tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360043652023-07-31T04:15:31.847-07:00Television vs Children (TV extended to screen activities)TV (screen) is not child friendly and parents deserve to be informed. So in addition of my own article, I am also posting some interesting article I gather around.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-34906022886573500162018-09-22T23:09:00.002-07:002018-09-22T23:09:40.316-07:00How Too Much Screen Time Affects Kids' Bodies And Brainsarticle by <a _ngcontent-c25="" data-ga-track="contrib block byline" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: 600; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">Alice G. Walton</a><br />
published on Forbes.com<br />
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It’s no longer controversial to suggest that humans and their smartphones aren’t always a healthy combination. Strong research has been coming in over the last several years, suggesting that looking at screens for hours a day can have some serious health and mental health consequences. Even some of the developers of these products have admitted guilt about their creations, and confessed that they don’t even let their kids use them. A couple of recent studies highlight the connection, and an <a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:https://www.whatisdryeye.com/too-much-screen-time/" href="https://www.whatisdryeye.com/too-much-screen-time/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">infographic</a> below expands on it.</div>
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One new <a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/apa.14176" href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/apa.14176" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">study</a> finds that time spent on screens is linked to not-so-great shifts in brain connectivity, while reading is linked to more beneficial changes. The researchers, from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, had families rate how much time their kids spent on screens (smartphones, tablets, computers, and TV) and how much time they spent reading actual books. The children’s brains were scanned, to assess how regions involved in language were connected, and it turned out that screen time was linked to poorer connectivity in areas that govern language and cognitive control. Reading, on the other hand, was linked to better connectivity in these regions.</div>
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Another recent <a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/rson-sac111717.php" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/rson-sac111717.php" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">study</a> found that the brain chemistry of kids who fell into the category of smartphone or Internet addiction was different from that of non-addicted kids. In particular, changes were seen in the reward circuits of the brain, in the ratio of the neurotransmitter GABA to other neurotransmitters. (Interestingly, these changes generally reversed when the teens went through cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for their addiction.) And other <a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616645673" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616645673" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">research</a> has reported that cells in one of the reward areas of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, are activated when participants view Instagram pictures with more “likes," which again suggests that social media use can tap into addiction pathways.</div>
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But what may be even more important than looking at the brain is looking at the behavior and the psychology of kids who use screens. Researcher Jean Twenge’s famous work has shown strong links between time spent on screens and depression and suicidality in teens. A recent <a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2167702617723376" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2167702617723376" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">study</a> of hers reported that teens who spent more time on screens in the form of social media, internet, texting, and gaming thought about suicide a lot more than kids who didn’t: about 48% of those who spent five or more hours a day on their phones had thought about suicide or made plans for it, while 28% of the teens who spent only one hour per day on their phones. In fact, teens who spent more time doing sports, homework, socializing with friends in real life, and going to church had a lower risk for both depression and suicide.</div>
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"These increases in mental health issues among teens are very alarming,” said Twenge, who’s also the author of<span> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic;"><a data-ga-track="ExternalLink:https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1501151983/theatla05-20/?tag=bisafetynet2-20" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1501151983/theatla05-20/?tag=bisafetynet2-20" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003891; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us</a>,</em><span> </span>in a statement. “Teens are telling us they are struggling, and we need to take that very seriously."</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-23345636111470539182017-02-28T23:18:00.001-08:002017-02-28T23:18:07.257-08:00<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="headline" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.5625rem; line-height: 1.6875rem; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
In ‘Screenagers,’ What to Do About Too Much Screen Time</h1>
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By <a class="url fn" href="https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/author/jennifer-jolly/" rel="author" style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;" title="More Posts by Jennifer Jolly">JENNIFER JOLLY</a></address>
<time class="dateline " datetime="2016-03-15T17:32:09+00:00" itemprop="datePublished" style="color: grey; display: inline-block; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 12px; padding: 0px 8px 0px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">MARCH 15, 2016 in well.blogs.nytimes</time></div>
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In the new documentary “<a href="http://www.screenagersmovie.com/" style="color: #326891;">Screenagers</a>,” children can’t resist the pull of electronic devices, and parents don’t know what to do about it.</div>
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Sound familiar?</div>
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The average child in America spends more time <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/tweens-teens-and-screens-what-our-new-research-uncovers" style="color: #326891;">consuming electronic media</a> than going to school, with many <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/#fn-13190-1" style="color: #326891;">teenagers going online “almost constantly.”</a> And parents aren’t necessarily being good role models. A British <a href="http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/news/article/614/worlds_first_creche_for_technology_and_car_keys_to_get_families_connecting#.U9BUaoBdUy4" style="color: #326891;">study</a> showed that while <em>six </em>in 10 parents worried that their children spend too much time in front of a screen, <em>seven</em> in 10 children worry that their parents are the ones who are plugged in and tuned out.</div>
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Dr. Delaney Ruston, the director of “Screenagers” and a physician serving as filmmaker in residence at <a href="http://www.screenagersmovie.com/filmmaker/" style="color: #326891;">Stony Brook Medicine</a> in New York, says that screen time remains a topic that’s often contentious and downright confusing. I spoke with Dr. Ruston about her own family’s messy struggles with digital distractions, and about the surprising insights she learned making this film. Here’s an edited version of our conversation.</div>
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Q.</div>
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Where did the idea for this documentary come from?</div>
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A.</div>
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When I started the film, I was a mom having a hard time with my own teenage kids. My 14-year-old son wanted to play more video games, and my 12-year-old daughter was always on social media. I was at a loss. I would suddenly get mad and then feel guilty. I realized speaking with other parents that we all felt paralyzed about our kids and screen overload and that it’s only getting worse.</div>
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At the same time, I was seeing more of this issue with my patients. As a primary care doctor, I saw more and more kids of all ages and backgrounds glued to a screen. I felt a real need to understand the science around screen time and kids. And as a filmmaker who has worked on other movies for social change, I wanted to share my journey in order to help others who are struggling with these issues as well.</div>
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Q.</div>
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What’s the impact of modern technology on our children’s brains?</div>
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A.</div>
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Excessive use of screens could harm the physical development of young people’s brains. Studies show a correlation between too much screen time and worse attention spans, as well as negative effects on learning. We talk about two really important studies in the the film, <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/srep00546" style="color: #326891;">one with mice</a> and another <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/4/644" style="color: #326891;">with preschoolers</a>.</div>
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In the first study, scientists found that when young mice are repeatedly exposed to flashing sounds and lights that mimic screen time, they develop fewer nerve cells in the parts of the brain that control learning and memory. The same stimulus doesn’t affect brains of adult mice. There’s something unique about the way screen time impacts the developing brain.</div>
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In the other <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/4/644" style="color: #326891;">study with preschoolers</a>, researchers divided 60 kids into two groups. Half watched fast-paced images on screens for about 10 minutes, while the other half drew with crayons in another room. Then all the kids took the same test of cognitive skills. The kids who were exposed to the screens did significantly worse on the exams.</div>
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Our current fast-paced digital media, from flash games and online videos, to social media feeds and constant texting, seems to tire the brain. This has major implications for kids and how they reach their full academic potential.</div>
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Q.</div>
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The movie starts with your almost 13-year-old daughter trying to convince you she needs a smartphone. What’s the big lesson for other parents here?</div>
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A.</div>
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I want every parent to know two main scientific facts: The first is that the part of the brain responsible for things such as planning, decision-making and impulse control (the frontal cortex) grows slowly over the teen years and is not fully developed until our 20s. The second is that screen time releases the chemical dopamine in the reward centers of the brain, and there is no other time in life when you’re as susceptible to that pleasure-producing chemical than in adolescence.</div>
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The worst thing a parent can do is hand over a smartphone and hope for the best. But parents often feel like trying to set limits is pointless, that the cat is out of the bag, tech is everywhere. I hear all kinds of excuses. But kids’ brains aren’t wired to self-regulate. They can’t do it without you, and they shouldn’t have to.</div>
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Q.</div>
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What should parents do then?</div>
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A.</div>
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Given the right guidelines, kids can increase self-control over time. And that’s a more important indicator of success than even I.Q. I was really surprised, and you’ll see in the film, kids consistently told me that they want rules around their screen time.</div>
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So you have set guidelines. Two of our rules are: No phones in bedrooms at night, and no phone use in the car. We use alarm clocks and talk with each other instead. Those are the easy ones. For the rest of the “rules,” and what you’ll see after a few painful mistakes on my part in the film, is that it’s best to create a contract with your kids’ input.</div>
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Q.</div>
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It also helps if mom and dad aren’t checking their phone every five minutes.</div>
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A.</div>
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That’s right. Kids don’t want to be held to a higher standard than their parents, and that’s a big issue. You can’t punish your kids for breaking the rules when you can’t put your own devices down. Also, don’t make rules that don’t make sense, and remember that humans respond better to reward than punishment.</div>
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Q.</div>
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Speaking of punishment, there’s a part in the movie where a parent is scared of taking away video games because of the huge fights it causes.</div>
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A.</div>
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Whenever we try to enforce a screen limit there can be a tremendous backlash. Knowing the science behind this behavior helps to understand why kids respond so fiercely in the heat of the moment.</div>
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The dopamine we get from screen time is the same chemical released with activities such as drinking alcohol. The many hours of dopamine released with screen-based activities can affect the brain in serious ways. For example, research shows that those who play a lot of video games — about three hours a day — have M.R.I. brain scans that reveal similar patterns as people addicted to drugs.</div>
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Q.</div>
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You don’t sugarcoat the potential for disaster here.</div>
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A.</div>
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On any given day, 70 percent of boys are playing video games, and they play close to 2.5 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.</div>
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People like to rebut any negative talk about video games with the evidence that some games can improve visual acuity and problem solving. But are we, as parents, as a society, comfortable with kids giving up 15 plus hours of their lives every week for these video games they’re playing? Do you even know what games they’re playing?</div>
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Eighty percent of video games have violent content. With these games, the data shows an increased risk in aggressive thoughts and actions. It is not surprising that these games are <span style="font-weight: 700;">not</span> increasing thoughts of empathy and generosity — the traits that I would hope as a society we would want to promote.</div>
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The good news is that data also reveals that prosocial video games increase the chance that kids will be more helpful to others. Those are the games where you work to help someone, build a community or collaborate with others in a positive way. I just wish the industry would develop more “cool” prosocial games.</div>
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Q.</div>
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What do you hope happens now that the film is out and people are talking about it?</div>
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A.</div>
