Social Media, Social Lives Teen Study from Commonsense Media

Some very interesting studies on Internet usage have hit the Interwebs in recent weeks.  Chekka looka these nuggets to become informed about the social media usage of today's teens. For those of you (including me) who are still a safe distance from the teen years, take a good, long look at your sweet child, then take a deep breath and a mental snapshot.  You might also want to steer clear of high schools and shopping malls for awhile.  Now, on to the study.....

The non-profit organization Commonsense Media used a nationally representative, probability-based sample of 13- to 17-year-olds to create the report:

Commonsense Media: Social Media, Social Lives: How Teens View Their Digital Lives

The report illustrated just how much social media is woven into the daily lives of most teens:

• Three out of four (75%) teenagers currently have a profile on a social networking site, and one in five (22%) has a current Twitter account.
• 68% of teens surveyed text a least once a day, half (51%) visit social networking sites daily, and 11% send or receive tweets at least once a day. 
• More than a third (34%) of teens visit their main social networking site several times a day.

While the term "addiction" was not defined in the questions, 41% of cell phone-owning teens answered "yes" when asked whether they would describe themselves as "addicted" to their phones.

The apple does not fall far from the tree in media usage as 28% of those whose parents have a mobile device say they consider their parents "addicted" to their gadgets, and 21% of all teens say they wish their parents spent less time with their cell phones and other devices.  This same sentiment was well illustrated in the 2011 book Alone Together written by MIT psychologist Sherri Turkle.

On a positive note, the study also reveals teens reported various personal impacts from social media including making them feel less shy (29%), more outgoing (28%); more confident (20%), more popular (19%), and more sympathetic to others (19%). Fifteen percent say it makes them feel better about themselves.

The study contains good news for parents eager to maintain communications with their teen as more than a third (37%) say social media use has mainly helped their relationships with family members.

While social media is not going anywhere, some teens long for a break:

• Forty-three percent of teens agree strongly or somewhat that they sometimes wish they could "unplug" 
• More than a third agree at least "somewhat" that they sometimes wish they could go back to a time when there was no Facebook.

While I have no idea where all of this is headed, at least I won't be completely surprised in a few years. Then again, all of social media is only a few years old today, isn't it?

Click here to view a larger version of colorful Infographic from Commonsense Media:  

Will Handwriting Go the Way of The Dodo?

In this age of rapid change, I often ponder which skills and character traits will be most needed for my kids in the future. Some are timeless: honesty, personal responsibility, a sense of humor, math facts, integrity, good manners, empathy, good hygiene and a strong work ethic. 

Some would argue the need for "math facts" in this calculator-in-your-pocket era, but I'm holding out on that one. Being quick with numbers is useful worldwide for use in large negotiations and simple market transactions and that is not going to change. I mean who whips out their phone to calculate tip in a taxi cab or restaurant?

New necessities: a global mindset and experience, patience, flexibility, entrepreneurship, and the ability to think fast and write well.

Skills I'll probably never use again: push-reel lawn mowing, paper map navigation, winding up a car window, and perusing the Encyclopedia Britannica which - by the way - announced in March it will cease printing after 244 years!

One life skill I've never questioned, is handwriting. Yet, my son's third grade teacher doesn't think kids will use handwriting in "about ten years". Not just cursive, which has its own debate, but good old fashioned pen and paper, love letter, Declaration of Independence signing handwriting. Gone before they get to college. Rendered obsolete by the prevalence of touchscreen keypad, fingerprint readers, and Siri's future grandchildren.

An interesting article debating the demise of cursive explains that handwriting has not actually been around that long and its demise has been predicted before. The article mentions that an observer in 1955 in the Saturday Evening Post complained somewhat hilariously:

“Nowadays people compose all their letters on a typewriter, or dictate them to a tape recorder, or sign them with a rubber stamp, and, as a result, the muscles of the thumb and forefinger which were formerly employed to grip a pen have fallen largely into disuse, except for picking olives out of Martinis or occasionally pinching stenographers in crowded elevators.”  

How very Mad Men!

