Think of YouTube Kids as digital training wheels for the little video viewers at your house - something a lot of parents have been wanting for a very long time. We all know how popular but not always appropriate YouTube is for kids. Problem solved. Designed for kids through age 8, YouTube Kids carefully screens videos so the littlest online viewers can satisfy their seemingly over-active curiosity … [Read more...] about A YouTube for the littlest video viewers
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More clarity on teens’ ‘Am I pretty?’ videos
The thoughtful New York Times story begins with a 13-year-old New Jersey girl posting her "Am I pretty?" video on YouTube. I won't steal its thunder, so I hope you'll read it. But I do want to highlight the points most helpful to parents of young teen girls: Ages 13-15: "Nearly all the people in these videos" are in that age range. Developmentally normal: The videos' sources are in that age … [Read more...] about More clarity on teens’ ‘Am I pretty?’ videos
‘Being Ginger’: A film for anyone addressing bullying
Being Ginger is really about being human. In a fundamentally kind, sometimes humorous, amazingly un-moralistic way, director Scott Harris shows what it both feels and looks like to be dehumanized and what healing from that looks like, even as the casual cruelty he documents continues. Sometimes he asked for it while doing his filming but it's still amazing and disturbing to see how unthinkingly … [Read more...] about ‘Being Ginger’: A film for anyone addressing bullying
Smart safety: YouTube’s ‘neighborhood watch program’
In every neighborhood, there are neighbors and then there are visitors, and it's mostly the neighbors who make it what it really is – great to hang out in or maybe not so much. That's true in social media too, only digital neighborhoods can be geographically based or interest based. They're interest communities. Some sites are single interest communities, others encompass masses of them – and all … [Read more...] about Smart safety: YouTube’s ‘neighborhood watch program’
Keek’s fast-growing ‘kred’ (with video-sharers)
You may not have heard of Keek the social app because Mashable says it has "maintained an under-the-radar presence" since it launched in 2011 but is "steadily gaining both users and notoriety in the shadow of networks such as Vine, Instagram and Snapchat." What's most different about it is that videos can be as long as 36 sec. (up from Vine's 6-sec. max and Instagram's 15 sec.). Video or text … [Read more...] about Keek’s fast-growing ‘kred’ (with video-sharers)