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I want to spark a movement to get everyone, from parents to policymakers, to watch the movie, then have a “town hall” style conversation afterward about how we can best help kids lead more balanced lives. I see this as the first step.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-31610705565854518042017-02-18T08:27:00.001-08:002017-02-18T08:32:43.816-08:00It’s ‘digital heroin’: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkiesThis is an interesting article written by <span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;">By</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;"> </span><a class="dr-nicholas-kardaras" href="http://nypost.com/author/dr-nicholas-kardaras/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: #cc3333; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem; text-decoration: none;">Dr. Nicholas Kardaras</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;">August 27, 2016</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;"> </span><span class="separator" style="color: #2a2a2a; display: inline-block; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem; padding: 0px 4px;">|</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125rem;">7:54pm New York Post.</span><br />
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Susan* bought her 6-year-old son John an iPad when he was in first grade. “I thought, ‘Why not let him get a jump on things?’ ” she told me during a therapy session. John’s school had begun using the devices with younger and younger grades — and his technology teacher had raved about their educational benefits — so Susan wanted to do what was best for her sandy-haired boy who loved reading and playing baseball.</div>
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She started letting John play different educational games on his iPad. Eventually, he discovered Minecraft, which the technology teacher assured her was “just like electronic Lego.” Remembering how much fun she had as a child building and playing with the interlocking plastic blocks, Susan let her son Minecraft his afternoons away.</div>
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At first, Susan was quite pleased. John seemed engaged in creative play as he explored the cube-world of the game. She did notice that the game wasn’t quite like the Legos that she remembered — after all, she didn’t have to kill animals and find rare minerals to survive and get to the next level with her beloved old game. But John did seem to really like playing and the school even had a Minecraft club, so how bad could it be?</div>
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Still, Susan couldn’t deny she was seeing changes in John. He started getting more and more focused on his game and losing interest in baseball and reading while refusing to do his chores. Some mornings he would wake up and tell her that he could see the cube shapes in his dreams.</div>
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Although that concerned her, she thought her son might just be exhibiting an active imagination. As his behavior continued to deteriorate, she tried to take the game away but John threw temper tantrums. His outbursts were so severe that she gave in, still rationalizing to herself over and over again that “it’s educational.”</div>
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Then, one night, she realized that something was seriously wrong.</div>
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“I walked into his room to check on him. He was supposed to be sleeping — and I was just so frightened…”</div>
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She found him sitting up in his bed staring wide-eyed, his bloodshot eyes looking into the distance as his glowing iPad lay next to him. He seemed to be in a trance. Beside herself with panic, Susan had to shake the boy repeatedly to snap him out of it. Distraught, she could not understand how her once-healthy and happy little boy had become so addicted to the game that he wound up in a catatonic stupor.</div>
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There’s a reason that the most tech-cautious parents are tech designers and engineers. Steve Jobs was a notoriously low-tech parent. Silicon Valley tech executives and engineers enroll their kids in no-tech Waldorf Schools. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page went to no-tech Montessori Schools, as did Amazon creator Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.</div>
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Many parents intuitively understand that ubiquitous glowing screens are having a negative effect on kids. We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.<br />
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But it’s even worse than we think.</div>
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We now know that those iPads, smartphones and Xboxes are a form of digital drug. Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does. Technology is so hyper-arousing that it raises dopamine levels — the feel-good neurotransmitter most involved in the addiction dynamic — as much as sex.</div>
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continue reading: http://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-turn-kids-into-psychotic-junkies/</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-69910728758095267652017-01-10T14:30:00.000-08:002017-01-10T14:30:01.837-08:00Is it possible to live without social media?Is resistance futile?<br />
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Social media are an inherent part of today's life and we cannot deny it. Ones upon a time I was refusing social media in my home, not even getting a smartphone. I did not want to be victimized by it, this term may seem a little too intense for such a situation but this is really how I was perceiving it.<br />
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I witnessed the change in my own home when my husband got his first smart phone, a while ago, the first Iphone that my son is so proud to own today, hoping it will have some great value in the future.<br />
Smartphone were already chronophage, and not close to how much it is today.<br />
Social media develop as fast as the plague in the middle-age and with it come the need to be part of it.<br />
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After year of resistance, I end up getting a smartphone just to be on the same pace as my middle-schooler kids and be able not only to fully understand them but eventually help them through it.<br />
Well, in some way, they also had to help me through it as well, or should I say push me into it. I surely knew Facebook, "forced" by friends to join as it was the only way to see their children growing. But I also had to join Instagram, the juvenile version of Facebook.<br />
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it is insane how many hours our teens are spending on Instagram or Snapchat! They suddenly take many picture while before they would barely take their regular camera anywhere. And they are reading a lot, unhappily nothing important with sadly really bad grammar and even sometime bad langage.<br />
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But the fact is that with those social media they stay in touch no matter how far away they are of each other. And this is rather great. It really is friendship without frontier, this being the positive side of social media.<br />
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Unhappily there is also some dark side in it, harassment and cyber-bullying being one of the darkest. Being chronophage is certainly the more insidious. The more followers-following they have the more sollicitation they get. And they are in a hurry to read every single new post...<br />
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Well I am proud to not become a "victim" of social media, to not have turn on the notification part of it so I can still keep my peace and quiet environment and check WhatsApp when I decide to do so and not when my phone whistle. <br />
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However, I do have now some social media on my smartphone and I have to recognize that I excluded myself from some "community" life by refusing it for so long. Do I regret that choice? not a second. But having some today made me understand better why I do need to let my teen have some too and at the same time how important it is to teach them how to stay free of it. This is a real challenge as it can become quickly addictive. And there are a few ways to use social media, some teens accumulate "friends" or "followers" they are looking for numerous "like" on their post to feel "popular". They may have hundred or even thousand of followers that they do not even know! You can find teens who post tone of pictures of themselves, becoming little Instagram models, building their own celebrity.<br />
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So the challenge is to make sure that they are using those social media for something meaningful like staying in touch with real friends, and to not see all their free time collapsing in a chronophage screen.<br />
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It's a little like how to dominate the machine. May the force be with them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-30553040225076743032016-01-28T22:32:00.001-08:002016-01-28T22:32:31.494-08:00The impact of reality Tv on our teensthis articile will raised many importants questions<br />
http://www.mghclaycenter.org/parenting-concerns/teenagers/impact-reality-tv-teens-can-parents/<br />
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August 11, 2014</div>
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By <a class="url fn" href="http://www.mghclaycenter.org/author/holly-peek-m-d-m-p-h/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #1c6cc2; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="Posts by Holly Peek, M.D., M.P.H.">Holly Peek, M.D., M.P.H.</a></div>
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Posted in: <a href="http://www.mghclaycenter.org/hot-topics/" style="border: 0px; color: #1c6cc2; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="View all posts in Hot Topics">Hot Topics</a>, <a href="http://www.mghclaycenter.org/parenting-concerns/teenagers/" style="border: 0px; color: #1c6cc2; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="View all posts in Teenagers">Teenagers</a></div>
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Kim Kardashian was preparing to have her baby.</div>
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Instead of making sure she had her hospital room reserved and her bags prepared, she was instead on the phone with members of her “glam squad” to make sure they would be available to ensure her hair and makeup were perfect for the day of her delivery. Her sisters chastise her vain behavior as being “typical Kim,” and it is apparent where her values lie.</div>
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Meanwhile, on another cable channel, female socialites of Beverly Hills prepare for a dinner party. Almost as soon as the women arrive in their designer clothes, the wine, catty remarks and tears begin to flow. Throughout the booze-fueled dinner, the women accuse each other of spreading rumors, and the yelling and finger-pointing ensue. A typical dinner party for the “real” housewives.</div>
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Reality television is a huge part of our television viewing culture. It may be clear to many adults that not all is “real” in the world of reality TV. However, how do children and adolescents understand the world of reality TV? What could reality TV be teaching adolescent girls, in particular, about what is valued in the real world? And, how does it affect their attitudes, beliefs, self-image and behavior?</div>
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<a href="http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/real_to_me_factsheet.pdf" style="border: 0px; color: #1c6cc2; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Research has shown</a> that reality TV has an impact on the values of young girls and how they view real-life situations. That being the case, it’s important to take a look at some of the standards portrayed on reality TV.</div>
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What are some of the common themes in reality TV?</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Physical Beauty And Sex Appeal</strong></div>
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Many reality shows depict women idealizing beauty and thinness, giving the impression that a woman’s value is based on her appearance, and that popularity is derived from beauty. Competition shows such as <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">America’s Next Top Model</em>perpetuate this ideal, as women compete with one another to gain a lucrative modeling contract. Plastic surgery shows such as <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Botched</em>, as well as the former <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Dr. 90210 </em>and <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Swan</em> feature people altering their appearance and becoming more satisfied with their looks and quality of life after surgery. Many cast members of other reality shows, such as <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Real Housewives</em> franchise, are very open about their numerous plastic surgeries.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Keeping Up with the Kardashians </em>features the life of a family that spends a great deal of time and money on appearance, with a consequent rise in fame and popularity of its girls and women. Their Instagram pages, often followed by young fans of the show, are full of “selfies,” bikini and modeling photos. Photos that feature their “ordinary” everyday lives are highly sexualized, including the pages of the youngest teenage members of the family. This practice perpetuates the notion that “real” people gain popularity and happiness by focusing on their appearance—and to be successful, personal image, even at a very young age, should be laced with sexuality.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Materialism And Excessive Partying</strong></div>
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Other common values perpetuated by reality TV include materialism, and an idealization of a hard-partying and “celebrity” lifestyle without regard for consequences. Both <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Rich Kids of Beverly Hills</em> and <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Shahs of Sunset</em> feature the lives of privileged young adults living in southern California. They take extravagant trips, wear designer clothes, spend a lot of money on alcohol-fueled parties, and are rarely seen working regular jobs. The cast of <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The</em> <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Jersey Shore </em>spends an entire summer binge drinking to excess, participating in risky sexual behavior, engaging in physical altercations, and even being arrested. Despite their obvious poor behavior and decision-making, their popularity continues to grow.</div>
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For anyone who has seen the 2013 movie <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Bling Ring</em>, this is an extreme example of how emulation of the celebrity and reality TV lifestyle can cause issues in teens. The movie is based on the true story of a group of teenagers in southern California who were responsible for the “Hollywood Hills robberies,” in which they robbed the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Audrina Patridge and several other celebrities. The teens idealized the party and high-fashion lifestyle that is often featured in gossip magazines and reality TV, and subsequently robbed the homes of celebrities to fuel this lifestyle. Although this is an extreme case, it does demonstrate the ability of this type of media to influence the values placed on materialism and excessive partying.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Aggression And Bullying</strong></div>
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Reality TV typically reveals inappropriate behavior within peer groups, often promoting interpersonal drama, aggression and bullying. For example, women in<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Real Housewives </em>franchise gossip, back-stab and behave aggressively, condescending and catty toward one another. The expression of relational aggression between females seen across several reality shows gives girls the idea that gossiping is a normal part of a female relationship, that it’s in girls’ natures to be devisive and competitive with one another, and that being mean earns respect and is often necessary to get what you want.</div>
