Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and the American Life Project, recently spoke at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters.
This talk will focus on the media habits of Millennials and GenX and how their patterns of gathering and creating information are different in the digital age and the impact this has on the ways that youth pastors reach out, connect and communiate with youth.
A new online survey conducted by the website ParentPort reveals that, of those parents surveyed whose children watch films at home, 40% had allowed their children to watch a film classified above their age.
The survey of 1,800 respondents from the UK’s two largest online parenting communities –Mumsnet and Netmums – reveals the challenges and pressures parents face when it comes to keeping the media their children see age-appropriate.
Of those parents surveyed whose children play video games, a quarter (25%) had allowed their children to play games classified above their age.
Furthermore, 16% of parents surveyed said they had bought their children a device or gadget – such as a games console or MP3 player – which they themselves did not fully understand how to use.
Parental supervision
However, the parents surveyed did not just give into their children’s appetite for the media – many also closely supervise what their children see and use.
In fact, 82% of the parents surveyed claimed they always know what films and television programmes their children watch, and 77% said they always or usually know what websites their children visit.
Meanwhile, the survey also uncovers parents’ boundaries when it comes to media, with one in eight of the parents surveyed reporting concern that Christmas presents their child had received were inappropriate for their age.
Some reported being worried their youngsters would have unsupervised access to the internet through smartphones and laptops given as gifts. Others cited well-meaning friends and family overstepping the mark – with examples of pre-teens unwrapping presents of 18-rated video games, and under-tens receiving 12-rated DVDs.
Overall, the parents surveyed recognised the contribution the media makes to their children’s lives. Over half (52%) of the parents surveyed thought films and DVDs generally played a positive role in their children’s lives. Forty-nine per cent cited television as also having a positive effect, and 48% believed the internet also made a good contribution to their children’s lives. (via)
Three trends are having a key impact in how consumers are using the internet: the rise of the 'packaged internet', with access through apps rather than browsers; an explosion of professional content and real-time social all contributing to what GlobalWebIndex founder Tom Smith sees as the rise of the social entertainment age.
According to Smith, 'The open browser-based internet has failed to create the economics to deliver professional media business online, as advertising could not demand the premiums needed and consumers are unwilling to pay for content delivered through a browser.'
GlobalWebIndex's free reportanalyses the current situation and considers the implications for professional media, content producers and brands.
The report identifies that a shift is currently taking place from blogs and forums to real-time sharing such as status updates and tweets, with 10% of internet users around the world updating their status daily. 'This radically changes the impact of social media, primarily creating an ongoing shared agenda and conversation towards reacting or interacting with live events and discourse.'
The rise of the packaged-internet
Mobile apps, tablets, e-readers, internet-connected TVs and gaming / video platforms are all contributing to the deterioration of the internet as a single entity. Mobile, in particular, has contributed to social entertainment, with over 17% of people surveyed having watched TV in the last month via their mobile, and 26% had watched an on-demand video via mobile phone.
Professional content explosion
The fastest growing motivations for using the internet identified by the survey were 'finding TV / films', 'finding music' and 'entertainment'. The survey also found that the prime motivation for 16-24 year olds to engage with brands is to entertain them (66%). GlobalWebIndex interprets this as a 'clear indication of the need for brands to adopt the position of content creator'. (via)
Blue Star Families' mission is to support, connect and empower military families.
The mission of Blue Star Families is to engage military families and gather our perspectives on all aspects of military life. They will use this knowledge base to inform the policy shapers and to support families, like ours, that have the honor to serve.
Through outreach with national and local organizations, civilian communities and government entities, they seek to educate the nation in order to promote healthier families, aid in our military readiness, and contribute to our country’s strength.
The world has become increasingly “flat,” as Tom Friedman has shown. Thanks to massive improvements in communications and transportation, virtually any place on earth can be connected to markets anywhere else on earth and can become globally competitive.
Compounding this challenge of demand from college-age students is the fact that the world is changing at an ever-faster pace.
Few of us today will have a fixed, single career; instead, we are likely to follow a trajectory that encompasses multiple careers.
As we move from career to career, much of what we will need to know will not be what we learned in school decades earlier. We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis.
It is unlikely that sufficient resources will be available to build enough new campuses to meet the growing global demand for higher education—at least not the sort of campuses that we have traditionally built for colleges and universities.
