Teens leading happy connected lives online Photo Where is the doom and gloom? A new report on “Teens, Technology and Friendships” from the Pew Foundation puts an unusually positive spotlight on the online lives of teenagers as they build friendships and connections in a digital world. Teenagers aged 13 to17 are finding ways to strengthen their relationships with real-world friends as well as making new friends through social media, video gaming, messaging apps and other virtual connectors. This is not the usual story of teenagers in the online realm. “This does challenge some of the traditional zeitgeist we have around youth and media,” said Amanda Lenhart, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center and the lead author of the report. Crucial, in part, because “hanging out” in the digital realm may be more accessible for many teenagers than hanging out in the real world. “Many teenagers can’t choose to go and physically be with their friends,” Ms. Where is the doom and gloom?
#Being13: Teens and social media "When I get my phone taken away, I feel kind of naked," said Kyla, another 13-year-old. "I do feel kind of empty without my phone." More than 200 eighth graders from across the country allowed their social media feeds to be studied by child development experts who partnered with CNN. This is the first large scale study to analyze what kids actually say to each other on social media and why it matters so deeply to them. "I think they're addicted to the peer connection and affirmation they're able to get via social media," said child clinical psychologist Marion Underwood, the study's co-author. Sociologist Robert Faris, a school bullying and youth aggression researcher and the other author of the study, said, "There's a lot of anxiety about what's going on online, when they're not actually online, so that leads to compulsive checking." Why are teens so anxious about what's happening online? 'If they're talking about me, I'm going to talk about them' "Go die.
The Influence of Empathy and Morality of Violent Video Game Characters on Gamers’ Aggression Introduction The game character, which defines the role that an individual plays in a video game, is the primary means for a player’s interaction with the virtual environment (Shapiro et al., 2006). Game characters are indispensable to the game and are able to affect a player’s behavior. Players can be influenced by the physical characteristics of the game character and also by the character’s implicit attributes, both of which can affect the level of a player’s personal involvement and their identity within the game. With the rapid development of the video game industry, the picture quality of the game scene is increasingly more delicate while game characters are becoming ever more realistic. Studies have found that the features of the game characters in violent video games (such as appearance, race, costume, and moral attributes) have an effect on the players. Materials and Methods Participants Hundred and twenty college students were recruited online to volunteer in this experiment.
Article: How Do Parents Honor the Benefits of Digital Devices While Limiting Kids’ Use? We live in a world of screens. And in this digital age — with so many devices and distraction — it’s one of the things parents worry about most: How much time should their kids spend staring at their phones and computers? What’s the right balance between privacy and self-discovery? Research continues to provide some answers on how parents are navigating this world. And despite spending a big chunk of their day with a device, most parents — 78 percent — told the researchers that they are modeling good media habits for their kids. The report’s biggest takeaway? “Media and technology are essential to family life and to childhood and adolescence, and therefore we have to get more on top of it, ” says Jim Steyer. In this blog’s 2 1/2 years running, some of our most popular posts have touched on parenting questions. Recently, we gathered a group of about 20 parents to talk about some of these questions. Some parents offered advice and experience, others just came with questions.
Could a Facebook 'Dislike' button backfire among teens? He said it has been "surprisingly complicated" to come up with the right approach. "We didn't want to just build a 'Dislike' button because we don't want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people's posts," he said during a townhall Q&A at the company's headquarters last month. It's a welcome move to have more than "Like" to show how you feel about someone's tragic news, right? Related: Do teens still use Facebook? The crush of 'Dislike' Diana Graber, the co-founder of CyberWise.org, a digital literacy site for tweens, teens, parents and educators, believes if Facebook ends up with something akin to a "Dislike" button, that would make it easier to bully people online. In a post for the Huffington Post that received nearly 4,000 likes, Graber wrote "you don't need to be a child psychologist " to figure out how kids might use these buttons. In an interview, Graber said a lot of teens define themselves by the number of "Likes" they get. Facebook's next move
TV And Videogames Rewire Young Brains, For Better And Worse : Shots - Health News There's new evidence that excessive screen time early in life can change the circuits in a growing brain. Scientists disagree, though, about whether those changes are helpful, or just cause problems. Both views emerged during the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego this week. The debate centered on a study of young mice exposed to six hours daily of a sound and light show reminiscent of a video game. The mice showed "dramatic changes everywhere in the brain," said Jan-Marino Ramirez, director of the Center for Integrative Brain Research at Seattle Children's Hospital. "Many of those changes suggest that you have a brain that is wired up at a much more baseline excited level," Ramirez reported. So is that a problem? On the plus side, it meant that these mice were able to stay calm in an environment that would have stressed out a typical mouse, Ramirez explained. Researchers learned many decades ago that young brains need a lot of stimulation to develop normally.