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As we try to discourage bullying, gossiping and other forms of interpersonal aggression between young girls, it’s unfortunate that reality shows often feature adults behaving in exactly this manner, all the while continuing to gain popularity in mainstream media.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Lack Of Focus On The Importance Of Intelligence And <em style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Real</em> <em style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">World </em>Success</strong></div>
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While reality TV seems to place emphasis on sex appeal, materialism, hard-partying and relational aggression, it does not emphasize the fact that many women on these shows are highly intelligent and successful in their <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">real</em> lives.</div>
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For instance, Adrienne Maloof, a former cast member on <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Real Housewives of Beverly Hills</em>, is a successful entrepreneur as a co-owner of several business ventures that include Maloof Productions and the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. However, it was her divorce and disputes with other female cast members that were her main focus on the show. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Married to Medicine</em>, a show featuring the lives of doctor’s wives and female physicians, focuses primarily on the conflicts among the women, not on their successful medical practices.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">How To Talk With Your Children And Adolescents About Reality TV</strong></div>
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It’s important to know how to talk to your kids about the blurred line between reality and reality TV. Since reality TV has such a strong foothold in American pop culture, it is likely not going anywhere or changing its content any time soon. However, parents can learn how to help their children critically appraise what they see in the media.</div>
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Tips for critical appraisal of the media:<sup style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">1 </sup></div>
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<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Watch one or more reality TV shows with your teenager:</strong> First, ask what shows your teen is watching, and then determine which shows are appropriate for the age and maturity of your child. It might be that you decide that a young teen, like a 13-year-old, should not watch certain shows that a 16-year-old teen would be permitted. If you introduce “TV rules” such as these in your home, you might consider viewing the shows alone first before determining which are appropriate for your child. When watching a show with your child, feel free to make the statements or ask the questions posed in the tips below.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Make a clear statement about the <em style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">reality</em> of reality TV shows:</strong> This is important, since kids need to know that while reality TV appears to be “reality,” it is a sensationalized reality of the television world. Nevertheless, it has an impact, and like many TV shows, can serve as a foundation for imitation.<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Example</em>: “You know these shows are NOT REAL. They look like real life but are written just like other shows.”</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Find out what your child thinks is real:</strong> Start a conversation to gauge how your child views reality TV. There is no way of knowing what she thinks unless you ask. You can pose these questions about reality TV in general, or about a specific show that your child is watching. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Examples</em>: Ask her to describe what is going on in the show to get a sense for how she thinks people look and act. What is good or bad about some of the behavior you are watching together? Does she think people act in real life as they do on reality TV? If so, what has she seen among her peers or adults that resembles what she is seeing on reality TV?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Find out if TV images affect your child’s self image and values:</strong> Reality TV and popular culture can dictate what is “cool,” and what it means to be accepted. Find out if your child is emulating values portrayed on reality TV.<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Examples</em>: Does she envy the lifestyle of the charchters? Is there anything she would change about herself or wish she could do after seeing a particular show? What values are being displayed in the show? What are her values?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Talk to your child about why she likes certain characters: </strong>It may be enlightening to find out why your child likes or dislikes certain characters. This can indicate what values your child may or may not be reflecting.<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Examples:</em>What connections is she making between herself and the reality TV characters? Why does your child find certain characters appealing? Explore if that character is truly admirable, or is there something else that makes her or him seem cool. Does that character make a good role model? Would she like to behave similarly to that character? Who does make a good role model?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Ask your teenager about what her friends are watching:</strong> Most kids watch the same shows, as it gives them common ground for conversation. Ask about her friends’ reactions to certain shows, episodes and/or behaviors. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Examples:</em>What do her friends think is cool? Would her friends want her to act like the characters in the show? Would she want her friends to act in certain ways?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: decimal outside; margin: 10px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Help your child develop critical responses to what she observes on reality TV:</strong> Talking to the television and commenting when something seems unreal or scripted can help your child develop these critical skills. Use commercial breaks to discuss these elements or pause the show when you want to take a break and talk. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Examples:</em> Ask your child, “What is going on here? What is the message in this part of the show?” If your child cannot come up with answers, you can say, “I see people being really self-centered and vain, or nasty to a friend.” Your commentary may help initiate a conversation about the content of the show at any given point.</li>
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Although the programming of reality TV can be highly entertaining, it’s important to be aware of the messages and values that these shows often portray. More importantly, it’s essential to be aware of what our children are watching so that we can teach them how to recognize and process the skewed values of television reality. This is tricky, as this programming easily deceives viewers into believing it is a true reflection of the real world.</div>
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However, by following the tips above, your child can ultimately learn not to accept what is portrayed on reality TV as the truth, but rather to think more critically about what the characters are doing, and why they are behaving in certain ways. This knowledge will give your child the tools to develop stronger values, and a more solid self-esteem that is free from the influences of reality TV.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-54823584900618086502015-11-11T10:55:00.003-08:002015-11-11T10:55:21.583-08:00About sextingAn interesting article was post in the New York Times about Sexting. It is asking some important question about this new practice which become ordinary for some may be more than we think...<br />
<br />
Is this a new phenomena? not really.<br />
What is new and scary is the "no right to forget" aspect of it as much as how a picture or any post can become viral and have uncontrollable consequences...<br />
Words fly away, writings remain.<br />
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/opinion/schools-cant-stop-kids-from-sexting-more-technology-can.html?emc=edit_ty_20151110&nl=opinion&nlid=69995636&_r=0<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-72534807862260360172015-09-25T07:32:00.001-07:002015-09-25T07:32:09.434-07:00Superficial, atrociously stupid Scream Queens started on Fox<span style="font-size: large;">So the new Fox series is supposed to be an horror-comedy?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This totally poorly written carrying all the superficial value of any teen series those days + a copy-paste cheap recipe from basic horror movie without the development of character.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">The worse is that teen may not dare to see and say how unhealthy and annoying the series is because it is so advertised that it looks that this the TV show every teen has to watch</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Those teens are as usual obsessed by popularity, looks, fashion... and let's not forget seduction and sex.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Add to that recipe gore and violence and you get a show that any middle-schooler could shoot with his smartphone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">In case they wanted to play a caricature, this is a total failure.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I agree with Kristi Turnquist in Oregonlive.com :</span><br />
<a href="http://www.fox.com/scream-queens" style="background-color: white; color: #305cb6; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; text-decoration: none;">"Scream Queens": </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">New horror-comedy from Ryan Murphy ("American Horror Story") and his team, about a cursed sorority and a serial killer on a college campus. The two-hour pilot is supposed to be a bloody hoot, with Emma Roberts as the mean-girl head of the sorority, making insulting remarks about minorities, and anyone who doesn't conform to the sorority's standards of beauty. Instead, it's just distasteful. The eclectic cast – which includes Keke Palmer, Lea Michele, and Nick Jonas – are a lively group, but the opener drags. Jamie Lee Curtis is the only bright spot, and even her role – as a college dean with her own secrets – seems like a rewrite of the Sue Sylvester character from "Glee." </span><span style="color: #363636; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2015/09/tv_tonight_donlad_trump_visits.html</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #363636; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;">I totally disagree with critics who find that show hilarious with its insane hyper-reality. there is no subtlety there, everything is heavy, gross, easy, cliche. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I guess that TV writers those days should watch some of the you-tuber who seems much more inspired and certainly funnier than them. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-82834112629578090852015-05-08T09:36:00.003-07:002015-05-08T09:36:58.876-07:0010 places where anyone can learn to code<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px;">Posted by: </span><a class="author url fn" href="http://blog.ted.com/author/jessicargross/" rel="author" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px; transition: color 0.2s;" title="Posts by Jessica Gross">Jessica Gross</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px;"></span><time datetime="2013-01-29" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px; margin-left: 10px;">January 29, 2013 at 11:28 am EDT on Ted Blog</time><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; line-height: 19.4999694824219px;"><i>I choose to share this article I just read as I agree completly with the difference between using and making:</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; line-height: 19.4999694824219px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Custom', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.9999408721924px; line-height: 24.9999389648438px;">Teens, tweens and kids are often referred to as “digital natives.” Having grown up with the Internet, smartphones and tablets, they’re often extraordinarily adept at interacting with digital technology. But Mitch Resnick, who spoke at </span><a href="http://tedxbeaconstreet.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Custom', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.9999408721924px; line-height: 24.9999389648438px; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">TEDxBeaconStreet</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Custom', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.9999408721924px; line-height: 24.9999389648438px;">, is skeptical of this descriptor. Sure, young people can text and chat and play games, he says, “but that doesn’t really make you fluent.”</span><br />
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Fluency, Resnick proposes in <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code.html" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">this TED Talk</a>, comes not through interacting with new technologies, but through creating them. The former is like reading, while the latter is like writing. He means this figuratively — that creating new technologies, like writing a book, requires creative expression — but also literally: to make new computer programs, you actually must <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">write</i> the code.</div>
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The point isn’t to create a generation of programmers, Resnick argues. Rather, it’s that coding is a gateway to broader learning.<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;"> </b>“When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it’s the same thing with coding: If you learn to code, you can code to learn,” he says.<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;"> </b>Learning to code means learning how to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively. And these skills are applicable to any profession — as well as to expressing yourself in your personal life, too.</div>
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<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code.html" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">In his talk</a>, Resnick describes <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Scratch</a>, the programming software that he and a research group at MIT Media Lab developed to allow people to easily create and share their own interactive games and animations. Below, find 10 more places you can learn to code, incorporating Resnick’s suggestions and our own.</div>
