Kids and School
September 13th, 2023
It’s become a staple of our social media feeds: the back-to-school photo. Often the kids in the pictures—smiling on a front step, full of excitement—are holding a sign showing their name, grade, and school. It’s a milestone moment, worthy of a photo, and invariably sweet.
Posting these pics is understandable, but it’s also risky. In an age of mass data-collection and tracking (and less often but more alarming, cyber-stalking), these posts offer up…... Continue reading >
May 10th, 2023
Interesting piece in the Washington Post about schools across the country doing their best to prohibit students from staring at their phones while in class. Some schools instruct students to leave their phones in a locker; others require them to store their phones in Yonder bags, which open when students leave campus at the end of the day. Why? Because phones are so distracting, they’re getting in the way of kids’ learning. As students try to…... Continue reading >
March 23rd, 2023
You may have suspected this already, but deepfake videos, in which footage is heavily manipulated, are here. And, predictably, they’re alarming. Students in a school about an hour north of New York City recently fabricated a video that showed—even though it never happened—a middle school principal going on a racist rant. To be clear, the principal didn’t say what the video showed him saying. And that, of course, is what’s so alarming.
It offers…... Continue reading >
December 22nd, 2022
Heroes might be a strong word, but hats off to the young, self-proclaimed Luddites recently featured in the New York Times. They’re experimenting with living without smartphones or social media and exploring the world without an every-present digital sidekick. “Social media and phones are not real life,” says one of them. Flip phones, books, and in-the-flesh friends, these Luddites say, are. We’re not trying to convince anyone to ditch their iPhones altogether, but it’s refreshing to read…... Continue reading >
November 4th, 2022
Is Messenger Kids OK for your kids? Sort of. Here’s what you should know.
Messenger Kids is an app designed for children for messaging and video calls that runs on Fire tablets and iOS and Android phones and tablets. This free app is from Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), which designed Messenger Kids so parents can control its settings.
The target audience is kids, which Meta wants to bring into its platform…... Continue reading >
October 21st, 2022
Video games can be fun, entertaining, and educational. But gaming also has its problems, exposing young players to health risks and introducing them to bad habits that can be difficult to break. Taken to excess, they can become the Danger Games.
Parents of kids who like to play video games—either on a console or on their phones—should be aware of those risks. At the top of the list: addiction. The founder of a company…... Continue reading >
June 22nd, 2022
Do you know about in-app purchases? If your kids are using a phone or tablet and have access to the apps on it, you definitely should. In-app purchases can escape your notice and cost you real money. The good news is, they’re easy to block.
Some apps, in particular gaming apps, allow users to buy things within the app. No need to log into a separate store—one you’ve vetted, say. The user just…... Continue reading >
July 16th, 2021
The FBI has a warning for parents: Online gaming isn’t all fun and games. Too often, the anonymous people on the other side of the screen are adults, preying on kids.
Parents need to know that while kids and teens are having fun playing with each other or against a machine, adults are also there. And some of them are lurking with bad intent.
The Internet Crime Complaint…... Continue reading >
July 15th, 2021
Every generation benefits from the advances and suffers from
the mistakes made by its predecessors. Many of the problems we face today were
created decades, if not centuries, ago. Climate change, social disparity,
racism—messes we didn’t make but messes we live with and try to clean up
nonetheless.
Our generation is no different, though the mess we’re leaving for our kids is entirely without precedent. The Digital Age, which dawned with the Internet and blossomed with the advent…... Continue reading >
December 28th, 2020
Here’s a hard truth for parents: Big Tech knows more about your kids than you do.
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter and so many more are vacuuming up countless bits of digital information about users. The details, when aggregated, paint a portrait of each person online that ordinary humans are unable to put together themselves.
These organizations may not know more about your kids’ personality than you do. But if your…... Continue reading >