This is an addendum to my earlier post on digital citizenship. Would appreciate any/all feedback. About a year ago I heard a great story on NPR about a successful risk-prevention program at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville that "relies on peer counseling, social events and solid information to challenge misperceptions students have about drinking" instead of the less successful … [Read more...] about Afterthought: Social norming & digital citizenship
Youth
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
Fledgling star reporters in kids’ virtual worlds
The people who help protect kids in virtual worlds have noticed an interesting trend: More and more kids are posting news, cheats (workarounds), and pictures from their favorite online worlds and games in their own blogs. "Essentially, the kids act as reporters for the virtual world by taking screenshots of parties and events in addition to reporting on various issues," writes Chase Straight in … [Read more...] about Fledgling star reporters in kids’ virtual worlds
Studying with social media
A pediatrician who follows social-media research! How cool is that?! Concerning the effects on young people of large amounts of time in and multitasking with digital media, parent Perri Klass, M.D., cites researchers as saying that, basically, the jury's still out. She refers to pediatrics professor Dimitri Christakis at the University of Washington saying that young people may have some … [Read more...] about Studying with social media
‘Red-light district’ makes virtual world safer
San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which runs Second Life, has sequestered adult content and activity in the virtual world onto a new continent called "Zindra." Residents of the virtual world have to verify that they're adults before they can search for anything on Zindra or go there (here's the page that explains how the age verification process works). The entire "world" is now classified as either … [Read more...] about ‘Red-light district’ makes virtual world safer