Teens
No TV, video games for girls who trashed home
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008Hmmm. How to punish teen vandals without having a crime appear on their “record”? The AP reports that the New Smyrna Beach, Fla., home of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy was vandalized two weeks ago by teenage girls. They used fire extinguishers, eggs and running water to damage the 87-year-old’s home. Cathy requested the girls […]
My latest parenting mantra
Thursday, May 29th, 2008I have a new and longreaching goal when it comes to technology in our family life: nonjudgment. Here’s why.
Several weeks ago, a friend and I attended a seminar on parenting and technology. The leaders opened up the evening by asking audience members to pose their questions up front, so the questions could be answered during the presentation. I […]
Click, meet your roommate
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008According to Wired Campus, social networks may be the perfect media for matching college students with roommates.
Tulane University recently announced a partnership with RoommateClick, a service that allows incoming students to select roommates through a closed social network.
RoommateClick provides about 10 colleges with customized roommate-choosing networks, where students fill out a questionnaire regarding their living […]
Teens reinvent shopping
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 I just came across an interesting project, Digital Youth, at the University of California Berkeley. Here’s an excerpt from a post on the influence of digital media on shopping by project team member Danah Boyd:
I had just finished giving a talk about youth culture to a room full of professionals who worked in the retail […]
Do you play video games with your kids?
Friday, January 25th, 2008My friend Paul sent me this link about the number of parents who play video games with their kids. I have to admit, I haven’t done this much lately. Until this month. We received a wonderful TV-plug-in miniature golf game from my brother for Christmas, and the whole family has been playing the Pirate’s Cove course […]
Digital news travels fast
Thursday, January 24th, 2008Have you seen this news item from the Washington Post about how fast storms can brew in the digital world? Dave Kori, a high school senior, phoned a public school administrator at home and left a message to express his dissatisfaction that a snow day had not been called (three inches), and to hear the […]
Behavioral problems
Thursday, January 17th, 2008I was scanning Ask.Metafilter.com today and came across what I thought was a profound thought. The user asked the community to suggest ways a father could prevent his daughter from going online after bedtime, and said he was open to either technology or social fixes to the problem. One fellow, “blue_beetle”, had a brilliant response:
Don’t look for technical solutions to […]