If you’re sitting in a chair for most of your day, doing your job, you might want to take notice: Just How Dangerous Is Sitting All Day?
Sitting down for extended periods makes you 53% more likely to have a heart attack, according to a study in a medical journal.
Parents with desk jobs are sitting all day long. That’s not good. Kids have to go to school, move between classes, walk from the bus to home and they’re more likely to be moving around and having varied activities. How many office-working adults are on a sports team.
Of course, kids have their summer vacations. Maybe they prefer to stay indoors where the A/C is on and sit for eight hours with only their thumbs moving as they play with a half-dozen friends on some Xbox Live game.
Even adults can make use of ComputerTime to make them get up, stretch, walk around, by setting session limits with mandatory five-minute breaks. The other alternatives are stand-up desks
. You’ll burn more calories if you’re standing and moving around a little while you’re working. You don’t have to worry about an expensive ergonomic chair. It’s apparently better for your back, and you probably have less of a risk of throwing a clot from your butt to your brain, resulting in a stroke.
If you use a stand up desk, tell us how you like it by leaving a comment below.
Do you think stand up desks might be good for your kids too? Do you think they might be less comfortable about spending too much time on the computer if you made them stand while being on the computer?
Maybe the treadmill computer desk is the way to go.
by mark on January 28, 2011
Are your kids getting enough the life skills that they need?
While I guess it’s great that kids are so tech-savvy, the study points out that they may not be getting the “life skills” they need in other areas of their lives. In an interview, AVG’s Tony Anscombe said “Because we (adults) are so connected, maybe what we don’t understand is what we’re actually doing is connecting our children the same way, and it’s becoming normal for them and maybe we’re ignoring some of those life skills as well.”
Anscombe added, “as parents there is a digital responsibility to be had. We need to look at making sure that we give our children a balanced life and a mix of both life skills and technical skills.“
Source: cnet: Safe and Secure
by mark on November 3, 2010
As long as you don’t mind a website that looks like it was developed by 9-year-olds, then go for it.
Kids have an amazing capacity to learn whatever they put their mind to it. While they don’t have all of the discipline and experience to do what a professional website designer can put together, they can certainly create something that works for an auto-salvage lot. Nice work boys. I read about this in this story in the NY Times.
I really like the idea of kids at this age getting on a computer and actually learning valuable skills.
It’s also the rare case that kids get on computers and actually learn productive skills like these boys did.
As a parent, I’m going to overlook a bit of excessive computer time if the kids are actually learning something. But it’s time to pull the plug (or let ComputerTime push them off) when all they’re doing is social networking and aimless browsing.
How many of you think that your kids are actually learning valuable skills when they’re on their computers? Maybe I ask that question a different way… Given the amount of time that they are on their computers, do you think they are learning enough valuable skills to justify the amount of time they spend on their computers?
(Header image by Deryck Hodge.)
by mark on May 13, 2010
Imam worries about effect of PC games on children.
An imam here expressed concern over the impact of computer games on children, saying the portrayal of gods as well as heaven and hell in these games could potentially confuse them about the concept of the hereafter.
Chief Imam of the Usamah bin Zahid Mosque in Wangsa Maju, Ustaz Murshidi Abdul Hamid, said although these were merely games, if left unchecked, it could negatively impact the minds of the young people.
…
“Parents should prohibit their children from playing certain games if they contain elements which are against or derogatory to Islam,” he told Bernama.
While the rest of us are concerned about excessive gaming and it’s affects on our children, Imam Hamid is apparently mainly concerned about offense to Islam.
Meanwhile, a lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Communications and Media Studies Faculty, Ishak Abdul Hamid [A different "Abdul Hamid" than the Imam mentioned above], said exposure to negative elements in computer games could also affect the children’s psychological development.
“They become obsessed with playing computer games to the point of neglecting their studies,” he said.
Good thing they are taking these steps, because we wouldn’t want Muslim kids being exposed to anything that would affect their psychological development in a negative way!
by mark on March 23, 2010
Attempting to buy children’s affection with TVs and computer games… not a good idea.
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said increasing numbers of children failed to respect authority or consider the needs of other pupils after leading “isolated lives” at home.
…
“Often it’s the well-off middle classes that buy off their children through the computer and the TV,” she said. “That then isolates them within the home, and then they’re surprised when their child isn’t coming to school ready to learn.”
Last year, Dr Bousted raised concerns that families were leading separate lives under one roof instead of sitting down to dinner together, with youngsters spending hours watching TV alone in their rooms.
The Whole Story.
by mark on October 6, 2009
by mark on March 18, 2009
Computer Games are Good for Kids, Parents Say (Microsoft-commissioned survey of parents). Commenter “WinTard” says,
I would agree. My kid has been playing with computers since age 1, starting with Mother Goose. It allows them to familiarize themselves with a critical tool that will be necessary for their future success in the 3rd millennium and 21st century. And it develops an interest and passion for something worthwhile.
The major source of calamity in our society is people plodding through life without direction or objectives. And idle, bored minds turn to nasty things…
How did our civilization ever prosper in the days before computers?
Why do so many parents get this so wrong? Idle, bored minds eventually turn toward imagination and creativity. Parents need to read Richard Louv and Jane Healy.
There is plenty of time for kids to acquaint themselves with technology. They don’t need a mouse shoved into their hands at one year or even five. Jane Healy, who has studied kids and computers thinks age 7 is a good time to introduce kids to computers. Young kids should be exploring the real world with all of their senses. They really don’t need the distraction of computers.
When did your kids start using computers? Do you think what they have learned will be a major factor in their success in life?
by mark on December 29, 2008
Minister: Wii the best boost for children’s intelligence. Really?
OK, not really. But that’s what the headline says. In the lead sentence in the article, it’s clarified a bit: “CHILDREN who play computer games will do better at school than those who just sit and watch television.“.
In other news, caterpillars are more nutritious and kids prefer eating them over eating rabbit poo.
This minister claims that he has “witnessed progress” in his three-year old and he attributes it to using the computer. I wonder how this kid compares to the three-year-olds who are reading books with their parents and spending a lot more time outdoors exploring the real world.
Speaking of reading books, this MP should read FAILURE TO CONNECT: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds — and What We Can Do About It
and Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
.
One commenter replies: “How about the children who play board games, who read and who go outside and play? Oh of course we don’t have any children like that anymore in Britain.” They sure to seem like a species nearing extinction sometimes, don’t they.
