhood.

Pediatric obesity is not just a cosmetic problem; it is a real health problem that can be associated with significant issues in childhood and in adulthood. Therefore, parents of overweight young children should not just ignore this issue, but should actively seek out help to determine why their child is overweight and what they can do to help rectify the situation.

When infants are born, they have comparatively more fat; however, this is normal and appropriate. This relatively greater amount of fat provides the infant with some nutritional reserve when they are most vulnerable and adjusting to life outside the womb. This greater amount of fat decreases as the infant grows older and throughout the first several years of life.

Around five years of age, children have the lowest amount of fat and have the lowest body mass index (BMI) - a relationship between weight and height. If a child is getting overweight between two and five years of age, this is not normal and it is not just "baby fat." Likewise, after five years of age, an overweight child should not be treated as if it is just "baby fat" and told they will outgrow it and not to worry.

In reality, if your child has excess weight or obesity, you do have a cause for worry. The earlier in the child's life that you make changes a child's lifestyle in regards to nutrition and physical activity, the easier it is.

You may be confused with the many new terms related to obesity. There is good reason for this confusion as there is controversy over the definitions related to obesity. For adults more than 18 years of age, the definitions are based on BMI. BMI can be calculated using pounds, inches or kilograms and meters using the following formulas:

Using pounds and inches:
BMI = Weight in pounds x 703
(Height in inches) x (Height in inches)

Using kilograms and meters:
BMI = Weight in kilograms
(Height in meters) x (Height in meters)

The normal range of BMI for adults is 18.5-24.9. A BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight while a BMI of 30 and over is considered severe obesity. Some also define morbid obesity as a BMI greater than 40.

For children, BMI is calculated in the same fashion as for adults, but there are no absolute numbers of BMI defining normal and overweight. Instead, you have to calculate BMI and plot it on a BMI curve and find the percentile for a child. There is a BMI curve for males and a separate one for females, ages two to 18 years.

The exact definition does not matter as much as knowing what the BMI percentile of the child is and if it is normal or abnormal, increasing or decreasing. For simplicity sake, we will use excess weight and obesity interchangeably.

For children less than two years of age there is no BMI curve available. Instead, you can plot the measurement on the "weight for length curve" that can be found on the "growth curve" used by healthcare providers. Normal weight is when this measurement falls between the five and 95 percentiles. A child with a "weight for length" that plots less than five percent is considered underweight and greater than the 95 percent is considered overweight.

Changes in the living environment (how we live, eat and act) is the major factor that has contributed to the current problem. There have been several dietary changes that have transpired over the last 20 to 30 years which have contributed to obesity.

One major factor is the frequency with which people eat out. It is now estimated that approximately 40 to 50 percent of every dollar that is spent on food is spent on food outside the home (i.e. restaurants, cafeterias, sporting events, etc.). When people eat out they tend to eat a larger quantity of food (calories) than when they eat at home. Also, foods that are consumed in restaurants tend to have more fat (higher caloric density) which in turn contributes to excessive intake of calories. This also tends to be true for meals purchased in the school cafeteria. Providing children with money to buy their lunch at school also poses another potential problem.

Portion sizes have also increased. This is true for packaged foods and fast food restaurants. Take french fries for example. A portion size is actually 12 french fries. Most fast food restaurants have small or medium french fries, but sell more large or extra-large french fries. People do not think that a large order may actually be two or three portions.

Also, soda sizes have significantly increased. The average serving size of a soda was 6 and a half ounces in 1950, and increased to 12 ounces in the 1960's and 20 ounces in the 1990's. Currently, 24 and 32 ounce sodas are marketed, with a 32 ounce soda containing approximately 400 calories. The consumption of soda by children has increased throughout the last 20 years by 300 percent. Fifty to more than 80 percent of children consume at least one soda per day and 20 percent of children consume more than four per day. Scientific studies have documented a 60 percent increase risk of obesity for every regular soda consumed per day.

Box drinks, juice, fruit drinks and sports drinks present another significant problem. These beverages contain a significant amount of calories and it is estimated that 20 percent of children who are currently overweight are overweight due to excessive caloric intake from beverages.

Another major factor in contributing to the pediatric obesity epidemic is the increased sedentary lifestyle of children. School-aged children spend most of their day in school where their only activity comes during recess or physical education classes. In the past, physical education was required on a daily basis. Currently, only eight percent of elementary schools and less than seven percent of middle schools and high schools have daily physical education requirements in the U.S.

Children are also more sedentary outside of school, which is due to increased time spent doing sedentary activities such as watching television, playing video games or using the computer. Only 50 percent of children, 12 to 21 years of age, regularly participate in rigorous physical activity, while 25 percent of children report no physical activity. The average child spends two hours a day watching television, but 26 percent of children watch at least four hours of television per day.

Studies indicate that when children watch more than two hours of television per day there is a significant increased risk of obesity as well as high blood pressure. Studies have also determined that children who eat in front of the television consume higher fat and salt containing foods and less fruits and vegetables than children who do not eat in front of the TV.
Staggering Statistics

Only eight percent of elementary schools, and less than seven percent of middle schools and high schools, have daily physical education requirements in the U.S.

