Kids and School
May 28th, 2020
Many parents today became adults during the advent of social media, sharing and oversharing personal information and photos. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are so familiar to them, they overshare photos of their children, too, without pausing to think of the dangers.
Know the Risks
There are several risks that parents should be aware of when posting images of their children or sharing anecdotes about their personal lives online. These…... Continue reading >
March 28th, 2020
With schools closed for the foreseeable future, your kids
will be spending more time online than ever, completing school assignments
remotely, playing games and staying in touch with friends. It will be largely
up to you to keep them safe. Seekadoo, a kid-friendly search engine, can help.
Install it on your kids’ device for free and know their searches won’t lead them to wildly inappropriate results. You can download Seekadoo here.
Seekadoo is…... Continue reading >
November 13th, 2019
Instagram is experimenting with likes—specifically, it’s testing what happens when it switches off public “like” tallies. Other tech companies, Twitter and Facebook among them, are launching similar assessments. According to Axios: “Responding to public clamor and media criticism, social media companies are trying to move away from engagement at all costs and towards a healthier experience. That means they’re also stepping into a more unpredictable future for their own bottom lines and those of businesses…... Continue reading >
November 7th, 2019
The Chinese government has decided 90 minutes is the maximum amount of time per day young people should be playing video games. According to the New York Times, officials say more than that amount puts eyesight at risk and hinders academic performance.
... Continue reading >
October 30th, 2019
There’s almost always a semi-secret way to sneak into a website’s off-limits areas, and very often, your kids know about it before you do. This goes for age-restricted content on YouTube, too.
Elsewhere on this site, we’ve covered the use of VPNs to breach firewalls and masking apps that disguise the programs a smartphone is running. Here’s another deceptive—and surprisingly simple—trick parents ought to know about: adding the letters NSFW to…... Continue reading >
September 25th, 2019
YouTube doesn’t have a popularity problem—just about everyone everywhere uses it. But it has had problems controlling what videos find their way to the site and who sees them. Your kids have the same access to the videos on YouTube you have. Whether those videos are appropriate for children is immaterial, and that is a problem. YouTube Kids is the company’s solution.
Elsagate
YouTube has literally millions of videos coming…... Continue reading >
July 27th, 2019
Your kids know what TikTok is, and so do roughly 500 million monthly users. You should, too.
TikTok is a social media app used to make and easily share short videos. It’s like Vine, if you recall that early-days video app, but much more popular. It’s fun, engaging, and easy to use, and therein lies the problem: millions of quick, zany videos at your fingertips, waiting to eat up hours of your day and…... Continue reading >
March 20th, 2019
This One Zero article on Medium explores a new math game, Prodigy, that bills itself as both an education and fun. The creators see themselves as competing with Fortnite, and teachers and parents like that it teaches the children math. Gamifying education isn’t a new idea, think Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego, but having hidden purchases available is. Jeff Wise explores this idea in his article, “... Continue reading >
March 24th, 2019
Modern gaming revolves around online connectivity. Without it, playing games like Animal Jam and Fortnite is impossible. Although these games claim to be “free” to play online, there’s always a price to pay for this level of access. And in the case of online gaming, that price is a wealth of personal information that’s made available to gaming companies.
Downloading a mobile game typically prompts a series of requests for “permissions.” These have become…... Continue reading >
March 26th, 2019
Bullying is no longer a face-to-face occurrence. In 2017, more than 14.9 percent of high school students experienced some form of cyberbullying. And that number will only increase.
With smartphones and computers accessible at all times, it’s easy for children to fall victim to bullying both at school and at home.
And what’s worse is parents and teachers often don’t know it’s happening. Protecting your children is always a top…... Continue reading >