Nor is it likely that the current methods of teaching and learning will suffice to prepare students for the lives that they will lead in the twenty-first century.
Creator/Author(s):
John Seely Brown is a Visiting Scholar and Advisor to the Provost at the University of Southern California (USC) and Independent Co-Chairman of a New Deloitte Research Center.
He is the former Chief Scientist of Xerox and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Many of his publications and presentations are on his website (http://www.johnseelybrown.com).
Richard P. Adler is a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto and Principal of People & Technology, a research and consulting firm in Cupertino, California.
In this infographic you can find out more about Facebook's security infrastructure and an overview of the tools available to all users to increase their level of account security.
Facebook, like many communication services and social media sites, uses its Terms of Service (ToS) to forbid children under the age of 13 from creating an account.
Such prohibitions are not uncommon in response to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which seeks to empower parents by requiring commercial Web site operators to obtain parental consent before collecting data from children under 13.
Given economic costs, social concerns,and technical issues, most general–purpose sites opt to restrict underage access through their ToS. Yet in spite of such restrictions, research suggests that millions of underage users circumvent this rule and sign up for accounts on Facebook.
Given strong evidence of parental concern about children’s online activity, this raises questions of whether or not parents understand ToS restrictions for children, how they view children’s practices of circumventing age restrictions, and how they feel about children’s access being regulated.
This paper provides survey data that show that many parents know that their underage children are on Facebook in violation of the site’s restrictions and that they are often complicit in helping their children join the site.
The data suggest that, by creating a context in which companies choose to restrict access to children, COPPA inadvertently undermines parents’ ability to make choices and protect their children’s data. Our data have significant implications for policy–makers, particularly in light of ongoing discussions surrounding COPPA and other age–based privacy.
A few takeaways:
“As a result of COPPA, lying about one’s age has become normal, and parents often help children lie, [which] creates safety and privacy issues.”
“Online safety and privacy are of great concern to parents, but most parents do not want solutions that result in age-based restrictions for their children.”
“Parents are open to recommended age ratings and other approaches that offer guidance without limiting their children’s access.”
84% were aware their children signed up and, of that 84%, nearly two-thirds (64%) even “helped create the account.
53% of the parents know Facebook has a minimum age; 35% think it’s “a recommendation, not a requirement”
78% reported various reasons that make it acceptable for their children to ignore or violate minimum age restrictions online.”
“Because children lie about their age, these sites still collect data about children under 13 that COPPA would otherwise prohibit without explicit parental consent.”
“Such a high incidence of parent-supported Terms of Service circumvention results in a normalization of the practice of violating online rules. This results in a worst-case scenario where none of COPPA’s public policy goals for mediating children’s interactions with these websites are met.”
“Instead of providing more tools to help parents and their children make informed choices, industry responses to COPPA have neglected parental preferences and have altogether restricted what is available for children to access.”
Quick. Tell me the age of the average game player. 12? 15? 17? Nope.
According to a new report from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the average game player age is 37.
Even more surprising is the finding that in 2011, 29% of gamers were over the age of 50. In all, 72% of American households play computer of video games.
Here are some other interesting stats from the 2011 Essential Facts About the Computer & Video Game Industry report released by ESA on the demographics of video game players.
You can read the full executive summary after the jump.
Parents & Games
"Kids play video games for fun with the goal of progressing to the next level and eventually conquering the oppoent, whether that's another player or the computer.
86% of parents are aware of the ESRB rating system
75% of parents believe that the parental controls are useful
80% of parents place time limits on video game playing
74% of parents place limits on Internet usage
Gender & Gamer Demographics
"There are games now for pretty much every age, every demographic." ~ Jesse Schell, professor of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University
58% Male 42% Female
Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (37%) than boys age 17 or younger (13%)
33% of gamers say that playing computer or video games is their favorite entertainment activity
How Gamers Play
"Gaming is productive. It produces positive emotion, stronger social relationships, a sense of accomplishment, and for players who are a part of a game community, a chance to build a sense of purpose." ~ Jane McGonigal, PhD. author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
55% of gamers play games on their phones or handheld device
65% of gamers play games with other gamers in person
Ryan Seacrest, known in Hollywood circles as the busiest (and nicest) man in showbiz and host of American Idol, has launched the Ryan Seacrest Foundation (RSF).