Only 50 percent of children, 12 to 21 years of age, regularly participate in rigorous physical activity

Twenty-five percent of children, 12 to 21 years of age, report no physical activity

The average child spends two hours a day watching television

Twenty-six percent of children watch at least four hours of television per day

Pediatric obesity is a real and very significant health problem that is associated with adverse effects on health in childhood as well as adulthood. There is a high likelihood of a child with obesity becoming an adult with obesity. This risk increases as the child gets older.

The risk that a five year-old child with obesity remains affected by obesity as an adult is approximately 50 percent. This increases to more than 80 percent for an adolescent with obesity. On the other hand, the risk of a normal weight child becoming affected by obesity as an adult is only seven percent.

Childhood obesity also has adverse effects on health during childhood. The most common consequence of childhood obesity is the psychosocial effect. It has been shown that adolescents with obesity have higher rates of poor self esteem, and this negative self image may carry over into adulthood. There may also be increased rates of depression in children who are overweight.

Our society also discriminates against individuals with obesity, females more so than males. It has been documented that females with obesity have lower acceptance rates for college than non-overweight females with the same grades and standardized test scores. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth study noted that female adolescent with obesity as young adults had less education, less income, higher poverty rate and decreased rate of marriage as compared to non-overweight adolescent females.

There are multiple medical conditions associated with obesity in childhood. The most common include insulin resistance (the first step towards developing diabetes), hypertension, liver problems and hyperlipidemia (elevated cholesterol and/or triglyceride). While these typically do not cause many problems in childhood, some children will develop diabetes or severe liver disease, including cirrhosis. Other problems that can occur include joint problems, menstrual problems, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and headaches.

Treatment of pediatric obesity is a family affair and needs to be directed at the family, not just the child. This is extremely important since the home environment and family support are important factors when trying to address pediatric obesity. If the child is the only one making changes in their life, they are less likely to be successful and are then made to feel different. Likewise, parents who do not make healthier changes in their lives are likely to undermine the child's attempts.

Prior to addressing the treatment of childhood obesity, you must first assess the readiness of the child and the family to make changes. If the child is very depressed, this needs to be addressed prior to working on the child's weight problem. If a depressed child attempts weight-loss and is unsuccessful, this may worsen their depression or lower their self-esteem.

Similarly, if there is a lot of stress in the family at that time it is not ideal to try and tackle yet another major issue. In some situations where there is significant depression or stress, it may be most appropriate for the child and the family to seek counseling to address these issues. In addition, if parents express little concern regarding their child being overweight, they are not ready to make the necessary changes.

Treatment of pediatric obesity is not accomplished by just dieting. You need to address multiple aspects of the child's and the family's lifestyle, nutrition and physical activity patterns. Prior to discussing any treatment plans, you first must determine what the desired goals are. If your child is overweight, or at risk for becoming overweight, it is important to work with your healthcare provider to develop an individualized plan of care that includes realistic goals and action steps.

The goals of treatment of pediatric obesity can be divided into three major areas: behavioral goals, medical goals and weight goals. The behavioral goals are to promote lifelong healthy eating and activity behaviors. Medical goals are to prevent complications of obesity in childhood and potentially adulthood, as well as improve or resolve existing complications of obesity. The weight goals are dependent on the child's age and the presence or absence of associated co-morbidities.

The first step for all overweight children is to establish weight maintenance. For children two to seven years of age with a BMI between 85-95 percent, weight maintenance is the primary goal. This is because the child will be growing taller and they have the time as well as the ability to "grow into their weight." For those with a BMI greater than 95 percent and no associated complications, weight maintenance is still the overall goal. For those whose BMI is greater than 95 percent and have an associated co-morbidity, weight-loss should be strived for after weight maintenance is achieved. Children seven to 18 years of age with a BMI between 85-95 percent and who have no complications, weight maintenance is reasonable. However, close follow-up is needed to ensure that they are not becoming more overweight or develop a complication of obesity.

For those who have an associated co-morbidity and/or whose BMI is greater than 95 percent, weight-loss should be strived for after weight maintenance is achieved. When weight-loss is desired, it needs to be stressed that gradual weight-loss is preferable to rapid weight-loss. It is better to make gradual changes that can be maintained over time, resulting in gradual weight-loss. Ideally, you should not try to lose more than one to two pounds per week.

Parents are of vital importance in the treatment of pediatric obesity. Parents act as role models for their children regarding nutrition and physical activity. It is extremely important for an overweight child to see the parents being an example of what they want their child to do. Treatment needs to be family-based and individualized. By obtaining a good dietary, physical and lifestyle history, areas of potential concern for that child and family can be identified and then addressed.
Here are tips to help change a family's lifestyle, nutrition habits and activity level: Lifestyle
Eat as a family.
Slow down the eating process.
Have special family time that is physically active.
Limit eating out or getting take-out food.
Pack lunch for school instead of buying lunch.
Do not have a television in the child's bedroom.
Limit computer time to a maximum of 1-2 hours per day.
Do not eat in front of the television.
Do not use food as a reward.
Nutrition
Eat healthy, well balanced meals and snacks.
Plan meals and snacks in advance.
Offer the child a choice of healthy foods to eat.
Limit intake of calories from beverages.
Eat appropriate portion size for the child's age.
Limit calorically dense foods (i.e. high fat, high sugary foods).
Limit treats, but do not eliminate them.
Physical Activity
Encourage daily physical activity.
Have a variety of physical activities that can be done.
Be physically active with others.
Limit sedentary activity.

