K. Todd Storch@businessthoughts discusses What TiVo has done for his family

Pros:

• less surfing
• 50-60% less TV-time overall
• better management of kids TV time
• can watch what they want to watch once the kids are in bed

Cons:

• less awareness of what’s going on in the world (But he points out, you can get that from Google News and blogs. I’ll point out that knowing a bit less about what’s going on in the world might be better for your family.)

Posted: February 25th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

Blogging, which is getting more popular with teens, can attract the wrong kind of attention. KTHV in Little Rock has a story, Teens Offering Too Much Information Online.

It’s not just about blogging. The same risks are inherent in instant messaging, chat rooms, web sites, etc.

Parental involvement is key here. Communicate with your kids, explain the risks, and keep a watchful eye. Let your kids blog about things other than themselves perhaps?

Hat Tip: The Blog Herald

Posted: February 24th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 3

The Digital Goddess, Kim Komando, provides a list of important rules that kids should definitely understand and obey when they are online.

Kim Komando’s 10 Commandments for Kids Online

Worth reviewing with your kids from time to time and it should probably be hung near the computer as a constant reminder for them to be careful.

Posted: February 21st, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

I read the AP article Toys R Kids: High-Tech Playmates over on Wired News.

Make no mistake, the toy business is first and foremost a business. Their goal is to take your money, and they will seek any means available to do so, even if it provides your kids with toys that rob them of their use of their imagination.

All kinds of toys are going high-tech — industry analysts estimate that at least 75 percent of toys debuting this year will have a microchip. Jim Silver, publisher of the Toy Book, a New York-based industry magazine, now calls the toy business “the family entertainment business.”

I look at it this way: Toys that contain microchips in them do the thinking and the imagining for the kids. Instead of kids casting their stuffed animals or dolls into their own imaginary scenes, these preprogrammed toys have their stories built in. The problem is that your childs imagination could come up with an infinite number of scripts for thier toys, while the computerized toys have only a small, very limited number of scenarios. The kids replay the few, preprogrammed scenarios over and over until their bored with them. Then toss them aside.

Any parent who has observed the trance that kids get into while watching TV or playing video games knows that entertainment is not the same as imaginitive play. Quite the opposite effect really; it puts the thinking parts of the brain to sleep. So it’s a wake-up call to hear a toy industry expert say that he “now calls the toy business ‘the family entertainment business.””

In other words, the toy business is less about stimulation of your kids imaginations and healthy play, and more about entertaining your kids and putting them into the mind-numbing trance.

These new toys are also very expensive. The toy companies aren’t stupid. They know that toys that do the entertaining for the kids quickly bore the kids. Kids crave being entertained. Kids beg Mom and Dad sooner for more toys.

Try this experiment: If you’ve got young children, remove all possibility of them playing video games and watching TV for the day. Now go find a couple of very large cardboard boxes that one or two kids can comfortably sit in, give them to your kids and say, “go build a fort in the living room.” Enjoy.

Posted: February 21st, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Clive Thompson over at Collision Detection cites a New York Times article about a study of handwriting vs keyboading by students.

Computers have drastically reduced the amount a student writes by hand, so much that the skill, “like an unused muscle”, is pretty much dead by your senior year. But there’s an interesting question buried in this piece: What is the cognitive effect of handwriting versus typing? (referring to a NYT article)

Then he goes on to ask:

“For me, there’s an even deeper question: Are there any qualitative differences — in the way you think, create, or express yourself — between handwriting and typing?”

Posted: February 19th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

ComputerTime receives a mention over on the Techworthy Blog! The article details many of the perils facing kids today.

We were also featured by the Game Industry News this month.

UPDATE: A really nice article in the Lafayette Journal and Courier talks about Kids, Computers, ComputerTime, and has excerpts from an interview with CEO Joe Acunzo.

Posted: February 17th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

This blog post by Joel Achenbach made me laugh. Brings back memories of my dad yelling at me to shut the lights when I was a kid, and now I’m wearing his shoes and always turning off the lights that my kids leave on.

Posted: February 17th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

I’ve been in the technology field for some time now and I love the Internet, email, the Web, eBay, blogs, and on and on.

But one thing I’ve managed to avoid to this point was Instant Messaging. I have people telling me all of the time that I should install it so that they can IM me. I usually respond with some variation of “Like I don’t already have enough distractions in my day, I need to give you a way to pop up messages on my screen at will?”

I endearingly call it “Instant Interruption” and say, “No Thanks. If it’s not critical, just email me and I’ll get around to it at my convenience. If it’s critical, call me. I can talk faster than I can type.” So it’s not on my work PC and it’s not on my home PCs either. But apparently it’s going to be pushing its way into my life in the near future — via my kids.

The lure of instant messaging seems to kick in about sixth grade, a pivotal time when family relationships begin to take a back seat to friendships.

That’s when Joshua, 11, started begging his father, Greg Coffey, 45, to get instant messaging. A month and a half later, Joshua’s buddy list had grown to 23 friends who attend different schools.

“It’s like candy, an addiction. It’s hard to get them off,” says Coffey.

In my parents day, I guess the hang out was the drive-in theater or burger stand. My generation, it was the video arcade. My kids generation, it’s apparently the Internet.

Instant messaging plays an important part in helping youths form identities, says Susannah Stern, a University of San Diego assistant professor specializing in youth media studies.

“Kids are using it to enhance their reputations by appearing to be affiliated with a lot of people,” Stern says.

So I can resist using it, but for my kids, it’s apparently going to be an important part of their culture growing up, regardless of what we think about it and despite it’s downsides.