Still it surprised me to hear that my son's third grade teacher believes the demise of handwriting is truly near. This is not some naive, newfangled teacher, too. She is a 20-year veteran of teaching. Her children are grown. Working in the heart of Silicon Valley, her classroom has the benefit of smart boards and document cameras which she uses wisely. Yet she is pretty down to earth. I'm sure she gardens and reads books made of paper. She commutes a decent distance to school on foot. In other words, she has her feet firmly on the ground so I cannot dismiss her prediction as crazy.

We both agree and have accepted that - like it or not - technology is a part of these kids' lives. She has taken that additional step by confidently believing that handwriting will soon go the way of the DoDo. Despite my son's messy penmanship, I'm still not ready to go there. Are you?

Is Madonna Really Lady Gaga's Grandma?

Uh no. But my nine-year old son did think that for a short bit after tonight's Super Bowl. The conversation was brief:

Son: Who is that?

Me: Madonna

Son: Who is she?

Me: Lady Gaga's Grandma

As my husband nearly spat out his beer, I congratulated myself on providing an explanation far more succinct than the one I fumbled a few nights earlier when the same son asked about the meaning of the song "Moves Like Jagger." "Um, er, ever hear of the Rolling Stones? Jumpin' Jack Flash? Hon, we've got some work to do". 

Bathed in the culture and trivia of Star Wars and Harry Potter, my kids are pretty clueless about pop culture and music icons in general. I have no qualms about shielding them from the WB or Hanna Montana and take little offense to the popular position of being anti-Justin Bieber on the playground.

That being said, we've neglected to give our kids much exposure to the truly innovative REAL cultural icons that inspired and influence those they hear now. My nine-year old moon-walked (accidentally) the other night in the kitchen and my husband and I struggled to explain the original and insanely talented Michael Jackson...remember before all that other stuff? Our son took off to play before we could pull up a YouTube video – which would have hardly done justice to MJ’s talent and impact on music and dance today.

Thanks to Pandora, we listen to plenty of music around the house, but it trends toward alternative and English folky (or whatever you call Mumford & Sons and David Gray, etc) or a bit of grunge when we're feeling homesick for Seattle. Notable female singers like Sarah MacLachlan, Florence and the Machine, and Annie Lennox waft through the house on my "me" days, but most of this goes right through their heads.

The accidental moonwalk and Madonna’s pretty-darn-impressive-for-a-53-year old Super Bowl performance have inspired me to seek out, and share with the kids, a few icons of their parent’s generation. Who needs (or can afford) Lego camp? Maybe it's time for rock-n-roll roots camp this summer. We can start with Madonna and Michael, and then move on to all that classic rock of the 60s and 70s I grew up listening to on 92.3 KGON in Portland. That’s right, KGON <Still> Rocks 24/7 by the way, if you ever need a fix. Why stop there? We’ll keep working back through the Beatles, Elvis, the Supremes and the whole Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame collection of musical roots. Good god, we’ve got our work cut out.

Madonna may not be Lady Gaga’s grandmother, without her breakthrough influence, there would be no House of Gaga. Most of the other clowns on MTV -- or whatever music video channel kids watch today -- would be nobodies without the influence of people old enough to be their grandparents: So here’s to a few favs: Mick, Ron, Charlie, Keith (Richards and Moon), Roger (Waters and Daltrey), Pete, Jim and so on – It’s time to start Talkin 'Bout My Generation!

Coming to Terms with the Lego Marketing Juggernaut

The new Lego magazine came this week. The arrival of this bimonthly marketing publication reminds me I've had "cancel Lego magazine" on my To-do list for a good long time. I haven't had the heart, so I must not be the "mean mom" my kids sometimes refer to....not yet anyway.

Lego -- which is Danish for "play well" -- was started in 1932 by a Danish carpenter. Today, Legos are sold in 130 countries.  Not long ago, Lego was losing money and an acquisition target.  Since then, it has engineered an amazing turnaround, in large part by churning out licensed Lego versions of popular brands: Star Wars, Harry Potter, and an ill-fated Prince of Persia (remember the buffed up Jake Gyllenhall mini-figure?). The company that means play well, has learned to market well.  