Treatment of pediatric obesity needs to focus on three major areas: lifestyle, nutrition and physical activity. As you approach the treatment of obesity, it is important this is done in a gradual and stepwise fashion. Once some problem areas are identified, you may consider discussing a few of them and then ask the child to pick one to work on at that time. If you present a long list of things that the child and family need to change, they may feel overwhelmed and are likely to not make any attempt.

In addition, once one or two issues are agreed upon, close follow-up is required to monitor changes, as well as to give positive reinforcement for change in behavior even if no weight is lost. The greater the period of time between appointments with the primary care provider the less likely they are to be successful. Once the initial behavior change has been successfully accomplished, the child and family should move on to the next desired change, but at the same time continue to monitor the initial change.

Medication s and Childhood Obesity

There are a number of medications both over-the-counter and prescription that are available for the treatment of obesity. These are not frequently used in the initial phase of treatment of pediatric obesity; however, the primary treatment modality is behavior modification and lifestyle changes. Some children with significant obesity, especially those associated with other co-morbidities, may benefit from pharmacologic therapy as well. This should be done only under the direction of a physician knowledgeable in the area of pediatric obesity

Bariatric surgery (weight-loss surgery) for adults with severe obesity is now being done with increased frequency. This surgery is safe and effective, but is to be used only for those with morbid obesity who meet specific criteria. At this time bariatric surgery should be considered investigational and should only be done in institutions with a comprehensive pediatric weight management program and by surgeons experienced with this type of surgery in children.

About the Author:
Lisa Saff Koche, MD, is the Medical Director for Spectra Healthcare and an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Dr. Koche has practiced in obesity for seven years with aggressive medical management as well as complete medical support for bariatric surgery patients.

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Understanding the Childhood Obesity Epidemic - Obesity Action Coalition

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by William Cochran, MD Fall 2005 "Doctor, is my child overweight?" "Oh no, it is just baby fat and he'll grow out it." Does your son or daughter have excess weight or obesity? Is it indeed just baby fat, and will they outgrow it?

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​Today's children and teens are growing up immersed in digital media. It ranges from TV and videos to social media, video games and so much more. And it's all available on multiple devices-computers, e-readers, gaming consoles, smartphones and other screens.

Media can influence how children and teens feel, learn, think and behave. This is why it's important to be understand the risks & benefits of digital media use and how to keep them in balance for your family.

Kids & media use: by the numbers

Recent Common Sense Media research shows that media use by tweens (ages 8-12 years) and teens (ages 13-18 years) has risen faster in the two years since the pandemic than the four years before. The research found 8- to 12-year-olds spend an average of five and a half hours a day on screens and consuming media. That rate climbs to over eight and a half hours a day for teens.

Among teens, 79% said they use social media and online videos at least once a week, and 32% of these said they "wouldn't want to live without" YouTube. And nearly two-thirds (65%) of tweens said they watch TV, 64% watch online videos and 43% play games on a smartphone or tablet every day.

Average daily screentime rates soared highest among Black and Hispanic/Latino kids and those of lower-income families. These teens and tweens were spending between 6.5 and 7.5 hours a day on entertainment screens.

In another survey, 71% of parents with younger children (under 12 years old) said they were concerned about their child spending too much time in front of screens.

Risks & benefits of media use by children & teens

Why use digital media?

Digital media use can:

Expose users to new ideas and information.

Raise awareness of current events and issues.

Promote community participation.

Help students work with others on assignments and projects.

Digital media use also has social benefits that:

Allow families and friends to stay in touch, no matter where they live.

Enhance access to valuable support networks, especially for people with illnesses or disabilities.

Help promote wellness and healthy behaviors, such as how to quit smoking or how to eat healthy.

Why limit media use?

Overuse of digital media may place your children at risk of:

Negative effect on school performance. Children and teens often use entertainment media at the same time that they're doing other things, such as homework. Such multitasking can have a negative effect on how well they do in school.

Sexting, loss of privacy & predators. Sexting is the sending or receiving of sexually explicit images, videos, or text messages using a smartphone, computer, tablet, video game or digital camera. About 19% of youth have sent a sexual photo to someone else. Teens need to know that once content is shared with others, they may not be able to delete it completely. Kids may also not use privacy settings. Sex offenders may use social networking, chat rooms, e-mail and online games to contact and exploit children.

Cyberbullying. Children and teens online can be victims of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can lead to short- and long-term negative social, academic, and health issues for both the bully and target. Fortunately, programs to help prevent bullying may reduce cyberbullying.

Make a family media use plan

Children today are growing up in a time of highly personalized media use experiences. It's smart to develop a customized media use plan for your children. This helps your kids avoid overusing media by balancing it with other healthy activities.

A media plan should consider each child's age, health, personality and developmental stage. Remember, all children and teens need adequate sleep (8-12 hours each night, depending on age), physical activity (1 hour a day) and time away from media. Create a customized plan for your family with our interactive Family Media Use Plan. Developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), this tool works with your family's values and busy life.