Infographic: Are You Revealing Too Much on Social Networks? Social-networking sites are a hacker's dream: a sometimes public online community where unsuspecting people post personal information. But what information can and should be posted on social networks? Cloud security firm Trend Micro examined popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Pinterest and found that most require identifying information like location, employment, birthday, and education. Tumblr is the only site that does not ask for any details, aside from username. According to Trend Micro, one in four Facebook users location-tag their posts each month, while 16 percent of Pinterest browsers offer their address. More than 20 million U.S. Birthdays, schools, and family members are the most-shared topics in the social-networking world, Trend Micro reported, followed by hometowns, favorite entertainment (TV shows, musicians, books), vacation plans, and pet names – almost all candidates for possible password combinations.
On a sunny day, you may get the rainy-day blues from Facebook friends LOS ANGELES — Blame your Facebook account if you feel down on a bright, sunny day, according to new research. Too many of your friends may be posting emotionally negative messages. In a paper published Wednesday, scientists argued that the hugely popular social networking site exerts an emotional “spillover” effect. By analyzing more than a billion Facebook status updates, the authors concluded that emotionally positive posts gave rise to more positive posts by friends. “It was actually a very large effect. Rainy And Sunny Posts How do Fowler and other researchers know this? Researchers said they first used weather records to determine which updates were posted in cities experiencing rain. They found that rain increased the number of negative posts by 1.16 percent and reduced the number of positive posts by 1.19 percent. But it didn’t end there. According to researchers, negative posts in general caused 1.29 more negative posts by friends. Some Scientists Hit "Dislike"
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Digital Natives, Yet Strangers to the Web When Reuben Loewy took up his first teaching gig in 2012, he had a major revelation: The digital revolution has dramatically transformed the way that kids perceive reality. Perhaps that makes the 55-year-old teacher sound like a dinosaur. What he discovered is, after all, one of the most obvious realities shaping education policy and parenting guides today. Indeed, although many of today’s teens are immersed in social media, that doesn’t mean "that they inherently have the knowledge or skills to make the most of their online experiences," writes Danah Boyd in her 2014 book It’s Complicated: The Secret Lives of Networked Teens. Educational institutions across the board are certainly embracing (or at least acknowledging) the digital revolution, adopting cutting-edge classroom technology and raising awareness about the perils and possibilities of the Internet. According to Loewy, this dichotomy amounts to a major missed opportunity. Boyd, it’s worth noting, draws similar conclusions:
About Social Community Network Features | Social Network Reviews Below you will find a list of the typical features of a social community networking site. Each editorial review notes whether a platform provides these features. Along with a brief description of each feature are some specific concerns and functionality to be aware of when evaluating a site. In addition to the features below, you may also be concerned about general features of the web site like security, storage space, allowed bandwith usage, user permissions, spam protection and more. Forums Forums are discussion boards where users can hold conversations about various topics. Provides the abiility for users to quote other posts. Events Many groups are centered around events. Provides the ability for both administrators and users to create events. Groups A natural progression for any community is for members to form smaller groups within that community. Blog Utilize tags and categories to organize blogs and make them easier to search. Photos, Videos and Files Chat Polls Wiki