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<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">At <a href="http://www.codecademy.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">Codecademy</a>, you can take lessons on writing simple commands in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, Python and Ruby. (See <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/technology/for-an-edge-on-the-internet-computer-code-gains-a-following.html" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">this <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times </i>piece</a> on Codecademy and other code-teaching sites, for a sense of the landscape.)<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">One of many programs geared toward females who want to code, <a href="http://girldevelopit.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Girl Develop It</a> is an international nonprofit that provides mentorship and instruction. “We are committed to making sure women of all ages, races, education levels, income, and upbringing can build confidence in their skill set to develop web and mobile applications,” their website reads. “By teaching women around the world from diverse backgrounds to learn software development, we can help women improve their careers and confidence in their everyday lives.”<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">Stanford University’s <a href="https://www.udacity.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Udacity</a> is one of many sites that make college courses—including<a href="https://www.udacity.com/course/cs101" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Introduction to Computer Science</a>—available online for free. (See <a href="http://blog.ted.com/2012/08/01/12-great-free-online-courses/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">our post</a> on free online courses for more ideas.)<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">If college courses seem a little slow, consider <a href="http://coderace.me/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Code Racer</a>, a “multi-player live coding game.” Newbies can learn to build a website using HTML and CSS, while the more experienced can test their adeptness at coding.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">The <a href="http://www.computerclubhouse.org/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">Computer Clubhouse</a>, which Resnick co-founded, works to “help young people from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies,” as he describes. According to Clubhouse estimates, more than 25,000 kids work with mentors through the program every year.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">Through <a href="http://coderdojo.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">CoderDojo</a>’s volunteer-led sessions, young people can learn to code, go on tours of tech companies and hear guest speakers. (Know how to code? You can set up your own CoderDojo!)<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.codeschool.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Code School</a> offers online courses in a wide range of programming languages, design and web tools.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">Similarly, <a href="http://teamtreehouse.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Treehouse</a> (the parent site of Code Racer) provides online video courses and exercises to help you learn technology skills.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.girlswhocode.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Girls Who Code</a>, geared specifically toward 13- to 17-year-old girls, pairs instruction and mentorship to “educate, inspire and equip” students to pursue their engineering and tech dreams. “Today, just 3.6% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, and less than 10% of venture capital-backed companies have female founders. Yet females use the internet 17% more than their male counterparts,” the website notes.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">Through workshops for young girls of color, <a href="http://www.blackgirlscode.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;">Black Girls Code</a> aims to help address the “dearth of African-American women in science, technology, engineering and math professions,” founder Kimberly Bryant writes, and build “a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures.”</li>
</ol>
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While we’re at it: bonus! <a href="https://generalassemb.ly/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">General Assembly</a> offers a variety of coding courses at their campuses across the globe. Additionally, their free online platform, <a href="https://dash.generalassemb.ly/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; transition: color 0.2s;" target="_blank">Dash</a>, teaches HTML, CSS and Javascript through fun projects on a simple interface that is accessible from your web browser.</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue Custom, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 20.5713596343994px; line-height: 23.8094635009766px;">http://blog.ted.com/10-places-where-anyone-can-learn-to-code/</span></span></div>
<time datetime="2013-01-29" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px; margin-left: 10px;"><br /></time>
<time datetime="2013-01-29" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12.9999799728394px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.4999694824219px; margin-left: 10px;"><br /></time>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-66705050262108538082015-03-25T21:40:00.000-07:002015-03-25T21:40:52.927-07:00What kind of message our kids are getting in television series about school?Did you watch some television series about school? Do you remember the one you were watching as a kid?<br />
Let's speak about some that are considered as the best one or/and the most successful one.<br />
<br />
The Wonder years (1988-1993)<br />
This serie set in the 1960s narrated the adventures through middle-school and high-school of Kevin Arnold.<br />
Let's give a close look at the first episode.<br />
<br />
Kevin arrives in Middle-school and you already have there all the stereotypes. What are the center of interest of middle-schooler?<br />
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Kevin first thinking on the first day of school is "what am I going to wear?"<br />
The second subject of interest is girls! Already on both side, boys and girls are really concerned by the way they look and the way others look at them.<br />
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The third point of concern are the teachers, the supervisors and with them, rules and authority.<br />
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The key scene in this first episode is when Kevin and his friend arrive in the cafeteria, here is what the voice of grown-up Kevin is saying "a suburban junior high school cafeteria is like a microcosms of the world, the goal is to protect yourself, and safety comes in group.You have the cool kids, you have the smart kids, you have the greasers, and on those days of course you had the hippies. In effect is that in junior high-school who you are is define less by who you are than by who is the person sitting next to you."<br />
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As you can see, at no moment we hear about the interest in learning, the quality of the teacher and how much this would concern the student. So in this first episode the "rule" set that individual would be defined not through what he thinks, what his opinion and interest may be but by with who he is hanging out.<br />
So if we believe what we are seeing there, middle-schooler have little interest in learning, they are rather so concern by their image that they do not hesitate to get in trouble just to preserve it. Kevin act in a very disrespectful way just by getting angry at his older brother and his parents are called in the principal office.<br />
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Another older show is "Degrassi Junior high"<br />
In the first episode,Stephanie asks her young brother, Arthur, to pretend that he does not know her! why? because it does not look cool to have a young brother and as a 8 grader she needs to look cool. She also changes clothes as soon as she gets in the school, from a long skirt and blouse outfit to a very provocative and rather sexy look without forgetting to put make-up.<br />
Arthur get already teased by a 8 grader boy, a player who want to lead.<br />
Stephanie do not hesitate to betray her best friend and manipulate all the boys in order to be elected as school president.<br />
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Ones again, the social interaction and the appearance are the main subject of the show. The interest of studying have no place at all in those series. We are far from inspirational movies like "Dead poet society".<br />
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In the series "Popular" it was mean girls acts who were somewhat glorified. Basically you had on one side the popular kids and on the other side the unpopular one and stories which make you think that student were more interested by battling each other than studying.<br />
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Did you ever check out the "Monster High" series?<br />
This is an animated serie extremely popular with a huge merchandising success. But what are the value carried there?<br />
Well, ones again, appearance is at the center of interest of the students who are totally superficial. The rivalry between those girl is atrocious and can be totally depressing to any girls watching it. The standard seems to concentrate on having a group of so-called friends who will fight with you for the same goal which always cause suffering in others. Friendship is totally twisted there.<br />
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I believe that it is time for parents to look closely to those teen series and not only speak about them with their kids but also let producers know what type of message they would appreciate to see in them.<br />
Teenage and college are already a difficult time as puberty strike and society became more and more materialistic, selfcenter and egoistic. Role model on television does encourage teenager in a totally superficial direction which is source of anxiety and agressivity.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-10091713519190209192015-03-04T22:36:00.003-08:002015-03-04T22:36:47.346-08:00great program, step 3: second grade.<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">It is interesting to speak about the Brighton film school with Georges Albert Smith and James Williamson and to show some of their shorts: </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">As seen through a telescope, with probably the first close-up of the cinema.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Grandma's reading glasses for more close-up and make the student talk about the use of this type of plan with question like why do he use this close-up for? What does he want to say?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Then we will show the student the film by James Williamson "the big swallow" and make them remark the size of each shot as the gentleman is walking toward the camera. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Williamson's use of action continuity across multiple shots established the basic grammar of film.</span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">From there, it will be nice to have them do a collage where they will actually identified the size of the plans.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Then we will continue in <b>the Silent film era</b> with Max Linder.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Max Linder, </span></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle, </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">is the first comedian and first international Movie star. He was Charles Chaplin Mentor. In fact Chaplin got not only inspired by Max Linder but he even copy him in many ways which become obvious when watching Max Linder movies.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">This is the silent film Era and there is not so many movies of Max Linder who survived all those years. It will be nice to show as many of those Max Linder to the children as it may be the only occasion for many of them to see them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">They will be able later to recognize what Chaplin copy from Max Linder.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">We will show the student some Chaplin Movies as well as some Buster Keaton Movies from the silent Era.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">it would be interesting to set up a few little silent comedies for them to play and to videotape. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-1999928466298247342015-01-22T21:54:00.001-08:002015-01-26T22:33:30.261-08:00Great program. Step 2: First GradeLet's continue our program with first grader, some review would be fun, with some still images observations game, cartoon screening and commercial making again.<br />
Then we can now start with some history class, cinema history for sure.<br />
I like to start by the beginning at it makes more sense to explain to the children how we got there, in the images based world.<br />
<br />
So I will start with Emile Reynaud, showing them the "praxinoscope" and early animation made with it.<br />
Then I will show them his optical theater and one of his projection:<br />
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This class that introduce history of cinema is constructed around visual experiences. there is no lesson to learn there, only being exposed to what was done and share feeling and thinking with their pair. The brain will do the rest. Debate is higly encouraged.<br />
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After the Praxinoscope should come Edison and his <i><span lang="FR" style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Kinetoscope and some of his film should be screened. </span></i><br />
<i><span lang="FR" style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span lang="FR" style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Lumiere brother should follow with the screening of "</span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">the arrival of a train at La Ciotat" without forgetting to explain to the kids that people were scared when watching that movie for the first time, scared that the train would run on them. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Children are usually very receptive to the history of cinema, it is also fun for them to hear that adult were scared by a train on a screen.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Children particularly appreciate Georges Melies 's movies. I like to show them a few of those. "A trip to the Moon" is fascinating, even for those who are watching too much TV. It is important to set up the ambiance when showing those old movies, to make them feel how it was at that time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">Melies is a lot of fun, and children will laugh at his movies, it is interesting to learn about some of the special effect he used as he is the </span><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">precursor</span><span style="font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;">. Eventually the children could reproduce and experiment some of his trick, like the disparition of a person or an object. It will be wise to get a video camera and to realize some short videos with the children at that point,</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 20.3636360168457px;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-21254780560194013012015-01-09T23:32:00.001-08:002015-01-20T22:21:28.922-08:00What should the media show after a terrorist attack and the killing of people This week France lost some amazing cartoonist in a terrorist attack. Those cartoonist were satirical and as so, they were drawing some provocative and non respectful draw about every figure of authority, political or religious.<br />
They were drawing about any and every political figure as any and every religious figure. Nobody was forced to buy their publication "Charlie Hebdo" and those who did not like their sense of humor and provocation were not buying it.<br />
The cartoonist themselves were very kind people, very generous and open minded, they were fighting obscurantism, racism, injustice... Their satirical representation were there not to hurt the feeling of anyone but instead to make people think further.<br />
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This freedom of speech in France does not suffer of any political correctness limitation. In France, everyone as an opinion and everyone voice it. French people fought for it and many dies for it.<br />
For centuries, people were oppressed by the nobility and the clergy. They had to work hard to give them most of everything they were producing. Then the French Revolution happen and from there, French people decided to never ever been under the domination of the nobility or the clergy and this is why France is a secular country.<br />
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Among all those drawing Charlie Hebdo published were caricatures of religious figure like the pope and Muhammad, the prophet. Some Muslim got offended and did manifest in many European town. Unhappily The Grand Mosque and another French Muslim organisation sued Charlie Hebdo in 2007. They lost to the benefit of freedom of speech and the French tradition of satire.<br />
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From there, hate rised and djihadist started to threat all those cartoonist of death until Wednesday January 7 were barbarian executed most of Charlie Hebdo talents. We all fell angry and attacked and the movement "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) support not only Charlie Hebdo but the freedom of speech and resistance to armed threat.<br />
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For those 3 last days, medias showed the track of attackers of Charlie Hebdo. They were finally found and killed in the action. so what the media are going to speak about now? Because their responsibility is huge.<br />
On which points are they going to focus now?<br />
<br />
Shouldn't they show the pain that killing leave behind?<br />
Shouldn't they have more people coming up in front of the camera like friends of the deceased who dared to share their sadness and cry in front of the camera?<br />
