With its fresh, sweeping look at the media lives of US 8-to-18-year-olds, the Kaiser Family Foundation's just-released "Generation M2" is a tremendous service to parents and educators – but also a subtle disservice. The latter, because it looks at kids' and teens' experiences with today's media through the lens of yesterday's, the mass-media culture we adults grew up in. "The story of media in … [Read more...] about Major study on youth & media: Let’s take a closer look
Research
2010 social Web snapshot: Nielsen & Pew
Last year, the time Americans spent social networking grew 277%, Twitter grew 500%, and the average US worker spends five hours a moth visiting social network sites at the office. Oh yeah, and Facebook is the No. 3 site for Americans 65 and older (smart grandparents). All this is according to Nielsen's Fact Sheet 2010. As for general Internet use (not just the social part), Nielsen says there are … [Read more...] about 2010 social Web snapshot: Nielsen & Pew
New study on ‘digital abuse’ & youth
New national sexting numbers that have sparked headlines all over the Web about higher-than-ever sexting rates among US youth actually show that 90% have not sent naked photos to someone. Sammy, a San Francisco 16-year-old cited in the Associated Press's coverage and one of the 10% of youth who have sent "sexts," told the AP that he probably wouldn't do it again knowing that sexting could bring … [Read more...] about New study on ‘digital abuse’ & youth
My avatar, my self
Neuroscientists are looking into the relationship between self and avatar. A study of World of Warcraft players in their 20s (14 men and 1 woman) who spend an average of 23 hours a week in the game/world was recently presented at the Society of Neuroscience, NewScientist.com reports. From fMRI scans of the players' brains, the study found "next to no difference" in activity in the areas of the … [Read more...] about My avatar, my self
Social lives, media in their pockets
If our kids text, 80% of us do too, according to The Nielsen Company. Nielsen doesn't say why, but we all know: Our kids "hear" us better when we text them, and – besides – it's fun to text with them! Here's some more interesting cellphone data from Nielsen: Phone owners are getting younger: Last year kids typically got their first phone at age 10.1; by the beginning of this year 2009, the phone … [Read more...] about Social lives, media in their pockets