Helping Families Cross The Digital Divide
We had a great evening with the Valley Gateway Council of PTA’s! 13 PTA presidents and some “friends of Digital Shepherds” were in attendance last night as we presented our Parenting in the Digital Age workshop. Thank you to Monlux Elementary for hosting the meeting and to the President of the Valley Gateway Council for inviting us.
Friday, Facebook unleashed a new feature upon the masses. There was a public (the internet) uproar about it and Facebook has put the feature on hold but I expect to see it back up and running in one form or another soon. What it did was allowe third party app developers to access your phone number and contact information. To their credit, this was strictly an opt-in procedure. You know when you’re adding a game or app to your profile and you get that message that says:
Well, on Friday, below the paragraph about accessing your “basic information,” there was another heading which requested permission to “Access my contact information.” This was only your address and cell phone number and while it was opt-in, how often do you actually read the request for permission any more since it’s become standard fare at this point. For parents who have children on Facebook, this is definitely something you’re going to want to discuss with your little ones and I’d suggest removing their information all together just to be on the safe side. Facebook has a history of slipping info and I don’t trust it not to happen again. So, how do you remove your personal info? First, click on “Home” in the upper right hand corner of the screen and then “Edit My Profile” (as seen below):
Once you’ve done that, you will come to the screen where you can edit your profile settings. Click the link for “Contact Information” on the left pane and from there you can remove your cell phone number and address (as seen below):
And there you have it! You’ve now removed your personal info from the site so you don’t accidentally forget to clieck “Don’t Allow” next time that addictive, “must play” game is released.
January 1st, California Senate Bill 1411 went into effect after being signed into law last September by Governor Schwarzenegger. This is actually a very important bill which I believe will fill a very important gap in California’s current handling of cyberbullying attacks where the perpetrator hacks into someone’s social media or email account and then poses as the victim posting malicious updates or sending out malicious emails. Unfortunately, I’ve encountered this often when being approached by parents after our “Parenting In The Digital Age” workshops. Often, these occurrences cause great emotional distress for their children with far too few options available to parents to deal with the offense.
In part, SB 1411 says this [Read more...]
AT&T recently released an 11 minute documentary on the topic of texting while driving. The doc, which features families affected by texting while behind the wheel is being distributed to educators, government officials, safety organizations and the public as part of a educational awareness campaign. [Read more...]
Recently, I found an app which is quite cool! It’s called Togetherville. I don’t think anyone can deny the impact that Facebook has had on our culture, capturing the “free time” of both parents and children and connecting families. One of the issues of great concern with Facebook use is the number of under 13 year olds who use the site – which is against their TOS. While I have my own thoughts on that issue, which I’ll save for another post, there are real problems that may arise from younger children being on social media sites. Generally, those problems are peer related but whatever they may be, Togetherville aims to allow children ages 6-10 to get online and involved in social media, minus the inherent caveats.
What Is Togetherville?
According to the site, “Togetherville is a new type of online community specifically designed for kids 6 to 10. However, any kid under 13 can join. Kids play and connect with real-life friends and family in a safe, child-friendly place with parents and trusted adults close by, just like in a good neighborhood. The site mimics the experience of adult social networking sites, but it’s age-appropriate and parent-monitored.” That’s great for a general idea of what Togetherville is, but I’m going to take you through what exactly that looks like. [Read more...]
CYBER-bullying. DIGITAL citizens. Adults, researchers, academics, we all have a need to understand, explain and categorize phenomena which is foreign to us. This is important to us because when speaking about certain phenomena we need to have some common ground from which to start our conversations. A place of common understanding. A springboard with which to dive into the subject matter. That’s great. It’s necessary. What’s even cooler is the fact that we even have a “phenomena” to discuss at all because, well, that means it’s being discussed and recognizing there is a problem to begin with is the first step to solving that problem.
All that said, STOP PREACHING THOSE THINGS TO THE KIDS! Outside the hallowed halls and convention tables frequented by those of us who are in the minivan stage of life, DON’T USE THESE TERMS. “Why,” you ask? [Read more...]
I’ve long been an opponent of the whole, “those kids committed those violent acts because of violent video games” notion. I think it’s silly to blame one object in a child’s environment on their behavior. Most of the causes of our actions are multi-factorial and as my favorite saying goes, “correlation does not equal causation.” To put it another way, there are many reasons why we do what we do and just because something looks like it may be the cause doesn’t mean that it is. Well, a new study has taken and challenged the notion that violent video games can be the impetus for violent, or at least aggressive, behavior in males.
The study recently published in Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE) cites that, “violent video games increased aggression 24 hr later, but only among men who ruminated about the game.” These results occurred in men who played violent video games (e.g., Mortal Kombat: vs. DC Universe, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Resident Evil 5) for 20 minutes and then were asked to think about their game play and how they could improve their game play for the next time, for 24 hours. A day later, the participants in the study returned and were given some tasks and tests to perform and it was determined that group of men had an increased aggression level as a result of playing, then replaying the game in their minds for that 24 hour period. The study puts it this way, “Rumination keeps aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies active in semantic memory, as predicted by cognitive neoassociation theory (Berkowitz, 1990).”
So, allow me to put this plainly, Duh! [Read more...]
Digital Shepherds' Founders
It’s been a moment since I’ve put up a post. I know this. And, I thank you for continuing to come back to our site and up your ‘net CyQ (bad play on IQ, I know…give me a courtesy chuckle and we’ll call it even)! My absence has not been for naught though and I thought I’d drop this post on you just to let you know what’s been going on behind the curtain.
At the end of 2009, my wife and I founded our non profit, Digital Shepherds, in the hopes that we could make a difference in the internet safety landscape. We saw a need and that was that there is so much awesome information being produced by so many wonderful people online but we were still seeing so many wonderful parents who weren’t getting that information where it mattered….offline (or IRL=In Real Life). So, we set out to start an organization that would bring the information TO the parents in the form of workshops and presentations at PTA meetings. [Read more...]
Join Digital Shepherds and the YMCA for a back to school event which will help you ensure that your children are safe as they use technology in their daily lives and give you more piece of mind as you’ll walk away a more savvy mom or dad, parenting in the digital age.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkstockphotos/
There was a pattern I watched develop when my daughter was young. She would watch the Disney child celebs and various recording artists who catered to the Radio Disney crowd and I was fine with it. But, in a couple years’ time I found myself having to put the kibosh on what she was listening to or watching from that celeb. We live in a voyeuristic society which seems to feed on the youth of it’s film and tv “icons.” It also, seemingly, feeds on the sexualization of those youths as they become women. Heck, the celebs themselves put their sexual exploration on display as they attempt to move from “child actor” to “serious adult actor.” It’s quite deliberate actually if you look at men’s magazines like Maxim and listen to the gossip sheet chatter about “leaked” nude cellphone pics and sex tapes. It’s “good PR” and helps them to be taken seriously by directors for roles which may get a PG13 rating or better. While that’s all well and good for those celebs, it wreaks havoc on those of us who are trying to raise emotionally healthy girls. [Read more...]
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