New products today are released with drumbeat timing supported by interactive content on Lego.com, board games, video games, "visual" encyclopedias, and comic book-like magazine inserts sent to children worldwide.  It's a veritable marketing powerhouse.    

In the current issue we learn that DC Comics characters are the next new thing. Batman & Robin. Superman. The Joker. Wonder Woman.  In Lego form, coming to a plastic Gotham near you. Draining piggy banks in households everywhere!  

It is great fun to see my sons' eyes light up when they spot the new magazine peeking out from the mailbox. It occupies them for days and fills their conversations. The magazine arrival borders on a community event in some circles. Kids exuberantly run up to their equally-excited friends to rejoice in the latest Hero Factory 3.0 characters....which are apparently much better than the 2.0 guys, although no child can clearly articulate why. The buzz resembles that of an i-phone release among adults, except it happens every two months, and these are five to nine year olds.  

The magazine's arrival has the power to alter the mood in our house from "play well" toward, "I want that!".  That can get me down. We have a LOT of Legos, yet a new magazine causes my sons to forget the sets and characters they once pined for and received as gifts, earned, or bought with their own money. Whatever Lego decides to feature in the next issue, that is what the kids covet most.  

On the heels of a Christmas holiday filled with moderate, yet perfectly happy, gift giving and receiving, I've started to fight back against the juggernaut. I want my kids to be conscientious consumers and be thankful for what they have. I am responsible for teaching them to be wise to marketing tricks disguised as entertainment.

Let's face it. You can't beat Lego. If I cancel the magazine, the neighbor boys or schoolmates would bring it over. So why not join my “foe” by developing some sneaky messaging of my own? For example:

"Tell me, how exactly is Von Nebula 3.0 sooo much better than 2.0? Is that worth your $12?"

"Did you know the Lego company earned $3.5 billion kroner last year? Some of that money was your allowance!" For the currency exchange-challenged, that's US $670 million, but it sounds bigger in Danish money. 

"If you are no longer excited about Rocka, now that Rocka XL is here, I know plenty of other kids would love to have him".

While trying to teach my kids to question advertising, look for real value in upgrades, and spot savvy marketing, I also hope they internalize that happiness can come from being content with the toys you have, especially when you understand that many kids would love just some of that.

My sons may not be fully aware of my motives, yet my questions do give them pause.  They nod slowly, before starting back up about how the latest Furno Bike now has dual plasma blasters.  I smile. "Is that so?"  

I hope to be encouraging my children to "play well" and be more empathetic, while also becoming wise little consumers. It is a tall order, yet necessary.

Our kids will be the most marketed-to generation yet. They’ll need to be savvy to hold onto their hard-earned dollars as they maneuver the daily gauntlet of advertising and sneaky promotions. First we mastered skipping TV commercials. Now we must find a way to deal with new marketing avenues:  banner ads, social media, app pop-ups, and product catalogs cleverly disguised as comic books....courtesy of the marketing geniuses at the Lego Company.

Thank you Steve Jobs

You have changed our lives and those of our children in ways we have only begun to understand. 

Steve Jobs passed away the same day my son turned nine.  My kids can barely recall their life before the iPhone, iPad and downloadable apps.  The world Steve envisioned and created through Apple is so deeply woven into our lives.  So much that it provided the inspiration for this blog.

Our indoctrination into the i-generation occurred when we moved to Palo Alto, which lays claim as a sort of ground-zero for the creation of Apple. Many ideas came out of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  Steve was a local figure in town.  He grew up in nearby Mountain View. His kids went to our schools and his Halloween decorations are legendary, so his life and passing is being widely discussed in our paper.

Of course this is not just a Silicon Valley thing.  The homes of my friends elsewhere are filled with daily banter about earning "screen time" and the quality of latest apps so-and-so's dad downloaded.  
 
When we told the kids that Steve Jobs had died, my neighbor compared him to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.  That seems valid enough for the high tech population, but we will not know for years just how far reaching his global impact will be.  Apple products remain out of reach for much of the world's population.