Shouldn't they speak about the family they are leaving behind?<br />
Shouldn't they show to those young eyes that killing in reality is not like killing in a video game, that people do not get up in the next game? That when people are dead, the game is over forever!<br />
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Shouldn't they show the pain and the shame of the killer's family as well?<br />
Shouldn't they show that death has immediate consequences in the life of many?<br />
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Does media have an immense responsibility when choosing which facts to show and how?<br />
do they show more acts of violence than the consequence of that violence?<br />
And if so, do they desensitizing the viewers and not supporting compassion?<br />
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The Media always argue that they are just showing what is going on, the facts, but which facts?<br />
In choosing what to show. don't they setting up the example.<br />
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We will see what they are going to show from now on as the consequence of this terrorist attack...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-70965015757792796572015-01-06T00:22:00.001-08:002015-01-26T22:32:36.956-08:00New year: great program! Step 1: KindergartenOne of the thing which appears essential to me is to educate our children to this visual world because it is obvious that image dominate our today word.<br />
The best way to empower them in this context is to give them as much toold as possible to not be dominate and even influence by all those images.<br />
This is why I believe that children should make commercials even before seeing any. And this is something they can do early on, let say around 5 years old.<br />
I think that it will be wise to implement some audiovisual class as early as kindergarten. I will start with some very basic games:<br />
- first bring some still picture taken from magazine and simply ask the student to look at them closely and tell what they see. they can do that as small group of 2 or 3 or individually. The idea is to make them focus and notice details that they would probably not have even pay attention to in the first place.<br />
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- then it would be nice to project some other pictures with a retro-projector after darkening the classroom to improve the focus on the image but also give a sense of "special moment" to the kids. The exercise will be the same as the first one, just telling what they see on the picture except that this time the whole class will see the same image. it should be interesting to notice what they actually observe on each picture as a collective. the goal is to eventually have them surprise each other by not noticing the same thing.<br />
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- if the class is well spoken, it could be nice to ask them to tell a little short story about the image, what the story of it.<br />
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- Make a flip book will be a great new step as well as a nice craft for the children to realize. Sure they will not do the drawing themselves, each teacher can easily choose what kind of flip book she would like her class to make and make the template for each kid to assemble and play with and keep forever. (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Flipbook) The goal is there is for the kids to feel some more sensation about an image go from still to movement. Experimentation stays much better than explanation.<br />
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- it is now time to pass to videos and I will start with something they probably know better than anyone: cartoon! Except that I will not simply show them a cartoon and any cartoon, I will follow some very precise steps. First I will take a Looney Tune cartoon as they are usually short, extremely well done and intelligent and rich of elements to observe. I like to take Bugs Bunny. So the idea is to first show them the cartoon without the sound. The children will pay more attention to the images in order to understand what is going on. And they will understand. So as soon as the cartoon is done, they will be able to tell the story to their teacher. From there I will have some other step which will be new games, knowing that the children will certainly pay more attetion to the words as they surely want to check if they got the story right, the next game will be to "pay attention to the tone of the voice". is the voice happy, sad, grave, high, fast, slow, clear or not, angry, scare...<br />
So the children will not only listen to what is being said but also to how it is being said.<br />
then the teacher can have them share what they observe and there the all will learn from each other.<br />
The next step will allow the children to see the same cartoon again. And this time they will have to focus on the music! Is there music, what kind of music is that and when? is that an happy music, a fast one, a slow one, a scary one? they should be able to notice the change of music at it occurs. Children are sometime so excited by the exercise that they shout out as the cartoon run what they are noticing. When the cartoon ends, it is time to share what has been noticed and then to make it in relation with the other elements we already observe:<br />
Example: at that moment when the music is rapid we see the rabbit running, or when the rabbit is hiding the music is really slow and low...<br />
The idea is to make the children notice the relation between the images and the music, and eventually understand why a sad music will be strange at this happy moment...<br />
There is one more element that we need our children to notice in the cartoon: the sound effects. So I will show them a last time the cartoon and ask them to focus on all those sounds: do we hear a door opening? step in the stairs? a knock on the door? a car braking?....<br />
The children will this time focus on the sound effects and at the end of the cartoon put all their observation in common one last time.<br />
This should be fun but it is demanding a great amount of energy and focus, particularly the first time. It will be wise to repeat this "observation of a cartoon" a few times with different cartoon of course. Cartoons have to be short, as they will be watch a few time. As they practice those exercises the children should become better and better at it and soon be extremely fast in noticing detail that may be the adult will not even noticed.<br />
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Those exercises are determinant in training awareness to the brain. most of the time children and adult as well do not noticed all those elements and the relations in between them and that is making them so easily influenced by what they are seeing, including commercials.<br />
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- The next step I will introduce involve some material, not much but a video camcorder and eventually some light, however light are totally optional and not necessary at that point. this should be fun and the teacher should be prepare for some excitation among those young student. They will now make some commercials! Oh well, I am not going to ask them to develop script and concept. But here is how I will proceed:<br />
first I will ask them if they know what a commercial is? I am pretty sure that some of them will have some ideas and some can be surprising. at that point it is usually easy to focus on one example, lets say that one of them speak about a commercial about cereal, probably because he saw it and it was a fun one. I am going to ask him now to tell us what the story this commercial is telling? and how? what he remember most about it? ask him if he actually knows those cereal? if not, if he would like to know them and why?<br />
The idea if by questioning the children, make them kind of understand or guess that commercial are made to create the desire to buy the product. In my experience, children do figure it out pretty quickly.<br />
Then it is also important to make them realize the part of lies in commercial, it is easy for example if there is a cartoon character in the commercial, does cartoon character exist in real life?<br />
no, certainly not. So why is it in the commercial? Well, because it is funny that way and it make the cereal more fun and we like to have fun so we want those cereal...<br />
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It is interesting if one kid or more mention commercial for junk food like chips for example, It is an occasion to make the children think a little about nutrition: Is eating chips good for your health? What main happen if you eat a lot of chips?...<br />
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At that step I will simply explain the purpose of commercial: make you buy their product. And also tell them that commercial lies all the time to make us buy their product. I like to make them realize that commercial crate needs and that they can make us feel hungry and how, or guilty and how.<br />
Example: if on you are watching a show and each commercial show you pizzas, do you thing you may start to feel hungry and want some pizza?<br />
Another example: thinking about a cleaning product, this one wash a lot better than this other one which leave some dirt on the laundry, so how the adult who is not using the "good" product will feel?<br />
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After all this chatting part, children will choose a product that the teacher or themselves will bring to class and they will do their commercial: something very simple,they will have their product in their hand and speak to the camera to convince people to buy it. Believe me, the result can be hilarious,<br />
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Depending of the class, this step can be done a few time with a little more complex commercial that would involve more than one kid on the screen.<br />
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Then the teacher will show the class their commercial and they will talk about it as freely as possible.<br />
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I think that this whole process will be a great program for kindergarten. Children are learning extremely fast and this will give them some essential tools to "read" and apprehend images around them.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-85781161731840723432014-10-13T11:48:00.001-07:002014-10-13T11:48:10.497-07:00Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?<span class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 0.6875rem; font-weight: 700; line-height: 0.75rem;">By <span class="byline-author" data-byline-name="DOUGLAS QUENQUA" itemprop="name">DOUGLAS QUENQUA</span></span><time class="dateline" datetime="2014-10-11" style="background-color: white; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 12px;">OCT. 11, 2014</time><br />
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Clifford the Big Red Dog looks fabulous on an iPad. He sounds good, too — tap the screen and hear him pant as a blue truck roars into the frame. “Go, truck, go!” cheers the narrator.<br /><br />But does this count as story time? Or is it just screen time for babies?<br /><br />It is a question that parents, pediatricians and researchers are struggling to answer as children’s books, just like all the other ones, migrate to digital media.<br /><br />For years, child development experts have advised parents to read to their children early and often, citing studies showing its linguistic, verbal and social benefits. In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/us/pediatrics-group-to-recommend-reading-aloud-to-children-from-birth.html?_r=0">advised doctors</a> to remind parents at every visit that they should read to their children from birth, prescribing books as enthusiastically as vaccines and vegetables.<br /><br />On the other hand, the academy strongly recommends no screen time for children under 2, and less than two hours a day for older children.<br /><br />At a time when reading increasingly means swiping pages on a device, and app stores are bursting with reading programs and learning games aimed at infants and preschoolers, which bit of guidance should parents heed?<div>
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The answer, researchers say, is not yet entirely clear. “We know how children learn to read,” said Kyle Snow, the applied research director at the National Association for the Education of Young Children. “But we don’t know how that process will be affected by digital technology.”<br /><br />Part of the problem is the newness of the devices. Tablets and e-readers have not been in widespread use long enough for the sorts of extended studies that will reveal their effects on learning.<br /><br />Dr. Pamela High, the pediatrician who wrote the June policy for the pediatrics group, said electronic books were intentionally not addressed. “We tried to do a strongly evidence-based policy statement on the issue of reading starting at a very young age,” she said. “And there isn’t any data, really, on e-books.”<br /><br />But a handful of new studies suggest that reading to a child from an electronic device undercuts the dynamic that drives language development.<br /><br />“There’s a lot of interaction when you’re reading a book with your child,” Dr. High said. “You’re turning pages, pointing at pictures, talking about the story. Those things are lost somewhat when you’re using an e-book.”<br /><br />“What we’re really after in reading to our children is behavior that sparks a conversation,” said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple and co-author of the 2013 study. “But if that book has things that disrupt the conversation, like a game plopped right in the middle of the story, then it’s not offering you the same advantages as an old-fashioned book.”<br /><br />Of course, e-book publishers and app developers point to interactivity as an educational advantage, not a distraction. Many of those bells and whistles — Clifford’s bark, the sleepy narration of “Goodnight Moon,” the appearance of the word “ham” when a child taps the ham in the Green Eggs and Ham app — help the child pick up language, they say.</div>
<br />There is some evidence to bear out those claims, at least in relation to other technologies. A <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-22219881">study</a> by the University of Wisconsin in 2013 found that 2-year-olds learned words faster with an interactive app as opposed to one that required no action.<br /><br />But when it comes to learning language, researchers say, no piece of technology can substitute for a live instructor — even if the child appears to be paying close attention.<div>
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Patricia K. Kuhl, a director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, led a study in 2003 that compared a group of 9-month-old babies who were addressed in Mandarin by a live instructor with a group addressed in Mandarin by an instructor on a DVD. Children in a third group were exposed only to English.<br /><br />“The way the kids were staring at the screen, it seemed obvious they would learn better from the DVDs,” she said. But brain scans and language testing revealed that the DVD group “learned absolutely nothing,” Dr. Kuhl said.<br /><br />“Their brain measures looked just like the control group that had just been exposed to English. The only group that learned was the live social interaction group.”<br /><br />In other words, “it’s being talked with, not being talked at,” that teaches children language, Dr. Hirsh-Pasek said.<br /><br />Today, what Dr. Kuhl found is commonly referred to as the “Baby Einstein” effect, named for thepopular video series that entranced children from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, but was ultimately found to have a negative association with language development in infants. In 2009, the Walt Disney Company, facing the threat of a class-action lawsuit, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/education/24baby.html">offered refunds</a> to people who had bought the videos.<br /><br />Similarly, perhaps the biggest threat posed by e-books that read themselves to children, or engage them with games, is that they could lull parents into abdicating their educational responsibilities, said Mr. Snow of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.<br /><br />“There’s the possibility for e-books to become the TV babysitters of this generation,” he said. “We don’t want parents to say, ‘There’s no reason for me to sit here and turn pages and tell my child how to read the word, because my iPad can do it.’ ”<br /><br />But parents may find it difficult to avoid resorting to tablets.<br /><br />Claudia Raleigh, a mother of three children under 6 years old in Berkley, Mich., said she adhered strictly to the A.A.P. guidelines but found that she needed to distract her toddler, Teddy, during his sister’s swim class. “You know how hard it is to wait somewhere with a 2-year-old,” she said. “So that was his introduction to the iPad. It kept him from jumping in the pool.”<br /><br />“I considered it a lifesaving device,” she said with a laugh.<br /><br />The guilt, she added, did not linger for long. “I literally read to my kids every day since birth,” she said. “I’m over feeling guilty about a little screen time.”<div>