The mission of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation (RSF) is to enhance the quality of life for seriously ill and injured children through unique programs that utilize multimedia and interactive platforms to enlighten, entertain and educate.
RSF’s first initiative is to build broadcast media centers, named THE VOICE, within pediatric hospitals for children to explore the creative realms of radio, television and new media as well as contribute positively to the healing process.
The Voice media centers have already opened in Atlanta and Philadelphia, with plans to eventually build up to 10 of the broadcast centers at pediatric hospitals around the country.
In addition, RSF will also reach out to the community and involve students from local journalism schools, colleges and universities to provide them with the opportunity to gain first hand experience in broadcasting, programming and operating a multimedia center.
There's lots of research in the educational media space on how the use of multimedia, social and digital technologies allows young people see themselves as an active participant, in the pilot's seat or director's chair, as they chart new connections between diverse and often unpredictable worlds of knowledge.
This is especially important for children who are critically ill. They spend so much time in the hospital letting doctors, nurses and other medical techs deciding what and when they do just about anything.
To be critically ill means giving up control. A lot of control. 'The Voice' project is important because it's the only part of a child's stay in the hospital where they--not the doctors or nurses--are in control.
They get to decide what song to play. They get to decide what button to push. Most importantly, it's a part of their day that doesn't revolve around heavy life threatening decisions, medicines, needles or any of the hard work of being a patient.
It's just fun. And that's the best medicine of all.
Connect with the Seacrest Foundation on Twitter and Facebook
News out today that, according to one study, SpongeBob and other fast paced kids TV may cause young children to have problems focusing and may dampen their budding brain function.
While there are some flaws with the study, there's no doubt in the age of Tweets, Pokes, Tumblr, Google +ing and YouTube, it's harder than ever to focus on just one thing. That's where this handy flow chart comes in.
According to the creator, this infographic will help you managing your (head) space, clear distractions and help you do one thing at a time. Now turn off Sponge Bob and take time to reflect and review.
Researchers at UCLA Children’s Digital Media Center have conducted a study that looked at the most popular TV programming for kids 9 to twelve between 1967 and 2007 to look for changes in the values that the shows promote.
The results, for anyone who's watched TV lately, shouldn't be too shocking.
The authors conclusion? The study found that in the 1960's the the value of community and kindness were the primary message of programming for 9-11 year olds. In one decade, from 1997 to 2007, fame leapt from #15 to #1 in importance, out of a list of 16 values.
“Preteens are at the age when they want to be popular and liked just like the famous teenagers they see on TV and the Internet. With Internet celebrities and reality TV stars everywhere, the pathway for nearly anyone to become famous, without a connection to hard work and skill, may seem easier than ever.”
Before we start placing the blame at the feet of Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez or other tween stars, it should be noted that not a single tween was surveyed for this study. Instead, they interviewed adults who grew up during the particular decades included in the study.
Moreover, they also discuss--and this is important--how kids today are more attuned to values such as fame than kids in the 1970s and 1980s. The bottom line?
Parents need to do some co-watching of shows that are aimed at the pre-teen (and teen!) demographic to see what values are being conveyed. Talk to your kids. Ask them what they are thinking so you can help steer them toward more grounded and realistic outlook on life.
When the tornado devastated the town of Joplin Missouri, teachers turned to Facebook to help locate students. A new measure could make that a bit more complicated.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon recently signed a bill into law that would ban exclusive contact on social networking sites between teachers and students. Senate Bill 54 passed with unanimous support.
A small part of the wide-ranging SB54, makes it illegal for teachers to be "friends" with students on any social networking site that allows private communication.
That means teachers and students can't be friends on Facebook or can't follow each other on Twitter for example.
It was meant to prevent teachers from developing inappropriate relationships with their students. But to use Facebook parlance, not everyone is clicking the like button.
NPR's All Things Considered's Michele Norris spoke to an eighth grade teacher from Joplin, Mo., who opposes the new law. Randy Turner, who teaches English, said as teachers your job is to reach out to students and that means going where they are and now a days students have shunned e-mail and are using social networking sites to communicate.
But Turner argues instead of protecting children, this new law may be hurting them. "We may be preventing them from talking to the very people who may be able to help," he said.
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