My first computer experiences were on an Apple 2e in the university computer lab (yes, I am that old!).  Yet until five years ago, we were an all Microsoft house.  I worked there for a decade and even met my husband at Microsoft in Redmond, WA.

Christmas 2006 brought an iPod and Sounddock into our home.  Out went the 15-year old stereo and CD player.  When I left work and my company-issued laptop, in came the MacBook I'm using right now.  Enter the iPhone.  The iPad.  Now the kids' lives were enriched, too. 

When our Dell PC died last January, we barely noticed, so enchanted we were by the iPad.  Our music comes from Pandora or iTunes via iPhones and iPods.  The kids use MacBooks in the classroom.  Their teachers have iPads.  I have incredible respect for Bill Gates and many people who have worked at Microsoft over the years, but there is no denying the impact of Steve Jobs - or that we are fully drenched in the iKool-Aid of Silicon Valley.

Living here means your neighbors are typically into computers - as hobby and profession.  Ironically, the day of Jobs' passing was also the day our house was transformed into an all Apple household through the delivery of a used PowerMac G5 that will become our "family PC."

So the PC on our desktop now is a Mac.

My kids will use it for school and for fun.  The world envisioned by Steve is the world they will know.  It is the world in which they will grow.  It's an engaging, entertaining, educational and amazing world.  I'll forever cherish the joy on my 88-year old grandmother's face the first time she could see and speak with my kids - 3000 miles away - courtesy of Skype and the iPad2.  It was easy to set up and easy to do and it enriched our lives greatly.

I may often get frustrated with their screen-time obsession and chase my kids outside to play, but I truly do believe this world, this i-generation world, is a wonderful world to live in.

Thank you sincerely, Steve, for creating it.

Form Good Habits Now: Brush, Floss, Put Down the iPhone

 

If you want more support in favor of managing screen time while your children are young, check out a new study that finds more mental and physical health issues in teens who are frequent users of Facebook and other on-line media, including gaming and the Internet.

The results of the study, titled, “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids,” was unveiled last weekend by Dr. Larry D. Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills.  I found it in the predictably titled article: "Kids Who Use Facebook Do Worse in School."  Rosen's study highlights how we are just beginning to understand the psychological implications of ubiquitous use of social media among young people.

A worrisome paragraph in the article is:

"Teenagers and young adults who are persistently logged on to Facebook are more often to show psychological disorders, like mania, paranoia, aggressive tendencies , antisocial behavior and increased alcohol use. These teens also more often displayed narcissistic tendencies, which are fed by their ability to constantly broadcast information about themselves through Facebook."

While not too surprising to anyone who has been pondering the long-term social effects of this new on-line world in which we live, it is sobering.  And sad.  

His study observed that most kids - in this case middle school age up to college students - when asked to study a subject in which they are truly interested for just fifteen minutes were off-task within three minutes.  Despite knowing they were being observed, these kids could not resist letting their minds and hands wander to check for texts or Facebook posts.  Of course the research points out that kids who can resist the urge to multi-task do better in school.

I've been concerned for awhile about the addictive nature of iPad/iPhone apps on attention span and ability to focus in my kids - i-generation kids.  So concerned that I started this blog!  Even at ages six and eight, their perceived "need" to get to the next Ninjago level or check on their Smurfville crops increases exponentially with every occurrence of screen time - even less than 30 minutes a day.  How are they going to resist the urge later, when they are not limited by mom or dad?

For older kids, Rosen mentions the tactic of "tech breaks" as a solution: telling kids they can have one minute to check their media after fifteen minutes of uninterrupted study.  Apparently, the multi-tasking issue is pervasive enough among young people that Rosen is advocating for the use of "tech breaks" in schools.

For the younger ones, he talks about the importance of building good screen time habits now.  As the parent of children over which we still have some influence, my husband and I are taking this research to heart.  We are talking to our kids about their habits, distinguishing between real and virtual worlds, and re-doubling our efforts to engage them in off-line activities like playing games and making up stories.  While we still can.