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Even literacy advocates say the guidelines can be hard to follow, and that allowing limited screen time is not high on the list of parental missteps. “You might have an infant and think you’re down with the A.A.P. guidelines, and you don’t want your baby in front of a screen, but then you have a grandparent on Skype,” Mr. Snow said. “Should you really be tearing yourself apart? Maybe it’s not the world’s worst thing.”<br /><br />“The issue is when you’re in the other room and Skyping with the baby cause he likes it,” he said. Even if screen time is here to stay as a part of American childhood, good old-fashioned books seem unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Parents note that there is an emotional component to paper-and-ink storybooks that, so far, does not seem to extend to their electronic counterparts, however engaging.<br /><br />“Lilly definitely has an iPad, and there are education apps she uses,” Amy Reid, a publicist at CNBC, said of her 4-year-old. “But for her, there is nothing like the excitement of choosing her own book and bringing it home from the library.”<br />Correction: October 12, 2014 <br /><br />An earlier version of this article misquoted Claudia Raleigh, whose toddler son, Teddy, was first allowed to use an iPad during his older sister’s swim class. Ms. Raleigh said, “You know how hard it is to wait somewhere with a 2-year-old,” not “You know how hard it is to sit somewhere with a 2-year-old.”<div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px;">A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2014, on page A1 of the </span><span itemprop="printEdition" style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px;">New York edition</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px;"> with the headline: Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.9999990463257px;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/us/is-e-reading-to-your-toddler-story-time-or-simply-screen-time.html?_r=1</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-33401742301098791192014-10-10T23:59:00.001-07:002014-10-10T23:59:34.666-07:00what role models for teenager?We recently saw some scandal concerning Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber for example. Those public figure were role models early on.<br />
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Miley Cyrus was loved by many kids and teen as Hannah Montana, the Disney character who hide her fame to be sure that people love her for who she really is. But older Miley Cyrus went wild and cultivates a sexually explicit image.<br />
Justin Bieber started as the boy-next-door many girl when in love with but turn out as a bad boy with anger management issue. Parents who use to appreciate those two do not want their teen watch those singers any longer or even worse, go to their concerts.<br />
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But what are the role models teenager are looking up to? Who are the personality they are looking up to, identifying to?<br />
I am afraid that most of them are simply celebrity like Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, Emma Watson, Rihanna...all performers, actors, all in the appearance, fashion, superficiality supported by the media pressure.<br />
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Happily today Malala won the Nobel peace Prize and may with her, teen will look up to some other really important personalities who may not be as famous as singers or actors. Malala advocates child education and was ready to die for it.<br />
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But you may see her a little more for a few days because of her prize and then she will vanish from the media while singers and actors will carry on. I see many girls trying to look like those singers and even regroup at school because they are wearing the same look, the same brand. They are kind of the fashion clique.<br />
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The dictatorship of appearance is very strong in Los Angeles and parents need to be stronger to make sure their teens do not drop into it. Teachers should be strong allies by debating meaningful subject in class, like Malala and her fight for education for girls.<br />
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And you? What kind of role models you would suggest to your teens? Any name? Please share them with us in your comments.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-67911509204776571232014-09-22T22:35:00.000-07:002014-09-22T22:35:58.162-07:00Facebook: Social connections or simply envious voyeurism<div style="border: 0px; font-family: AvenirLT-Medium, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
LONDON: Witnessing friends’ vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.</div>
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A study conducted by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world’s largest social network that now has over 1 billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.</div>
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The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.</div>
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“We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry,” researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University told Reuters.</div>
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“From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site,” Krasnova said, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.</div>
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Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt’s Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.</div>
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Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many “likes” or comments were made on photos and postings.</div>
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“Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize,” the researchers said in the report “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” released Tuesday.</div>
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“The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction,” they said.</div>
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They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.</div>
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These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site to portray themselves in a better light.</div>
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Men were shown to post more self-promotional content to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.</div>
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The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference in Germany in February.</div>
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The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.</div>
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The researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.</div>
<span style="border: 0px; font-family: AvenirLT-Medium, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><br />Read more: <a href="http://dailystar.com.lb/Article.aspx?id=203500#ixzz3E77dTkko" style="border: 0px; color: #003399; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://dailystar.com.lb/Article.aspx?id=203500#ixzz3E77dTkko</a><br />(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-20582463746852023392014-09-22T22:29:00.001-07:002014-09-22T22:29:13.325-07:00Voyeurism and Facebook<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26.3999996185303px; text-align: center; text-transform: capitalize;">By: Cassandra Willyard</span><br />
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Several years ago, my mom decided to move from Grand Forks, North Dakota — a city of 50,000 — to Lakota, North Dakota — a town of about 700 people. She had grown up in small towns and had no desire to return to one. But Lakota happened to be the midway point between her job in Grand Forks and my stepfather’s new job in Minnewaukan. So my mom began house hunting.</div>
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At one house, the owner was watching television. But the show didn’t look like a regular television program. It seemed almost like a home video. My mom asked the woman what she was watching. She replied, “Oh, that’s the camera down on Main Street.” Lakota, North Dakota, has a video camera planted at one end of Main Street. The footage from that camera ends up on TV, allowing residents to get a real-time, birds-eye view of the town’s tiny business district. No lie.</div>
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Why on earth would anyone want to watch what’s happening on Main Street? Because we are natural-born voyeurs. Given the opportunity to peer into others lives, most of us will grab the binoculars rather than closing the shades.</div>
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Facebook, like Lakota’s Main Street camera, encourages our voyeuristic tendencies. “People can peruse the profiles of various users, read about other users’ interests, read their friends’ comments on their walls or view their friends. People can even scroll through a user’s photo albums and see all of the pictures that that user has uploaded of themselves and all of the pictures that other users have uploaded with that user in it. Profiles can link to other, sometimes more personal, Web sites about the user. Some profiles link to other photo albums or to online journals,” wrote Brett Bumgarner in a <a href="http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2026/1897" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; border-bottom-color: rgba(69, 69, 69, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cd6200; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">2007 study</a>. Dozens of my Facebook “friends” are high school classmates I haven’t spoken to since graduation. I friended them to be polite. But that doesn’t explain why I read their status updates and flip through pictures of their kids’ little league games. Facebook has turned me into a busybody. I am the homeowner watching the Main Street camera channel.<span id="more-2204" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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Of course, the voyeurs wouldn’t congregate if there weren’t something to see. Bumgarner puts it this way: “Voyeurism wouldn’t be possible without the existence of exhibitionism, or self–disclosure.” Facebook makes sharing incredibly easy. Almost too easy. And too much sharing can backfire. We have all heard stories about people <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/fired-over-facebook-posts_n_659170.html#s115707&title=Swiss_Woman_Caught" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; border-bottom-color: rgba(69, 69, 69, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cd6200; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">who have been fired</a> for something they posted on Facebook.</div>
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The average Facebook user has 130 “friends,” and it seems a safe bet that not all of those “friendships” are close relationships. My Facebook friend group, for example, is an eclectic mix of actual friends, relatives, casual acquaintances, ex-boyfriends, other science writers, Peace Corps buddies, former classmates, and editors. Given the diversity of that group, I have three options when it comes to sharing: 1. Post only G-rated information/photos that I don’t mind sharing with anyone and everyone. 2. Adopt a devil-may-care attitude and share whatever I want without worrying who will see it. 3. Or divide my diverse list into different groups so that I can selectively share.</div>
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I mostly practice option one. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would like to see everyone embrace the second option. “Our mission at Facebook is to help make the world more open and connected,” he <a href="https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=409753352130" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; border-bottom-color: rgba(69, 69, 69, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cd6200; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">wrote in an open letter last year</a>.</div>
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Smitha Ballyamanda, a woman I profiled in <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/separating-work-friends-and-family-on-facebook-isnt-easy/3" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; border-bottom-color: rgba(69, 69, 69, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cd6200; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">the June issue of IEEE Spectrum</a>, has chosen the third option. She has grouped her nearly 500 friends according to an elaborate hierarchy. Her frenemies are in a group called Zero Trust along with her traditional older relatives. They have the least access to her profile. Her best friends are in a group called the Inner Circle. They can see anything Ballyamanda posts. The bulk of Ballyamanda’s “friends” reside in a group called The Paparazzi. The group includes people like “my best friend from second grade or someone I met through a friend,” Ballyamanda told me. The Paparazzi can see more than Zero Trust, but far less than the Inner Circle. “They’re looking at [my page] just for entertainment purposes,” she said. Ballyamanda devised this system after a stalker hacked into her email and Facebook accounts and hijacked them. The incident left her exceedingly wary, but she didn’t want to forgo Facebook altogether. So she came up with a way to have her cake and eat it too — sort of.</div>
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But how many people would be willing to develop a hierarchy like Ballyamanda’s? Not everyone shares her privacy concerns. When I asked my 22-year-old cousin for her mailing address, she posted it on my Facebook wall, where all my “friends” could see it. I sent her a private message reminding her that she might want to be careful with her personal information. But she didn’t share my concern. “The only people who can see what I write on your wall is you, your friends, me and my friends, so it doesn’t really bother me,” she wrote back. Another college-age cousin has posted dozens of drinking pictures. In some she is visibly drunk. And I recently learned from my news feed that a classmate I haven’t spoken with in years is devastated to find that she can’t have children. Did she mean to tell me that, or did she simply post without thinking?</div>
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So it seems Zuckerberg’s wish for more openness may be coming true. But instead of feeling more connected, I feel alarmed. What happens when my beer-chugging cousin starts looking for jobs? Sure, she can take the pictures down—all 500 of them—but Facebook keeps them archived, no doubt. And with Facebook’s new <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/229742/why_facebooks_facial_recognition_is_creepy.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; border-bottom-color: rgba(69, 69, 69, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cd6200; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.4s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">facial recognition software,</a> her name could be forever tied to those wild college nights. Then again, maybe I’m being overly cautious. I can never decide whether I’m being prudent or a prude.</div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 30.6000003814697px;">http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2011/07/06/voyeurism-and-facebook/</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-72781043908330632442014-09-22T22:23:00.001-07:002014-09-22T22:23:06.030-07:00Why Facebook Breeds Voyeurismby Ari Herzog<br />
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Rachel Jonat recently shared <a href="http://www.bemorewithless.com/2011/farewell-facebook/" target="_blank">why she quit Facebook</a>, extracting in part:</div>