More information

Adapted from Beyond Screen Time: A Parent's Guide to Media Use (Copyright © 2020 American Academy of Pediatrics)

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adverse effects of media~ digital media~ television~ constantly connected~ own smartphone~ online~ media exposure on children~ sexual references~ sexting~ cyberbullying~ violence in the media~ american media

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Constantly Connected: How Media Use Can Affect Your Child

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​Today's children and teens are growing up immersed in digital media. It ranges from TV and videos to social media, video games and so much more. And it's all available on multiple devices-computers, e-readers, gaming consoles, smartphones and other screens. Media can influence how children and teens feel, learn, think and behave.

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We brought together UNICEF specialists, international cyberbullying and child protection experts, and teamed up with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter to answer some of the most common questions about online bullying and give advice on ways to deal with it.

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is bullying with the use of digital technologies. It can take place on social media, messaging platforms, gaming platforms and mobile phones. It is repeated behaviour, aimed at scaring, angering or shaming those who are targeted. Examples include:

spreading lies about or posting embarrassing photos or videos of someone on social media

sending hurtful, abusive or threatening messages, images or videos via messaging platforms

impersonating someone and sending mean messages to others on their behalf or through fake accounts.

Face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying can often happen alongside each other. But cyberbullying leaves a digital footprint - a record that can prove useful and provide evidence to help stop the abuse.
If you are worried about your safety or something that has happened to you online, you can seek help by calling your national helpline. If your country does not have a helpline, please urgently speak to an adult you trust or seek professional support from trained and experienced carers.

1. Am I being bullied online? How do you tell the difference between a joke and bullying?

All friends joke around with each other, but sometimes it's hard to tell if someone is just having fun or trying to hurt you, especially online. Sometimes they'll laugh it off with a "just kidding," or "don't take it so seriously."

But if you feel hurt or think others are laughing at you instead of with you, then the joke has gone too far. If it continues even after you've asked the person to stop and you are still feeling upset about it, then this could be bullying.

And when the bullying takes place online, it can result in unwanted attention from a wide range of people including strangers. Wherever it may happen, if you are not happy about it, you should not have to stand for it.

Call it what you will - if you feel bad and it doesn't stop, then it's worth getting help. Stopping cyberbullying is not just about calling out bullies, it's also about recognizing that everyone deserves respect - online and in real life.

2. What are the effects of cyberbullying?

When bullying happens online it can feel as if you're being attacked everywhere, even inside your own home. It can seem like there's no escape. The effects can last a long time and affect a person in many ways:

Mentally - feeling upset, embarrassed, stupid, even afraid or angry

Emotionally - feeling ashamed or losing interest in the things you love

Physically - tired (loss of sleep), or experiencing symptoms like stomach aches and headaches

The feeling of being laughed at or harassed by others, can prevent people from speaking up or trying to deal with the problem. In extreme cases, cyberbullying can even lead to people taking their own lives.

Cyberbullying can affect us in many ways. But these can be overcome and people can regain their confidence and health.

3. How can cyberbullying affect my mental health?

When you experience cyberbullying you might start to feel ashamed, nervous, anxious and insecure about what people say or think about you. This can lead to withdrawing from friends and family, negative thoughts and self-talk, feeling guilty about things you did or did not do, or feeling that you are being judged negatively. Feeling lonely, overwhelmed, frequent headaches, nausea or stomachaches are also common.

You can lose your motivation to do the things that you usually enjoy doing and feel isolated from the people you love and trust. This can perpetuate negative feelings and thoughts which can adversely affect your mental health and well-being.

Skipping school is another common effect of cyberbullying and can affect the mental health of young people who turn to substances like alcohol and drugs or violent behaviour to deal with their psychological and physical pain. Talking to a friend, family member or school counsellor you trust can be a first step to getting help.

The effects of cyberbullying on mental health can vary depending on the medium through which it happens. For example, bullying via text messaging or through pictures or videos on social media platforms has proven to be very harmful for adolescents.

4. Who should I talk to if someone is bullying me online? Why is reporting important?

If you think you're being bullied, the first step is to seek help from someone you trust such as your parents, a close family member or another trusted adult.

In your school you can reach out to a counsellor, the sports coach or your favourite teacher - either online or in person.

And if you are not comfortable talking to someone you know, search for a helpline in your country to talk to a professional counsellor.

If the bullying is happening on a social platform, consider blocking the bully and formally reporting their behaviour on the platform itself. Social media companies are obligated to keep their users safe.

For bullying to stop, it needs to be identified and reporting it is key.

It can be helpful to collect evidence - text messages and screen shots of social media posts - to show what's been going on.

For bullying to stop, it needs to be identified and reporting it is key. It can also help to show the bully that their behaviour is unacceptable.

If you are in immediate danger, then you should contact the police or emergency services in your country.

5. I'm experiencing cyberbullying, but I'm afraid to talk to my parents about it. How can I approach them?

If you are experiencing cyberbullying, speaking to a trusted adult - someone you feel safe talking to - is one of the most important first steps you can take.

Talking to parents isn't easy for everyone. But there are things you can do to help the conversation. Choose a time to talk when you know you have their full attention. Explain how serious the problem is for you. Remember, they might not be as familiar with technology as you are, so you might need to help them to understand what's happening.

They might not have instant answers for you, but they are likely to want to help and together you can find a solution. Two heads are always better than one! If you are still unsure about what to do, consider reaching out to other trusted people. There are often more people who care about you and are willing to help than you might think!

