Despite their love for digital technology, 80% of kids and teens who use ebooks "still read primarily print books for fun," a new Scholastic survey of readers aged 6-17 has found. But we are seeing a shift in the way kids read: "58% of 9-to-17-year-olds say they will always want to read books printed on paper, even though there are ebooks available," but that's down from 66% in 2010. Digital books … [Read more...] about Young readers and e-readers: Study
Study on long-neglected factor in Net safety: Resilience
As a society, we've been talking about youth online risk for years, but we've only just begun to talk about young people's resilience, which is what helps them keep risk from turning into harm. It's important to know, as the authors of an important new report note, that resilience – the ability to deal with negative experiences without being upset by them – doesn't come from avoiding risk, online … [Read more...] about Study on long-neglected factor in Net safety: Resilience
Important granularity on Net risk for teens: Study
An article in the medical journal Pediatrics this month makes significant additions to what we know about youth risk online in two areas: parenting and risk factors for older teen girls (the sample was girls 14-17). The authors of "Association of Maltreatment With High-Risk Internet Behaviors and Offline Encounters" pointed to what we already know: that "95% of American adolescents have Internet … [Read more...] about Important granularity on Net risk for teens: Study
A parent’s-eye-view of Facebook’s new ‘Graph Search’
Facebook unveiled its new, updated search tool today, TechCrunch and a massive number of other news outlets reported. Its name "Graph" is from CEO Mark Zuckerberg's term "social graph," which means it's Facebook's version of social-network search – search personalized by algorithms to users' own social circles. Yes, it competes with Google's personalized search results that appear on the top of … [Read more...] about A parent’s-eye-view of Facebook’s new ‘Graph Search’
Trying out a real career in a virtual world
You're an avatar in Whyville (a virtual world with some 1.5 million users aged 8-16) and you're tired of tweaking your (design of your) avatar, so you're thinking about focusing more on earning clams (virtual currency) and building a career – maybe even a real-world one. So here's an interesting opportunity: Because Whyville now has its own power grid, you can help manage it by figuring out the … [Read more...] about Trying out a real career in a virtual world