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I want more from my friends than status updates. I want to give my friends more than status updates. If this person isn’t significant enough in my life for a birthday phone call or visit or even a personal email, why do I want to stay on top of where they are vacationing and that they got a new puppy. I’d rather give up the 189 Facebook friends, the majority of whom I don’t have or want the phone number of, and focus on the people near and dear to me.</div>
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Emailing Rachel and seeking information she didn’t share in that guest article on Courtney Carver’s blog, I wanted to know more details why she quit Facebook, a phenomenon Jorgen Sundberg attributes to <a href="http://jorgensundberg.net/content/facebook-where-have-all-cool-kids-gone" target="_blank">early adopters losing faith</a>in the social networking site’s multiple changes over the years and finding increased value networking on LinkedIn and Twitter.</div>
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Rachel replied that she joined Facebook in 2006 as a convert from MySpace. She spent several hours a day on the site, reading updates from so-called friends and sharing her own updates. She was wasting time and she knew it. She had enough. Admitting Facebook is great for establishing connections between friends and family, Rachel also observed herself using the website “as a crutch to be a bad friend,” elaborating:</div>
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Because I saw status updates and pictures of friends I felt like I had connected with them. I hadn’t. Instead of calling people or seeing people I just watched them on Facebook. That’s not a friendship; that’s voyeurism.</div>
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Stephen Chukumba identifies with her belief, for he wrote last year that he considers Facebook a medium for three types of people:</div>
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1. people who write updates and share information<br />2. people who don’t write anything or share infrequently<br />3. people who <a href="http://stephenchukumba.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/mass-social-voyeurism-cyberstalking-on-facebook/" target="_blank">watch everyone else Facebooking</a></div>
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Focusing on the third typology, the voyeur, he expands:</div>
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So that girl that couldn’t stand you in college because she thought that you thought that you were all that, now knows that you’re no longer as cute as you used to be (cause she’s trolled pictures of you in Facebook) and silently rejoices – and then tries to friend you (cause she’s hot now – and wants you to know it). Even if she never actually tries to friend you, she can sit, eating Bon Bons, taking pleasure in every ‘It’s complicated’ post you publish, relishing personal trials and travails.</div>
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What’s so disturbing about it, is that you’ll never know your whole life is under the scrutiny of crazies. Most people probably don’t put that much thought into what they post or publish, because they feel like it’s among friends.</div>
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But in this age of reality TV, TMZ and YouTube, every personal gaffe is potentially fodder for the masses.</div>
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Rachel didn’t want the masses to know her every move but moreover she didn’t care to know theirs. She wrote me that she deliberated for a week and posted a status update on her Facebook wall with her phone number and email address, and left that update there for three days. She told her friends she wanted to see them more in person than online.</div>
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Maybe you can identify with Rachel’s feelings. I can.</div>
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And now, in the weeks since she quit?</div>
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Life is still being lived even though I’m not on Facebook. I’m seeing people in person more, the people that I actually had phone numbers for – not the Facebook friends that I hadn’t seen in five years and wouldn’t think to invite over for dinner. I’m using Skype to see and talk to friends out of town and writing some long overdue emails. It feels good.</div>
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If inspired to learn more about Rachel, she writes <a href="http://theminimalistmom.com/" target="_blank">a blog about minimalism</a> and tweets as <a href="http://twitter.com/racheljonat" target="_blank">@RachelJonat</a>.</div>
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<span style="color: #525252; font-family: Open Sans Light;"><span style="font-size: 14.9999990463257px; line-height: 18.75px;">http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-facebook-breeds-voyeurism</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-58187540239460944772014-09-14T23:14:00.000-07:002014-09-14T23:14:17.231-07:00The Facebook TrapOne of my young friend disappeared from facebook...<br />
Oh well, I wonder what was going on as I always liked to watch his photographs: he travels a lot and loves to take picture in all those countries he visits. So I called him and asked him what happen to his facebook account?<br />
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He terminated it! As he felt becoming totally addicted to it, he decided that he was better for him to stop it completely. He explained to me that he was feeling like an alcoholic feels with alcohol, he could not control his desire to watch and read more and more, his FB friends were posting more and more every days and he realized the amount of time he was spending hooked on his computer or even on his smartphone. He realized that life was not, at least for him, reading and watching what other people were doing as they were doing it and that he wanted to take more time to actually live his own life in the real world instead of following their life via the virtual one.<br />
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I found his experience interesting and listen to other people experience with Facebook. Why do they get hooked or why do they escape the addiction?<br />
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Let's face it, many facebooker are hooked on their smartphone enjoying sharing many moments of their day, including what they just ate or cooked or how beautiful the sunset is tonight. Many are posting pictures of their children so their friends and family can share the joy of seeing the little ones growing up, and this is true, we are sincerely enjoying those.<br />
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There are also those who are networking, speaking about themselves and their work, showing off how "good" they are doing or which "new friend" they made, what great party they just attended...<br />
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And in the teenage world, those posts can get nasty, teenager tend to use social network to gossip and in so, hurting the feeling of their target... oh well, we all read about cyber-bullying isn't it?<br />
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Adult are bullying and gossiping too but in a different way. First they accept anyone who want to be friend with them, even those they do not appreciate in real life and those they do not even know, for them what is important is to have a lot of "friends". Then, they start to post information that seems totally casual but are hurtful for certain. It could be the office's party where one coworker was not aware of (not invited), it could be the get away week-end of a few girlfriends while one of them was totally left out, it could be a mom posting the picture of a birthday's party or a sleep-over where one of her kid's friend was not invited, or the picture of a friend's husband in a pretty good company (not his wife for sure)... In all those post, only the target understand and get hurt, and those type of behavior are encouraged by some TV shows or movies, like "Revenge" on ABC feeds on gossip and bullying, manipulation and destruction.<br />
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Another temptation of Facebook: Voyeurism! This one can become addictive too. Exactly like the neighbor buying a telescope to spy on people around him, or like those old people in small villages in Europe who sit most of the day on the bench in the center square to see what is happening and what others are doing. The same way, some facebooker just want to know what their "friends" are doing, they want to be informed at all time even if none of those of their information are of their concern.<br />
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So I told my young friend that as much as I miss seeing his beautiful pictures, I totally understood his choice. Personally I did open a facebook page because one of my friend refused to post picture of her son anywhere else :-) She is a really close friend of mine and I really enjoy seeing her little one growing up. It actually happens that another on of my close friend do exactly like her and here again I do enjoy seeing pictures of her 4 girls so my facebook account is useful. But I do not have much friend on it, only a few who, like those two, are mostly using it to give news from time to time.<br />
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I would not want to let Facebook or any other social network pollute my life or the one of my children. We already have so little free time to enjoy, I would not like to see them wasted it in the virtual world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-38834405051735477442014-06-29T01:09:00.002-07:002014-06-29T01:09:54.045-07:00social media affecting our children<h4 style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.166666030883789px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">It is interesting to thing for a moment about the consequence of the use of technology on our brain and even more on our children's brain. Technology fascinate our children even more as us, parents, are using it intensively. Internet is a magnificent tools, it is undeniable, it is a source of knowledge where our children, as us. can find mostly all the answer to their question. it is a great help for research but...Hank Pellissier wrote an interesting article about how social media can potentially influence our children, here are some part of it:</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-size: 18px;">Social network sadness?</span></h2>
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A 2012 University of Belgrade study of 160 high school students determined that “online social networking is related to depression,” — but that additional research would be needed to determine whether or not Facebook is triggering depression.</div>
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This finding was echoed by a 2013 University of Michigan study in which researchers report <a class="external" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069841" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">the more time participants spent on Facebook, “the more their life satisfaction levels declined</a> over time." The study noted that this negative effect didn't happen from interacting with others in real life. On the surface, Facebook is an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.</div>
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International cyberbully</h2>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">A 2012 poll conducted by The </span><a class="external" href="http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5462" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Global Research Company Ipsos</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">showed even higher numbers: 12 percent of parents around the world reported that their child has been cyberbullied and 26 percent reported knowing a child in their community who has experienced cyberbullying. Of those, a majority (60 percent) said the harassment occurred on social networking sites like Facebook.</span></div>
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Risky behavior</h2>
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A study published May 2014 in the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Adolescent Health</em><a class="external" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24012065" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">studied 1,563 tenth graders from five Southern California high schools to determine how much social media use affects adolescent risk behaviors</a> like smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. The researchers’ conclusions were disturbing. They warn: “Exposure to risky online content had a direct impact on adolescents' risk behaviors… friends' online behaviors should be considered a viable source of peer influence.”</div>
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Parenting in the age of technology</h2>
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Are there any simple rules for monitoring a child’s technology — whether it means <a class="internal-gs" href="http://www.greatschools.org/technology/7936-child-brain-development-and-video-games.gs" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">video games</a>, <a class="internal-gs" href="http://www.greatschools.org/technology/7942-child-brain-development-and-tablets.gs" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">tablets</a>, <a class="internal-gs" href="http://www.greatschools.org/technology/7940-child-brain-development-and-cell-phones.gs" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">cell phones</a>, <a class="internal-gs" href="http://www.greatschools.org/technology/7938-child-brain-development-and-television.gs" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">TV</a> or social media? Unfortunately, there's still so much we don't know about the long-term effects of technology on the brain. But since technology isn't going anywhere, parents need to think carefully about the role it plays in our children's lives. "Every child is different, so it is difficult to draw hard-and-fast rules, but I think wise parents go for less tech use rather than more," concludes psychologist Jane Healy, author of, <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Failure to Connect</em>.</div>
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In the end, it’s vital to remember that your kids are watching you. The old adage “Do as I say, not as I do” just doesn’t work when it comes to technology. If your face is pasted to an electronic screen most of the time, your impressionable offspring will consider that normal — and do the same. Shut off all gizmos regularly and enjoy face-to-face conversation. Take your children outside, without digital toys, and enjoy the wind, sunshine, trees, and flowers. Growing brains need the kind of nourishment that technology — no matter how sophisticated and bewitching — can never supply.</div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.166666030883789px; line-height: 20px;">http://www.greatschools.org/technology/7995-child-brain-development-and-social-media.gs?s_cid=eml_weekly_20140629</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-18877974190365546432014-05-28T14:20:00.001-07:002014-05-28T14:20:11.594-07:00another video game under the radar: Clash of Clan <b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let's look at the popular online game Clah od Clan and ask ourselves some question before letting our children get exposed to it...</b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Clash of Clans is a strategy game where players can construct and expand one's village, unlock successively more powerful <a href="http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Troops" style="border: 0px; color: #df3a01; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Troops">warriors</a> and <a href="http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Defensive_Buildings" style="border: 0px; color: #df3a01; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Defensive Buildings">defenses</a>, <a href="http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Raids" style="border: 0px; color: #df3a01; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Raids">raid</a> and pillage <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Resources" style="border: 0px; color: #df3a01; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Resources">resources</a> from other villages, create and join <a href="http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Clans" style="border: 0px; color: #df3a01; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Clans">Clans</a> and much, much more. </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">A multiplayer game, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Clash of Clans</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> allows players to build their community, train troops, and attack other players to earn </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" title="Gold">gold</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" title="Elixir">elixir</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">while building their own defenses to protect against attackers. Players can also use the chat feature to communicate with others and join clans to aid each other.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">So already, this is a game of war, I get it. You build, you attack and you get attacked.</span><br />