6. How can I help my friends report a case of cyberbullying especially if they don't want to do it?

Anyone can become a victim of cyberbullying. If you see this happening to someone you know, try to offer support.

It is important to listen to your friend. Why don't they want to report being cyberbullied? How are they feeling? Let them know that they don't have to formally report anything, but it's crucial to talk to someone who might be able to help.

Anyone can become a victim of cyberbullying.

Remember, your friend may be feeling fragile. Be kind to them. Help them think through what they might say and to whom. Offer to go with them if they decide to report. Most importantly, remind them that you're there for them and you want to help.

If your friend still does not want to report the incident, then support them in finding a trusted adult who can help them deal with the situation. Remember that in certain situations the consequences of cyberbullying can be life threatening.

Doing nothing can leave the person feeling that everyone is against them or that nobody cares. Your words can make a difference.

7. How do we stop cyberbullying without giving up access to the Internet?

Being online has so many benefits. However, like many things in life, it comes with risks that you need to protect against.

If you experience cyberbullying, you may want to delete certain apps or stay offline for a while to give yourself time to recover. But getting off the Internet is not a long-term solution. You did nothing wrong, so why should you be disadvantaged? It may even send the bullies the wrong signal - encouraging their unacceptable behaviour.

We need to be thoughtful about what we share or say that may hurt others.

We all want cyberbullying to stop, which is one of the reasons reporting cyberbullying is so important. But creating the Internet we want goes beyond calling out bullying. We need to be thoughtful about what we share or say that may hurt others. We need to be kind to one another online and in real life. It's up to all of us!

8. How do I prevent my personal information from being used to manipulate or humiliate me on social media?

Think twice before posting or sharing anything on digital platforms - it may be online forever and could be used to harm you later. Don't give out personal details such as your address, telephone number or the name of your school.

Learn about the privacy settings of your favourite social media apps. Here are some actions you can take on many of them:

You can decide who can see your profile, send you direct messages or comment on your posts by adjusting your account privacy settings.

You can report hurtful comments, messages, photos and videos and request they be removed.

Besides 'unfriending', you can completely block people to stop them from seeing your profile or contacting you.

You can also choose to have comments by certain people to appear only to them without completely blocking them.

You can delete posts on your profile or hide them from specific people.

On most of your favourite social media, people aren't notified when you block, restrict or report them.

9. Is there a punishment for cyberbullying?

Most schools take bullying seriously and will take action against it. If you are being cyberbullied by other students, report it to your school.

People who are victims of any form of violence, including bullying and cyberbullying, have a right to justice and to have the offender held accountable.

Laws against bullying, particularly on cyberbullying, are relatively new and still do not exist everywhere. This is why many countries rely on other relevant laws, such as ones against harassment, to punish cyberbullies.

In countries that have specific laws on cyberbullying, online behaviour that deliberately causes serious emotional distress is seen as criminal activity. In some of these countries, victims of cyberbullying can seek protection, prohibit communication from a specified person and restrict the use of electronic devices used by that person for cyberbullying, temporarily or permanently.

However, it is important to remember that punishment is not always the most effective way to change the behaviour of bullies. Sometimes, focusing on repairing the harm and mending the relationship can be better.

10. Technology companies don't seem to care about online bullying and harassment. Are they being held responsible?

Technology companies are increasingly paying attention to the issue of online bullying.

Many of them are introducing ways to address it and better protect their users with new tools, guidance and ways to report online abuse.

But it is true that more is needed. Many young people experience cyberbullying every day. Some face extreme forms of online abuse. Some have taken their own lives as a result.

Technology companies have a responsibility to protect their users especially children and young people.

It is up to all of us to hold them accountable when they're not living up to these responsibilities.

11. Are there any online anti-bullying tools for children or young people?

Each social platform offers different tools (see available ones below) that allow you to restrict who can comment on or view your posts or who can connect automatically as a friend, and to report cases of bullying. Many of them involve simple steps to block, mute or report cyberbullying. We encourage you to explore them.

Social media companies also provide educational tools and guidance for children, parents and teachers to learn about risks and ways to stay safe online.

Also, the first line of defense against cyberbullying could be you. Think about where cyberbullying happens in your community and ways you can help - by raising your voice, calling out bullies, reaching out to trusted adults or by creating awareness of the issue. Even a simple act of kindness can go a long way.

The first line of defense against cyberbullying could be you.

If you are worried about your safety or something that has happened to you online, urgently speak to an adult you trust. Many countries have a special helpline you can call for free and talk to someone anonymously. Visit United for Global Mental Health to find help in your country.

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Cyberbullying: What is it and how to stop it

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What teens want to know about cyberbullying

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Most kids are plugged into devices like TVs, game consoles, tablets, and smartphones well before they can even ride a bike.

Technology is part of life. And parents can make technology a healthy part of childhood by teaching smart media use. Preschoolers can get help learning the alphabet on public television, gradeschoolers can play educational apps and games, and teens can do research online.

But media use can also have some downsides:

The Obesity Link

Kids who spend too much time using media are more likely to be overweight. Health experts have long linked too much screen time to excess weight. When they're staring at screens, kids are inactive and tend to snack. They're also see lots of ads that encourage them to eat unhealthy foods like potato chips and drink empty-calorie soft drinks that often become favorite snack foods.

