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 they can chat privately in the comments under them. … [Read more...] about Instagram: Teens’ alternative to texting, FB?
mobile
Mobile parenting 2.0
There are some good mobile parenting pointers on the Web these days, one example being "Five things to do before giving your teenager a smartphone." But – practically speaking – these are just useful talking points in the broader, on-going conversation families need to have about how social-media tools like phones can be used to connect with others kindly, meaningfully, and successfully in … [Read more...] about Mobile parenting 2.0
So we’re all becoming cyborgs, Dr. Turkle?
"We want to customize our lives…," "It is as though we have all put ourselves on cable news…," "We seem willing to dispense with [other] people altogether…." All these dire, dour, disrespectful pronouncements about this undifferentiated mass called "we" from highly respected psychologist Sherry Turkle at MIT in the New York Times. Where is her acknowledgment that the way we use all the devices, … [Read more...] about So we’re all becoming cyborgs, Dr. Turkle?
Surge in kids’ apps: Parents & providers sorting it out
I've done it, have you? I have a feeling most of us have passed our cellphones back to a kid in the backseat so we could drive in peace while the child (who has been hounding us to let it happen) plays a game app. Of course, increasingly, this is happening with really little kids, because the bigger ones have their own cellphones ("way back" in 2010, Pew/Internet reported that 75% of US … [Read more...] about Surge in kids’ apps: Parents & providers sorting it out
Teens’ cellphone data use tripled in past year
On average, teens exchange 3,417 messages per month, or "seven text messages per waking hour," Nielsen found in an analysis of data from more than 65,000 cellphone subscribers. Teens have "tripled their data use in the past year," but "data use across all age groups nearly doubled," the Washington Post reports in its coverage. "Survey participants ages 13-17 used an average of 90 MB per month in … [Read more...] about Teens’ cellphone data use tripled in past year