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Paula Marner wants parents to be careful with "free" gaming apps for their kids.</div>
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The Canadian mother's warning comes after she discovered that her twin 7-year-old boys charged <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2013/07/22/nl-in-app-purchases-warning-723.html" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #0088c3; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">$3,000 worth of in-app purchases</a> while playing <em style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Clash of Clans</em> on her iPad, according to CBC News.</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Marner thought it would be fine to let her boys use the app. What she didn't know was that even though </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Clash of Clans</em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> was free to download, players could make in-app purchases.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/3000-itunes-bill_n_3640842.html</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Clash of Clans Revenue at $654,000 Per Day, Third Best Performing Freemium Title Worldwide</span><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read more at <a href="http://gamingbolt.com/clash-of-clans-revenue-at-654000-per-day-third-best-performing-freemium-title-worldwide#zBa7zRefjTzkrUTi.99" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px none; color: #003399; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://gamingbolt.com/clash-of-clans-revenue-at-654000-per-day-third-best-performing-freemium-title-worldwide#zBa7zRefjTzkrUTi.99</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">You may also want to read what this teacher say about her experience with the game: </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">http://www.coetail.com/cgomez/2013/05/19/why-i-clash-with-clash-of-clans/</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;">You may also wnat to read how this video game can be a great opportunity for pedophile: </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/zekepipher/2013/12/clash-of-clans-and-other-portals-of-predation/</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">and how about cyberbullying:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/05/23/cps-mom-students-are-bullying-jewish-son-through-online-game/</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.999999046325684px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;">http://thecybersafetylady.com.au/2013/05/start-your-kids-early-on-social-media-and-chat-apps-really/</span></span></div>
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Over all, I would personally recommend to have a good conversation with any kid playing or wanting to play that game. First about the value that this game carry, are they positive value?</div>
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it is important that the child stay aware:</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In app purchases are tempting and can lead to pestering (or a big bill if in-app purchases aren’t switched off in parental controls)</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Addictive structure (bearing in mind, the debate about “computer/gaming addiction” rages on)</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Global Chat allows contact with strangers; predators have been<a href="http://www.wisn.com/news/sexual-predators-have-new-ways-of-targeting-tracking-kids/-/9373668/19959768/-/3b8f2nz/-/index.html" style="border: 0px; color: #3bd3dd; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Predators using CoC"> reported</a> to use the site</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">harassment/bullying that can emerge at school between students who share a clan, etc</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Exposure to swearing and nastiness in global chat and clan chat (there is a filter, but it<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2013/06/26/3789834.htmhttp://" style="border: 0px; color: #3bd3dd; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">doesn’t appear</a> to be effective)</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Emotional arousal</li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-71800288732402604772014-05-19T14:49:00.000-07:002014-05-19T14:49:49.815-07:00Is there a TV in your child's room?<h4 style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Research shows having a boob tube in your kiddo's bedroom can be far more damaging than we ever knew.</h4>
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By Jessica Kelmon</div>
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The average person will watch nine years of TV. Nine. Years.</div>
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And it starts early. The average American youth spends roughly 900 hours in school each year — and about 1,200 hours a year watching TV. (To do the math: 1,200 hours is 150 school days.)</div>
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Not cringing yet? In one study, kids ages 4 to 6 were asked whether they'd like to spend time with their dad or watch TV — 54 percent of them picked pixels over pops.</div>
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The stats, <a class="external" href="http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">compiled by Statistic Brain and culled from a Neilsen survey</a> are an unsettling reminder of the monumental space TV takes up in our children's lives.</div>
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Along with these sobering stats, there's an abundance of additional research that shows a <a class="external" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/04well.html" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">link between having a TV in a child's room and their health and academic success</a>. Spoiler alert: it's not good news.</div>
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Do most children have a TV in their room?</h2>
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An estimated 71 percent of American kids ages 8 to 18 have a TV in their room. One study found 70 percent of third graders had bedside boob tubes. My childhood self is envious: as a kid, I campaigned relentlessly — and unsuccessfully — for a TV in my room. (I did, however, wrangle a red plastic lips phone.) And yet both of my brothers got in-room TVs. My partner also grew up with a TV in his room. All three boys were gamers — and I think these personal TVs were really strategies for getting Duck Hunt and Donkey Kong (and their infernal electronic beeping) out of the living rooms.</div>
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Turns out, this scenario may be pretty typical — the boys getting TVs, that is. A longitudinal survey out of Dartmouth — a telephone survey of 6,522 boys and girls ages 10 to 14 — asked specifically whether kids had TVs in their bedroom. In the first survey in 2003, 59 percent of kids had TVs in their room. The TV-havers were predominantly boys, minorities, and children in families of lower socioeconomic status.</div>
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Here's the really bad news: researchers followed the kids and their parents two and four years later and discovered a TV in your bedroom is linked with both being overweight and continuing to gain weight. Two years in, kids with TVs in their rooms reported higher BMIs. After two more years, their BMIs had grown again. What's particularly noteworthy is that obesity isn't linked isn't to the hours of TV being watched. It's to the presence of the TV in their room.</div>
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Why? The study authors speculate that these kids see more junk food TV ads or have their sleep patterns disrupted by the light TV emits. Certainly, having a TV in a child's bedroom sets kids up to be sedentary and isolated — choosing, day after day and hour after hour, to be alone and immobile — an unhealthy way of life for any child. A private television's connection to childhood obesity, the researchers observed, suggests that removing TVs from kids' rooms may be "an important step in our nation's fight against child obesity."</div>
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The hidden TV in your child's room</h2>
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Older studies reveal more troubling TV trends. Kids with TVs in their rooms read less, score lower on tests in school, tend to have sleep issues, and may be more likely to smoke in adolescence.</div>
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Before parents who've never permitted a big glowing blue box, LCD, or flat screen into their child's sanctuary congratulate themselves for standing firm, consider this: tablet ownership in families with young kids has exploded. In 2011, 8 percent of all families had iPads; <a class="external" href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/zero-to-eight-2013.pdf" style="border: 0px; color: #007eaa; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">in 2013, that figure was 40 percent, according to Common Sense Media</a>. What's more, as of 2013, 75 percent of children 8 years old and younger have access to a smartphone or a tablet. All of these findings add up to the fact that it's never been easier — TV or no TV — for children to be transfixed by endless hours of videos on YouTube, TV shows on Hulu, and movies on Netflix from the comfort of their rooms.</div>
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What will be the outcome for this screen-saturated generation? Stay tuned.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-7485498306155170392014-03-20T15:04:00.003-07:002014-05-19T14:52:41.695-07:00Minecraft is not real, tell your kids!I got very upset as I was reading my child magazine named Science and life, when I read a 4 pages article about Minecraft. Even if it was under the label "video games" it still looked a lot like a commercial. Unhappily it was not presented like a commercial :-(<br />
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It was a few paragraphs under the subject Minecraft on a science mood. Each paragraph had a specific subject and include link to the game.<br />
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For example, the first paragraph which is the easiest to analyse for any one knowing music and playing a musical instrument, even if one is a beginner, so, the first paragraph is about composing music! It tells you how wonderful minecraft is as it allow the player to compose even if he is the dummies ever in music. Using some musical bloc you may compose, for example by clicking 3 times on it you produce a B and if you click 11 times it would be a F!<br />
I guess it is the Morse code for music?<br />
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Then it tells you how wonderful it would be to reunite IN minecraft with you fellow "new type of musician" and make a band!<br />
Honestly? anyone who learn a little about music would react to this.<br />
So the naive kid will go for it and believe that he is living a wonderful experience, being at last able to play music?<br />
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And the article goes on: another subject is explore geophysics with minecraft, and then it is about quantum physic...<br />
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And this is supposed to be an article!!!<br />
So I had to explain to my child that this was not an article! that if it was, the journalist would have done a research and expose more than one point of view. For example, the journalist would have interview a musician or a quantum physician to have is view on the subject: a good way to confront virtuality and reality.<br />
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I totally dislike minecraft, and the situation with it remind me about the baby Einstein video issue. At that time, Disney was trying to convince parents that those video were good for their babies, that they will make them more intelligent like Einstein. It was a success for a while, many parents felt for it and believed all of this. Well, I guess it was also convenient to believe as they were feeling comfortable that way putting their baby in front of the screen...<br />
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Anyway, after a long battle of parents, doctors and researchers proving that not only it was not making their baby smarter but it was actually bad for them, the whole baby Einstein period went away.<br />
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Now it is minecraft with all those preteen getting addicted to it and I guess many parents falling for it as well because... it is also convenient isn't it?<br />
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Kids stay for hours busy on their computer and parents can be free to do whatever they want instead of entertaining them, driving around, or sharing some precious time with them.<br />
Well, not all the parents are feeling that way, you may want to read what some parents are saying about the game: http://www.circleofmoms.com/kids-aged-over-10yrs-old./11-year-old-son-addicted-to-minecraft-714073Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-57071261047546452532014-03-03T21:31:00.000-08:002014-03-03T21:31:12.525-08:00Your Baby Can’t Read (and that’s just fine)<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393910472260_2788" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;">in 2011, CCFC filed a complaint with the FTC against the makers of <i>Your Baby Can Read</i> for falsely advertising that their infant video series taught reading. That complaint led to a landmark decision by the FTC against <i>Your Baby Can Read</i>. Now, a new study validates our complaint. Researchers found no difference in the reading skills of babies who used <i>Your Baby Can Read</i> and babies who didn't. In fact, babies can't learn to read. We hope these results will be a relief to parents pressured by marketers to push infants toward reading (and screens). They should also be a relief to babies who are now free to play, explore, and have fun with the adults who love them—activities proven promote learning in those important early years! You can read more about the study here </span><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393910472260_2800" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;"><a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=bW%2Ff42%2F6L8sP3xTX6TafWYsDlWBHpl6M" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393910472260_2799" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393910472260_2798">http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/study-babies-cant-learn-to-read/284067/</span></a>.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36004365.post-73439603170786618162014-03-02T16:08:00.000-08:002014-03-02T16:08:04.224-08:00Still no time for TV...Oh well, today, I would be happy to sit on the coach and watch a good movie with my children. I do have a collection of great movies worth to be seen. I love cinema and the audio-visual language is totally important to learn. However, it is not again today that we will find the time to do so.<br />
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It is already 4pm and my children are busy doing their own thing, one reading the other exploring a new computer program (not a game, we do not do game, no time for it). So he is actually exploring new tools on his computer keeping in mind a class project.<br />
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So, here is the situation, if I call them to watch a movie, sure they will drop what they are doing to come with me and enjoy. But a movie last for at least 1h30mn. So it would be over by 5:30 pm... hum, diner is at 6 pm so that would mean no more time to wander around, do whatever feeling in the mood to do... those precious moment they never encounter on working days...<br />
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I guess we will have to wait another occasion to watch a movie. In California the weather is mostly beautiful so we are mainly outside, which is great. On the other end, we do not have much time for all those activities that happen inside. And truly, TV is not at the top of our list. Those days, music may come first with reading and exploring technology I guess. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0