Studies show that decreasing the amount of TV kids watched led to less weight gain and lower body mass index (BMI). Replacing video game time with outdoor game time is another good way to help kids maintain a healthy weight.

Watching Risky Behaviors

Characters on TV and in video games often show risky behaviors - like drinking alcohol, using drugs, and smoking cigarettes - as cool, fun, and exciting. When these things seem acceptable, kids and teens might be tempted to try them. That might lead to substance abuse problems. Media can also expose kids to high-risk sexual practices, and studies show that teens who watch lots of sexual content are more likely to start sexual activity at a young age.

Seeing Violence

The average American child will see 200,000 violent acts on TV by age 18. Many of these are done by the "good guys," whom kids are taught to admire. In fact, often the hero wins by fighting with or killing the "bad guys." This can confuse kids as they try to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Kids who view violence onscreen are more likely to show aggressive behavior, and to fear that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.

Young kids are easily frightened by violent images. Because they don't yet understand what is real and what is make believe, simply telling them that violence isn't real won't help. Behavior problems, nightmares, and trouble sleeping may happen after kids watch violence on screen.

Older kids can be scared by violent images too. Talking with kids this age will help them, so it's important to comfort them and explain what they see to help ease fears. But it's even better to not let your kids view shows or play games that could scare them.

Sleep, Mental Health, and Other Problems

Kids who use media in their bedrooms often don't get enough sleep at night. Media use also can expose kids to cyberbullying, which has been linked to depression and suicide.

And media use can distract kids from important tasks, interfere with homework time, and hurt school performance. It can limit quality family time and make kids feel lonely or isolated.

Too Many Commercials

Young kids don't understand that commercials are for selling a product, and sometimes can't tell the difference between the show and the ad. Even older kids may need to be reminded of the purpose of advertising. Video games are especially full of pop-up ads with pressure to buy.

Explain that ads are designed to make people want things they probably don't need and believe the products will somehow make them happier. Teach kids to be smart consumers. Ask them questions like: "What do you like about that?" or "Do you think it's really as good as it looks in that ad?"

Try to limit kids' exposure to ads. You can:

Have them watch public TV stations, which rarely show ads featuring products.

Record shows so you can fast forward through the commercials.

Mute the TV during ads to ask your child questions about the show.

Stream their favorite programs, or buy or rent DVDs.

What Else Should I Know?

Parents can and should keep tabs on their kids' media use:

Set limits to ensure that kids don't spend too much time in front of a screen.

Monitor how and what kids see on their screens, and encourage positive, meaningful, and educational media use.

These online resources also can help:

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Technology can be part of a healthy childhood, but it's important for parents to track their kids' screen time and set limits.

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According to the 2008 YTV Kids and Tweens Report, kids influence:

Breakfast choices (97% of the time) and lunch choices (95% of the time).

Where to go for casual family meals (98% of the time) (with 34% of kids always having a say on the choice of casual restaurant).

Clothing purchases (95% of the time).

Software purchases (76% of the time) and computer purchases (60% of the time).

Family entertainment choices (98% of the time) and family trips and excursions (94% of the time). [1]

As a result, industry spending on advertising to children has exploded over the past two decades. In the United States alone, companies spent over $17 billion doing this in 2009 - more than double what was spent in 1992.

Parents today are willing to buy more for their kids because trends such as smaller family size, dual incomes and postponing having children until later in life mean that families have more disposable income. As well, guilt can play a role in spending decisions as time-stressed parents substitute material goods for time spent with their kids.

Here are some of the strategies marketers employ to target children and teens:

Pester power

"We're relying on the kid to pester the mom to buy the product, rather than going straight to the mom."
Barbara A. Martino, Advertising Executive

Today's kids have more autonomy and decision-making power within the family than in previous generations, so it follows that kids are vocal about what they want their parents to buy. "Pester power" refers to children's ability to nag their parents into purchasing items they may not otherwise buy. Marketing to children is all about creating pester power, because advertisers know what a powerful force it can be.

According to the marketing industry book Kidfluence, pestering or nagging can be divided into two categories-"persistence" and "importance." Persistence nagging (a plea, that is repeated over and over again) is not as effective as the more sophisticated "importance nagging." This latter method appeals to parents' desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on any guilt they may have about not having enough time for their kids.

The marriage of psychology and marketing

To effectively market to children, advertisers need to know what makes kids tick. With the help of well-paid researchers and psychologists, advertisers now have access to in-depth knowledge about children's developmental, emotional and social needs at different ages. Using research that analyzes children's behaviour, fantasy lives, artwork, even their dreams, companies are able to craft sophisticated marketing strategies to reach young people. For example, in the late 1990s the advertising firm Saatchi and Saatchi hired cultural anthropologists to study children engaging with digital technology at home in order to figure out how best to engage them with brands and products. [2]

The issue of using child psychologists to help marketers target kids gained widespread public attention in 1999, when a group of U.S. mental health professionals issued a public letter to the American Psychological Association (APA) urging them to declare the practice unethical. Although the APA did not outright ban psychologists from engaging in this practice, as a result, the recommendations of their final report in 2004 included that the APA "undertake efforts to help psychologists weigh the potential ethical challenges involved in professional efforts to more effectively advertise to children, particularly those children who are too young to comprehend the persuasive intent of television commercials." [3]

Building brand name loyalty

Canadian author Naomi Klein tracked the birth of "brand" marketing in her 2000 book No Logo. According to Klein, the mid-1980s saw the birth of a new kind of corporation-Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, to name a few-which changed their primary corporate focus from producing products to creating an image for their brand name. By moving their manufacturing operations to countries with cheap labour, they freed up money to create their powerful marketing messages. It has been a tremendously profitable formula, and has led to the creation of some of the most wealthy and powerful multi-national corporations the world has seen.