But the allure can be like a siren’s call. Teens readily admit that instant messaging is a distraction they welcome, especially during tedious history readings or math projects.

Parents who want to read more about the mix of Instant Messaging with the teens and tweens should read the whole article: Teens use IMs to widen their social circles.

Posted: February 12th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

[We introduce Dr. Mary Acunzo, Developmental Neuropsychologist, as contributing editor to the Families and Technologies blog this week!]

As many parents, I have often thought about my children and computers, and as a psychologist I have pondered the pros and cons of frequent and varied computer use. While it is always nice to see your child composing stories or just typing for pleasure on the computer, it is also disconcerting to see your children in chat rooms, IMing, or playing games for hours on end. Of course, with computers as other things, there can be too much of a good thing. Whether children are playing games, writing, chatting, emailing, we all know it can become excessive. There are some children, who may be on the computer for 30 minutes and then shift to another activity without a problem. However, there are a number of children for whom this would just be impossible, regardless of what they are doing there. My son is one of those children who would not self-regulate in that regard. He has an interesting affliction that I call “screen addiction”. He is literally mesmerized by any screen. When there is a TV on, his eyes, and complete focus, are on it. It truly does not matter what the content. He never watches sports, but if we are in a restaurant with a game on, he can only look at that. Thus, when he is in the throws of the computer, he’s hooked, and even with many reminders of getting off, can’t seem to. So suffice it to say, when ComputerTime came my way, I was more than pleased.

It is clear that the computer holds different meaning to different children. There are children who use it in a very appropriate and ideal way. It is just one of many activities they do throughout the day - for them it’s a tool or another play thing. These are the children for whom we don’t spend time worrying about whether the computer is damaging or negative. It is for the children who become fixated on computer games, IMing, etc., or those who use it as a way to avoid other important tasks (chores or homework), that we worry.

But why such worry? First, it takes away from other activities, such as physical outlets that all children need. Also, as with TV or other screen media, it is isolating. It takes away precious time that could be spent in interaction with peers or family members. Development of social skills is something I deal with all the time as a psychologist and I feel as though some children have less time to practice this important part of life. We all know that even if something doesn’t come naturally, you can improve with practice.

No matter how we look at the issue, computers are an enormous part of our lives, the lives of our children, and definitely everyone’s future in an increasing way. It is used daily and for numerous functions. Our children will benefit from having impositions of time and content. It is all part of their learning about how to manage different activities in their lives. We all need to learn how to self-regulate and ComputerTime will be instrumental in helping children learn this skill because there can always be too much of good thing.

Posted: February 8th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Two issues to talk about…

First, schools are restricting kids from being able to send email or instant messages from school computers because they are increasing being used to harrass other students, and consume a lot of time as kids pass gossip, insults, and hurtful messages to each other.

“Instant messages and e-mail are being employed as primary tools for bullying and harassment, said Bill Preble, a New England College professor and national consultant on the topic. They’re particularly powerful tools for doing hurtful things.”

…and of course, people are a lot bolder about saying things in an email or instant message that they would not say if they were communicating face-to-face. They don’t have to consider that they are dealing with a live, feeling, fellow human being, so it’s a lot easier to be cruel. They also don’t have to deal with a punch to their face when they email something particularly nasty.

Schools need to deal with this, but that isn’t going to stop it from happening from your home computers. Most kids spend more time on the computers at home than they do on the school computers. Parents need to keep a careful watch at home and talk to their kids about how to deal with online harrassment.

Secondly, with so many kids using cell phones, text messaging is also a problem. Here is a quote from the article:

As with many schools, Merrimack School District policy forbids students from using cell phones at school, according to Chiafery. However, the policy permits students to carry cell phones. That’s because students often need to talk with parents about when and where to pick them up or to coordinate schedules, Chiafery said. [Emphasis is mine].

Why have a policy that allows the carrying of something that you can’t use at the school? Because parents WANT their kids to have them so they can talk to them to coordinate schedules or arrange pickups. So the parents would scream as loud as the kids if they were banned outright.

Back when these parents were in school themselves, how did they manage to get through their school days, coordinate schedules and arrange pickups with their parents when they DIDN’T have cell phones? Right. They managed just fine by planning ahead, paying attention, and being responsible to be at the right place at the right time.

Somehow we’ve become dependent on cell phones, for no apparent good reason, and these technologies have become a major distraction and source of problems.

You might think that they are a convenience, but experts believe that by giving kids cell phones, it removes the need for them to learn valuable planning skills and to teach them how to responsibly be where they are supposed to be for a pickup. Kids today pay a lot less attention to what their parents are saying as they walk out the door, because they figure they can just call later and make arrangements.

Giving kids cell phones also interferes with kids learning how to be independent and problem solve on their own, when Mom and Dad are always a phone call away.

Most parents I know will tell me that they give their kids cell phones for “emergencies” and for “a little more security”. Look… you’re not doing your kids any favors. You’re giving your kids an easy way out of any problems they have by giving them a hotline-to-home to get problems solved vs learning how to solve their own problems on the fly. You’re giving them a mechanism for being distracted at school with text messaging and friends calling. You’re making the job of the educators that much more difficult since they have to deal with these problems instead of focusing on teaching your kids.

Remember: You got through school without a cell phone and without instant messaging. So your kids should do fine without them as well.

Chances are you’re going to give in to your kids requests and give them phones and computers anyways. In that case, be sure you’re got some way to limit them so they don’t get out of hand. Set clear rules and pay attention to their usage.

Source: The Telegraph Online (Nashua, NH)

Posted: February 6th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2