Parents of teens probably knew this already, but the Pew Research Center just confirmed it for everybody: YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are US 13-17 year-olds' top social media picks now – at 85%, 72% and 69%, respectively. That's according to Pew's just-released "Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018." [The percentages add up to more than 100% because, as is well known, teens use multiple … [Read more...] about How teens’ social media use changing: New Pew study
Snapchat
The new non-fake news & Snapchat
Last week I wrote about fake news, this week about its opposite. This is very real news, as captured by bystanders on the spot – curated and given app-wide exposure by an app. This is quite likely to be how our children will get a lot of their news going forward, so I want to be sure you don't miss what was at the bottom of New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo's important article about … [Read more...] about The new non-fake news & Snapchat
Musical.ly inclined: App huge with younger users
Musical.ly just may've replaced Instagram as kids' starter app. This is an educated guess. I remember a few years ago my friend Trudy Ludwig, the award-winning children's author, observing that, based on all the elementary schools she visits throughout the U.S., Instagram was huge with 4th and 5th graders. Don't get us wrong, we know the official minimum age of these apps is 13. The reality, … [Read more...] about Musical.ly inclined: App huge with younger users
Millennials’ top 10 apps at the turn of the year
Youth digital research firm YPULSE's "most clicked article of 2015" didn't hold a lot of surprises, but it might be useful to note teens' and millennials' top picks here at the turn of the year. Facebook owns three of the Top 10 apps: Instagram (No. 1), the Facebook app (2nd) and Whatsapp, which appears to tie with YouTube and the Weather app for 7th place, and Google two of them (its search app … [Read more...] about Millennials’ top 10 apps at the turn of the year
Social media & what our kids could be teaching us
Two years ago, when "selfie" was named "Word of the Year" and the spontaneous snapping of self-portraits on cellphones was being vilified as yet another example of youth's narcissism, author and educator Rachel Simmons posted a bit of healthy disruption. She wrote in Slate, "Consider this: The selfie is a tiny pulse of girl pride - a shout-out to the self." Simmons gets it. She adds, "Some girls … [Read more...] about Social media & what our kids could be teaching us