Marketers plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children, in the hopes that the seeds will grow into lifetime relationships. According to the Center for a New American Dream, babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of brand logos.

While fast food, toy and clothing companies have been cultivating brand recognition in children for years, adult-oriented businesses such as banks and automakers are now getting in on the act.

Magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated, Vogue and People have all launched kid and teen editions-which boast ads for adult related products such as minivans, hotels and airlines.

Buzz or street marketing

The challenge for marketers is to cut through the intense advertising clutter in young people's lives. Many companies are using "buzz marketing"-a new twist on the tried-and-true "word of mouth" method. The idea is to find the coolest kids in a community and have them use or wear your product in order to create a buzz around it. Buzz, or "street marketing," as it's also called, can help a company to successfully connect with the savvy and elusive teen market by using trendsetters to give their products "cool" status.

Buzz marketing is particularly well-suited to the Internet, where young people in particular use social networking platforms to spread the word about music, clothes and other products. It should come as no surprise that the top ten viral marketing campaigns (as of 2008) relied heavily on YouTube, Hotmail and Facebook to reach hundreds of millions of viewers-and this was before Twitter became a mainstay of social media. For example, when Burger King re-launched its 'Subservient Chicken' TV commercial online in 2004, it attracted 15 million hits within the first five days and more than 450 million hits over the next few years. [4]

Commercialization in education

School used to be a place where children were protected from the advertising and consumer messages that permeated their world-but not any more. Budget shortfalls are forcing school boards to allow corporations access to students in exchange for badly needed cash, computers and educational materials.

Corporations realize the power of the school environment for promoting their name and products. A school setting delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the educational system. Marketers are eagerly exploiting this medium in a number of ways, including:

Sponsored educational materials: for example, a Kraft "healthy eating" kit to teach about Canada's Food Guide (using Kraft products); or forestry company Canfor's primary lesson plans that make its business focus seem like environmental management rather than logging.

Supplying schools with technology in exchange for high company visibility.

Exclusive deals with fast food or soft drink companies to offer their products in a school or district.

Advertising posted in classrooms, school buses, on computers, etc. in exchange for funds.

Contests and incentive programs: for example, the Pizza Hut reading incentives program Book It! in which children receive certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading goal; or Campbell's Labels for Education project, in which Campbell provides educational resources for schools in exchange for soup labels collected by students.

Sponsoring school events: The Canadian company ShowBiz brings moveable video dance parties into schools to showcase various sponsors' products.

In addition, companies are also recognizing the advantages of developing positive brand associations through facilitating school field trips. In the U.S., the highly successful company Field Trip Factory delivers children to companies for "real-world lessons on everything from nutrition to health care." For example, students may visit a car dealership to learn about car safety. This is seen as a win-win situation by many educators and retailers because it lets children have hands-on experiences outside their classrooms, while building positive associations between companies, students and their parents and teachers. [5]

The Internet

The Internet is an extremely desirable medium for marketers wanting to target children:

It's part of youth culture. This generation of young people is growing up with the Internet as a daily and routine part of their lives.

Parents generally do not understand the extent to which kids are being marketed to online.

Kids are often online alone, without parental supervision.

Unlike broadcasting media, which have codes regarding advertising to kids, the Internet is unregulated.

Sophisticated technologies make it easy to collect information from young people for marketing research, and to target individual children with personalized advertising.

By creating engaging, interactive environments based on products and brand names, companies can build brand loyalties from an early age.

The main ways that companies market to young people online include:

Relationship building through ads that attempt to connect with consumers by building personal relationships between them and the brand.

Viral ads that are designed to be passed along to friends.

Behavioural targeting, where ads are sent to individuals based on personal information that has been posted or collected.

Endorsements by online "influencers" who are paid to recommend a product in what looks like a genuine way.

For more information on how marketers are targeting kids online, check out the Online Marketing section.

Marketing adult entertainment to kids

In 2008, an estimated 17 million children watched the Superbowl with their families. Alongside the football, they also watched a number of highly creative and engaging ads for beer and alcohol.

The marketing of adult entertainment to children has been, and continues to be, an ongoing issue between government regulators and various media industries. In a report released in 2000, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took movie, music and video games industries to task for routinely marketing violent entertainment to young children. Subsequent reports since then have shown that although advances have been made - particularly within the video game industry - there are still many outstanding concerns relating to the frequency that adult-oriented entertainment is marketed to children and the ease with which many under-age youth are able to access adult-rated games, movies and music. [6] Specific areas where the FTC is calling on entertainment media to improve on include restricting the marketing of mature-rated products to children, clearly and prominently disclosing rating information and restricting children's access to mature-rated products at retail. [7]

In its latest, 2009 report, the FTC particularly noted the challenges presented by emerging technologies in facilitating easy access by children to adult-rated entertainment.

