With information and video access at their fingertips most teens spend a crazy amount of time online looking for the latest gossip, hairstyles, and fashion trends surrounding celebrities. (Yes, it’s true: Internet searches for a certain “twerking” female singer outranked web searches for Syria last week six to one). That obsession with popular culture combined Read more…
Just when parents figured out SnapChat, an app that makes photo texts disappear, two new apps hit the social scene that achieve the same objective on both Twitter and Facebook. Twitterspirit allows a Twitter user to set a time limit for a tweet before it “self-destructs” in their feed. By using a hashtag (#) denoting any Read more…
It’s that time of year again. You head out to the store to buy a truckload of number two pencils and color-coded binders along with a flood of other dazed parents who can’t believe school is back in session. So you pretty much know what is in your child’s backpack but do you know who Read more…
It’s a small loophole but one that definitely poses a threat to your child’s online safety. While your child is able set her Instagram account settings to private and only accept “followers” and “friends” she knows, her Instagram bio is still public by default and short of deleting it altogether, there’s no way to hide it. Read more…
Since summer vacation is coming to an end, I am bracing myself for all the new things my two girls will be doing, plus the new activities and connections us parents add to our crazy lives these days. As we pick out first day dresses and get our pencils sharpened, this is the perfect time for Read more…
Anonymity affords a precarious, irresistible power to teens online. Ask.fm is one app that’s exploding in popularity by allowing users to ask and answer questions to one another anonymously. While Ask.fm is used by many teens as a digital playground to flirt and just have fun (and confess crushes), the lack of a name or Read more…
Last night I sat next to my teenage son as he played video games. It did not take long before I was abruptly reminded that he and I may look like fellow humans but we are definitely from two very different planets. I also learned that there’s a possibility that at times I may (stress Read more…
If you are a parent today, you are among the first generation of adults tasked with raising good digital citizens. And while learning to be a “good digital citizen” is a hot topic in education circles have you noticed that it’s quickly demoted to “goofy” when you attempt to talk about it at the dinner Read more…
Q: I overheard my son telling his friend to message him on Path. What is Path and should I be concerned? A: Good question and hats off to you for paying attention to what your kids are doing online. Path is a new(er) social network app specifically designed for smart phones. It allows users to keep Read more…
Be it a birthday, Christmas, or even President’s day, any holiday soon becomes an opportunity for the gift “wish list” to surface in strategic places (in our house, it was laying next to the coffee maker this morning). Inevitably, on nearly 80% of those lists will be technology in the form of a new laptop, Read more…