The impact of reality Tv on our teens

this articile will raised many importants questions
http://www.mghclaycenter.org/parenting-concerns/teenagers/impact-reality-tv-teens-can-parents/

August 11, 2014

By Holly Peek, M.D., M.P.H.

Posted in: Hot Topics, Teenagers

Kim Kardashian was preparing to have her baby.

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.

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.

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?

Research has shown 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.

What are some of the common themes in reality TV?

Physical Beauty And Sex Appeal

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 America’s Next Top Modelperpetuate this ideal, as women compete with one another to gain a lucrative modeling contract. Plastic surgery shows such as Botched, as well as the former Dr. 90210 and The Swan 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 The Real Housewives franchise, are very open about their numerous plastic surgeries.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians 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.

Materialism And Excessive Partying

Other common values perpetuated by reality TV include materialism, and an idealization of a hard-partying and “celebrity” lifestyle without regard for consequences. Both Rich Kids of Beverly Hills and Shahs of Sunset 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 The Jersey Shore 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.

For anyone who has seen the 2013 movie The Bling Ring, 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.

Aggression And Bullying

Reality TV typically reveals inappropriate behavior within peer groups, often promoting interpersonal drama, aggression and bullying. For example, women inThe Real Housewives 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.

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.

Lack Of Focus On The Importance Of Intelligence And Real World Success

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 real lives.

For instance, Adrienne Maloof, a former cast member on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, 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. Married to Medicine, 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.

How To Talk With Your Children And Adolescents About Reality TV

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.

Tips for critical appraisal of the media:¹  

1. Watch one or more reality TV shows with your teenager: 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.
2. Make a clear statement about the reality of reality TV shows: 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.Example: “You know these shows are NOT REAL. They look like real life but are written just like other shows.”
3. Find out what your child thinks is real: 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. Examples: 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?
4. Find out if TV images affect your child’s self image and values: 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.Examples: 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?
5. Talk to your child about why she likes certain characters: 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.Examples: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?
6. Ask your teenager about what her friends are watching: 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. Examples: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?
7. Help your child develop critical responses to what she observes on reality TV: 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. Examples: 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.

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.

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.

About sexting

An 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...

Is this a new phenomena? not really.
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...
Words fly away, writings remain.

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

Superficial, atrociously stupid Scream Queens started on Fox

So the new Fox series is supposed to be an horror-comedy?
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.

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

Those teens are as usual obsessed by popularity, looks, fashion... and let's not forget seduction and sex.

Add to that recipe gore and violence and you get a show that any middle-schooler could shoot with his smartphone.

In case they wanted to play a caricature, this is a total failure.

I agree with Kristi Turnquist in Oregonlive.com :
"Scream Queens": 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." http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2015/09/tv_tonight_donlad_trump_visits.html

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. 

I guess that TV writers those days should watch some of the you-tuber who seems much more inspired and certainly funnier than them. 

10 places where anyone can learn to code

Posted by: Jessica Gross January 29, 2013 at 11:28 am EDT on Ted Blog


I choose to share this article I just read as I agree completly with the difference between using and making:

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 TEDxBeaconStreet, 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.”

Fluency, Resnick proposes in this TED Talk, 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 write the code.

The point isn’t to create a generation of programmers, Resnick argues. Rather, it’s that coding is a gateway to broader learning. “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. 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.

In his talk, Resnick describes Scratch, 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.

1. At Codecademy, you can take lessons on writing simple commands in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, Python and Ruby. (See this New York Times piece on Codecademy and other code-teaching sites, for a sense of the landscape.)
   .
2. One of many programs geared toward females who want to code, Girl Develop It 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.”
   .
3. Stanford University’s Udacity is one of many sites that make college courses—includingIntroduction to Computer Science—available online for free. (See our post on free online courses for more ideas.)
   .
4. If college courses seem a little slow, consider Code Racer, 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.
   .
5. The Computer Clubhouse, 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.
   .
6. Through CoderDojo’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!)
   .
7. Code School offers online courses in a wide range of programming languages, design and web tools.
   .
8. Similarly, Treehouse (the parent site of Code Racer) provides online video courses and exercises to help you learn technology skills.
   .
9. Girls Who Code, 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.
   .
10. Through workshops for young girls of color, Black Girls Code 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.”

While we’re at it: bonus! General Assembly offers a variety of coding courses at their campuses across the globe. Additionally, their free online platform, Dash, teaches HTML, CSS and Javascript through fun projects on a simple interface that is accessible from your web browser.

http://blog.ted.com/10-places-where-anyone-can-learn-to-code/

What 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?
Let's speak about some that are considered as the best one or/and the most successful one.

The Wonder years (1988-1993)
This serie set in the 1960s narrated the adventures through middle-school and high-school of Kevin Arnold.
Let's give a close look at the first episode.

Kevin arrives in Middle-school and you already have there all the stereotypes. What are the center of interest of middle-schooler?

Kevin first thinking on the first day of school is "what am I going to wear?"
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.

The third point of concern are the teachers, the supervisors and with them, rules and authority.

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."

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.
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.

Another older show is "Degrassi Junior high"
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.
Arthur get already teased by a 8 grader boy, a player who want to lead.
Stephanie do not hesitate to betray her best friend  and manipulate all the boys in order to be elected as school president.

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".

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.