The real challenge is that promotion of adult-oriented entertainment does not necessarily fall within the parameters outlined by regulatory agencies such as the FTC. For example, Nickelodeon's 2011 Kids Choice Awards were hosted by hip-hop artist Snoop Dog, who, in addition to producing music that is not rated for children, is also a spokesperson for the fruity alcoholic beverage, Blast. Alcohol companies also use social networking platforms like Facebook to humanize their brands and make it easy for customers to 'connect' with their products.

[1] Poulton, Terry. " 'Kidfulence' on family spending strong: YTV Report." Media in Canada. February 22, 2008.
[2] Russakoff, D. Marketers following youth trends to the bank, The Washington Post, April 19, 1999.
[3] Wilcox, B., Cantor, J., Dowrick, P., Kunkel, D., Linn, S., & Palmer, E. (2004). Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children: Recommendations. http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads_recommendations.pdf
[4] Inc.Com. http://www.inc.com/ss/7-successful-viral-marketing-campaigns#6
[5] ABC News. More Companies Market Directly to Kids. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130347&page=1#.T6PQ_NnNkYK
[6] Federal Trade Commission (2009). FTC Renews Call to Entertainment Industry to Curb Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children. http://www.narm.com/PDF/FTCReport_1209.pdf
[7] Ibid.

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According to the 2008 YTV Kids and Tweens Report, kids influence: Breakfast choices (97% of the time) and lunch choices (95% of the time). Where to go for casual family meals (98% of the time) (with 34% of kids always having a say on the choice of casual restaurant).

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Age and Targeting Adult Products to Kids

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Age and Targeting Adult Products to Kids

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It can be overwhelming for parents to manage all of the media options available to children and adolescents around the clock and sort out the pros and cons of screen time.

While media use can help build kids' social skills, it also can put them at risk of obesity, lost sleep, bullying, addiction and violence, according to new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

To help families navigate the digital world, the AAP has developed a Family Media Plan. Parents and children can use the plan to customize guidelines on screen time, ensuring that media use is in line with their family's values. This personalized plan also helps children establish a healthy relationship with media, including televisions, smartphones, computers, tablets and even watches.

"Creating a Family Media Plan is an important step in helping parents realize that they can, and should, still 'parent' their children's online life and be aware of, and hopefully approve of, their online and media choices," said Corinn Cross, M.D., FAAP, a pediatrician who helped develop the resource.

Families can use the plan to:

determine screen-free zones and times, device curfews, and charging spots outside of bedrooms;

maintain balance and make sure children get enough sleep and exercise;

include family values in children's media experiences; and

learn how to research the age-appropriateness and ratings of apps and programs.

The plan should be updated periodically throughout the year as the family's schedule changes.

The AAP also urges parents to select and view media with their children and adolescents, and talk about safe and respectful behavior online and offline. This includes cyberbullying and sexting, online predators, and personal privacy and safety. A network of trusted adults (including aunts, uncles and coaches) can help guide kids through social media challenges.

To access the Family Media Plan, visit HealthyChildren.org/MediaUsePlan.

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Family Media Plan helps parents set boundaries for kids

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It can be overwhelming for parents to manage all of the media options available to children and adolescents around the clock and sort out the pros and cons of screen time. While media use can help build kids' social skills, it also can put them at risk of obesity, lost sleep, bullying, addiction and violence, according to new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

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Kids and the media is a growing concern. Even very young children in our society get a big daily dose of television, video games and music lyrics. While such media can provide education and entertainment, they can also damage children. Research shows that exposure to violent media can result in aggressive attitudes and violent behavior in some children and adolescents.

Adapted from "Media violence and children" (ACT Against Violence)

Understanding Media's Impact on Children

InfoAboutKids.org
A web resource center for behavioral science-based information on children, youth and families developed by leaders of seven divisions of the American Psychological Association.

Related Reading
Related APA Resources
More resources [+]

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Kids and the media is a growing concern. Even very young children in our society get a big daily dose of television, video games and music lyrics. While such media can provide education and entertainment, they can also damage children. Research shows that exposure to violent media can result in aggressive attitudes and violent behavior in some children and adolescents.

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Key principles for all age groups include:

Keep lines of communication open

Create a list of Internet rules with your kids (See Rules 'N Tools® Youth Pledge )

Set parental controls at the age-appropriate levels and use filtering and monitoring tools as a complement--not a replacement--for parental supervision.

Supervise all Internet-enabled devices and keep computers in a public area of the home.

Talk to your kids about healthy sexuality in the event they encounter sexually explicit online pornography at home, school, a friend's house, the library or their mobile device.

Encourage your kids to come to you if they encounter anything online that makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened. (Stay calm and don't blame your child; otherwise, they won't turn to you in the future for help when they need it.)

Teach them not to interact with people they don't know offline, because an online predator or cyberbully can disguise him/herself.

Check the history file on your computer to see which sites your child has accessed.

Teach your child the golden rule: do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.

Specific Guidelines by Age Groups
Two- to Seven-Year-Olds Eight- to Ten-Year-Olds Eleven- to Thirteen-Year-Olds Fourteen- Eighteen-Year-Olds

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Internet Safety 101: Age-Based Guidelines

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Internet Safety 101, is an initiative of Enough Is Enough, a 501c(3) whose mission is to make the Internet Safer for Children and Families.