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Tag Archives: Teens

Stickers, emoji & other social-media conversation add-ons

01-May-13

You may’ve noticed this too: Online and on-phone conversations have gotten very mixed-media – very artful, in a sense. Have you noticed that our children are among the most creative mixed-media conversationalists now? It’s delightful to see the fun they have with this. Take stickers, for example. Because they’re now part of Version 3 of [...]

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‘Less is more’ for mobile teens

24-Apr-13

Wired speculates that, because some Asian texting apps – such as LINE, WeChat, Gangnam Style and Kakaotalk – have “slick user interfaces that focus on simplicity and visually pleasing graphics,” these fast-growing apps will soon cross the Pacific, and at least one of them will take off in the US too. “Today, less is more.” [...]

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So we’ve all ‘let our guard down’?

01-Apr-13

It’s interesting that Daily Beast writer Caitlin Dixon precedes her question “When did we let our guard down?” with the story of sleeping on strangers’ couch in Italy after finding them in a couch-surfing site. Yes, she let her guard down (but the people were great hosts). What’s interesting, though, is that she compared couch-surfing [...]

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Australian teen panelists on social media: Meaty insights

26-Mar-13

My visit to Australia for the World Congress on Family Law & Children’s Rights has been rich in hospitality and insight – I’ve had the privilege of talking with people in government, online-safety advocacy, industry, school (students!), primary and secondary education, research, of course many parents and grandparents, and even “Australia’s Dr. Phil,” as Michael [...]

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Teens’ tech getting very mobile: New study

13-Mar-13

Ninety-five percent of US 12-to-17-year-olds use the Internet, 93% have access to a computer at home and 71% of teens with that computer at home share it with other family members, according to a study released today – the biggest explanation, most probably, for why teens’ Net use has gotten so mobile. It allows them [...]

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Tech parenting smarts from teens: Australian study

05-Feb-13

Perfect for making Safer Internet Day 2013 smarter is a new study from Australia about how Net safety works best: open communication and growing competency on the part of parents every bit as much as kids. That’s really boiling down an insightful study from the “Living Labs” at University of Western Sydney that paired up [...]

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Teens’ Top 5 social media picks: DIY survey

11-Jan-13

Nothing formal and scientific, but a quick up-to-the-minute snapshot: To get a handle on current social media use by teens and young adults, Silicon Valley investor Gary Tan blogged, he conducted a little survey with DIY market research startup Survata. He wrote that he asked just under 546 13-to-18-year-olds and 492 19-to-25-year-olds what social media [...]

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Teens, social media & trolls: Toxic mix

01-Nov-12

This is and isn’t about technology. Mostly isn’t. But digital media allow for and expose a dangerous blend of two very different aspects of humanness, one destructive, the latter normative: social cruelty and teenage vulnerability (a lot of focus recently having been on the female variety). The cruelty, the extreme version called trolling – which [...]

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Instagram: Teens’ alternative to texting, FB?

20-Aug-12

Shades of social media researcher danah boyd’s finding on teens’ “social steganography” (hiding in plain sight): The Daily reports (about halfway into a 2-min. video) that, because so many parents are now monitoring their kids on Facebook and checking their texts, “an enormous amount of teenagers” are using Instagram to take random photos just so [...]

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Teens flocking to Twitter for privacy?

06-Feb-12

Now that so many parents are on Facebook, teens are defying predictions and adding Twitter to their social toolboxes, according to an article at MSNBC. The number of teens using Twitter has doubled in the past two years, to 16% of 12-to-17-year-olds last July (the latest data available), the article cites the Pew Internet & [...]

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