Did you ever check out the "Monster High" series?
This is an animated serie extremely popular with a huge merchandising success. But what are the value carried there?
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.

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.
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.

great program, step 3: second grade.

It is interesting to speak about the Brighton film school with Georges Albert Smith and James Williamson and to show some of their shorts: 
As seen through a telescope, with probably the first close-up of the cinema.
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?

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. Williamson's use of action continuity across multiple shots established the basic grammar of film.
From there, it will be nice to have them do a collage where they will actually identified the size of the plans.

Then we will continue in the Silent film era with Max Linder.

Max Linder, Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle, 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.

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.
They will be able later to recognize what Chaplin copy from Max Linder.

We will show the student some Chaplin Movies as well as some Buster Keaton Movies from the silent Era.

it would be interesting to set up a few little silent comedies for them to play and to videotape. 

Great program. Step 2: First Grade

Let's continue our program with first grader, some review would be fun, with some still images observations game, cartoon screening and commercial making again.
Then we can now start with some history class, cinema history for sure.
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.

So I will start with Emile Reynaud, showing them the "praxinoscope"  and early animation made with it.
Then I will show them his optical theater and one of his projection:

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.

After the Praxinoscope should come Edison and his Kinetoscope and some of his film should be screened. 

The Lumiere brother should follow with the screening of  "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. 
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.

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.

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 precursor. 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,

What 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.
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.
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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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.
On which points are they going to focus now?

Shouldn't they show the pain that killing leave behind?
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?
Shouldn't they speak about the family they are leaving behind?
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!

Shouldn't they show the pain and the shame of the killer's family as well?
Shouldn't they show that death has immediate consequences in the life of many?

Does media have an immense responsibility when choosing which facts to show and how?
do they show more acts of violence than the consequence of that violence?
And if so, do they desensitizing the viewers and not supporting compassion?

The Media always argue that they are just showing what is going on, the facts, but which facts?
In choosing what to show. don't they setting up the example.

We will see what they are going to show from now on as the consequence of this terrorist attack...

New year: great program! Step 1: Kindergarten

One 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.
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.
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.
I think that it will be wise to implement some audiovisual class as early as kindergarten. I will start with some very basic games:
- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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...
So the children will not only listen to what is being said but also to how it is being said.
then the teacher can have them share what they observe and there the all will learn from each other.
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:
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...
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...
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?....
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.
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.

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.

- 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:
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?
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.
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?
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...

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?...

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.
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?
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?

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,

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.

Then the teacher will show the class their commercial and they will talk about it as freely as possible.

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.

Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?

By DOUGLAS QUENQUAOCT. 11, 2014

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.

But does this count as story time? Or is it just screen time for babies?

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.

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 advised doctors to remind parents at every visit that they should read to their children from birth, prescribing books as enthusiastically as vaccines and vegetables.

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.

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?

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.”

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.

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.”

But a handful of new studies suggest that reading to a child from an electronic device undercuts the dynamic that drives language development.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

There is some evidence to bear out those claims, at least in relation to other technologies. A study 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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

In other words, “it’s being talked with, not being talked at,” that teaches children language, Dr. Hirsh-Pasek said.

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, offered refunds to people who had bought the videos.

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.

“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.’ ”

But parents may find it difficult to avoid resorting to tablets.

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.”

“I considered it a lifesaving device,” she said with a laugh.

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.”

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.”

“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.

“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.”
Correction: October 12, 2014

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.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/us/is-e-reading-to-your-toddler-story-time-or-simply-screen-time.html?_r=1

what 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.

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.
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.

But what are the role models teenager are looking up to? Who are the personality they are looking up to, identifying to?
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.

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.

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.

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.

And you? What kind of role models you would suggest to your teens? Any name? Please share them with us in your comments.

Facebook: Social connections or simply envious voyeurism

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

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.

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.

“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.

“The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction,” they said.

They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.

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.

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.

The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference in Germany in February.

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.

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.

Read more: http://dailystar.com.lb/Article.aspx?id=203500#ixzz3E77dTkko
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) 

Voyeurism and Facebook

By: Cassandra Willyard

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.

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.

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.

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 2007 study. 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.

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 who have been fired for something they posted on Facebook.

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.

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 wrote in an open letter last year.

Smitha Ballyamanda, a woman I profiled in the June issue of IEEE Spectrum, 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.

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?

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 facial recognition software, 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.

http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2011/07/06/voyeurism-and-facebook/

Why Facebook Breeds Voyeurism

by Ari Herzog

Rachel Jonat recently shared why she quit Facebook, extracting in part:

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.

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 early adopters losing faithin the social networking site’s multiple changes over the years and finding increased value networking on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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:

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.

Stephen Chukumba identifies with her belief, for he wrote last year that he considers Facebook a medium for three types of people:

1. people who write updates and share information
2. people who don’t write anything or share infrequently
3. people who watch everyone else Facebooking

Focusing on the third typology, the voyeur, he expands:

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.

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.

But in this age of reality TV, TMZ and YouTube, every personal gaffe is potentially fodder for the masses.

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.

Maybe you can identify with Rachel’s feelings. I can.

And now, in the weeks since she quit?

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.

If inspired to learn more about Rachel, she writes a blog about minimalism and tweets as @RachelJonat.

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-facebook-breeds-voyeurism