Dangerous apps kids should not have on their phones. Period.
Even as someone who usually tries to focus on the positive aspects of technology, I have to admit that there are some dangerous apps for teens and tweens that we need to watch out for. I normally cringe when I hear parents talk about how dangerous the internet is and every internet user is a […]
What parents need to know about “brain hacking”
It would appear that the apps we and our kids have on our devices may actually be hacking our brains. In “Brain Hacking,” a recent episode of 60 Minutes, correspondent Anderson Cooper interviews tech insiders who bluntly admit that apps are often designed to create an addiction-like behavior. What is brain hacking? Cooper speaks with […]
What parents need to know about live-streaming apps
Even before the year was over, experts were declaring that 2016 was the year of live-streaming. Not that I was around then, but I imagine that in the early days of television, most people were in awe of what the technology was able to do: project video and audio from one location to hundreds or […]
Teach your kids to evaluate online info like a reporter
I was hopeful that once the election was over, the barrage of fake news sites and sensational headlines in my social media feeds would just…go away. One can hope. The rise of fake sites, overly-sensational political “news” pages, and questionable sources have caused some to speculate on the influence this garbage had on the outcome […]
Are your kids really that tech savvy?
Of course, we all want our kids to be safe online. That’s a given. Wherever they are, whether online or offline, we want them to be safe and make safe choices. When they are on screens, we don’t want the boogeyman to get them while watching YouTube, or solicited in social media, or cyberbullied in […]
Keeping the bad stuff off your kid’s smartphone
One of the most common questions I hear parents struggle with is “How old should my child be before I give him or her a phone?” The very next question is usually, “How do I keep all the bad stuff off of it?” Like most decisions, every tween or teen differs in their maturity, responsibility, […]
8 digital world skills we must teach our children
In the opening years of the 21st Century, much of the conversation in education was trying to answer the question: What skills do our kids need for the rapidly-changing world they will inherit? Critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, information literacy, and other similar terms topped the lists. Now a decade and a half in, social media, […]