We already know that the part of the human brain responsible for impulse control continues developing until well into the late teens and early 20s - especially for boys.  What remains unknown is the effect habitual usage of i-generation apps will have on brain development and higher brain functions, such as impulse control, especially when it begins in toddlerhood.  Who among us has not pacified our kids with an iPhone recently?  My i-generation kids will develop better patience, impulse control and persistence skills if I make sure they ample opportunities to flex them.

Dr. Rosen has been studying the effects of technology on people for more than 25 years.  In a telling quote at the end of his remarks he notes that his own children, ages 21 and 24 are constantly using technology and says: “I'm so happy I was able to raise them in an era when the worst thing was a bad video game.”

Going out on an alarmist limb here.....will unchecked on-line use be the i-generation's drug problem?  Will a future First Lady start a "Just Say No to Apps" campaign?

Clearly there is a wealth of richness and benefit we enjoy from the Internet and all this wonderful mobile technology.  I love my iPhone!  Our iPad has completely displaced our PC (sorry Microsoft)!

That said, from this day forward, our house is putting screen time management high on the list of good habits, right up there with brushing and flossing and cleaning up after yourself.  The time to form good self-care habits is now.  If you believe in the results of this study, managing screen time has become another form of self care.  A habit we can, and should, help our children form now, while we still have some degree of control over them.

Into the Wild

Last weekend we were fortunate to be invited on a multi-family camping trip in the California Redwoods.  My husband and I have done some camping - he more than I - but we hadn't yet done a full family campout, kids and all.  Cold water? Late night trips to the pit toilet? No electricity?  No problem. I was raised in Oregon after all. I like tall trees. I've slept on damp ground. I'm hardy.

Hardy or not, camping with kids is a ton of work!  They want cocoa with marshmallows. They want s’mores. They need changes of clothes and a good night’s sleep. The bulk of the pre-trip week was devoted to making and reviewing checklists and tossing various kitchen items, tools, and foodstuffs into a large tub. Trips to REI, Costco and OSH. Planning. Purchasing. Packing. Overpacking. My husband was in London all week and not set to return until Friday, after our planned departure time. Due to his being in charge of most loading and hauling, he is normally the voice of reason in the packing department. Well that voice was too far away for me to hear.  The car was stuffed.

On Friday afternoon, an hour before John was due to land back in the States, the kids and I were off.  Knowing their father would be tired from the flight, and wanting to flex my campworthiness, I crowned my boys temporary "man-of-the-house" and "second-in-command" thinking I could secure their help in setting up camp before dark. Ours were walk-in campsites which have the benefit of being away from cars and their non-woodsy noises, yet require you to haul e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g to the site.  Hardy.  From Oregon.

When we arrived, the kids carried down a sleeping bag or two, and then scampered off to join the ten other kids - ages 5 to 11 - in hollering and running all over the woods. In no time, they had built a fort with sticks and pine boughs in the base of a giant redwood tree. My younger son convinced me it was a former bear cave.

As the parents continued to haul gear and pitch tents, the kids broke into teams, started using pretend code names. Then they established jobs such as guarding the cave, procuring building materials, and gathering pine cones. When someone went over to the dark side and tried to invade the cave, it led to a "Lord of the Flies" situation where the "prisoner" was hauled into and detained in a hollowed out redwood tree trunk. When I passed by the scene, on load five or six from the car, they were guarding him with long sticks and wild eyes. He was in on the game, at least for the initial stages.

Day two brought a hike on which the kids forded streams on fallen logs and ran ahead of the parents only to ambush us with a ululating war cry reminiscent of Planet of the Apes. We all learned how to spot poison oak and stinging nettles, some a bit too late unfortunately. By afternoon, the arsenal of pine cones had become a currency with values assigned according to their uniqueness and quality. Cones were used to purchase various sizes of whittled sticks in a makeshift "store." Stick whittlers were on different pay scales and people took timed "breaks." Such inventiveness. And not an iPad in sight!

Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? Ten kids - eight boys and two girls - spending two days running freely, breathing fresh air, collecting pine cones, whittling sticks, creating a mini-civilization, comparing banana slugs, eating S'mores, and chucking various things into the fire-pit when parents weren't looking. They enjoyed each others company and flexed their imaginations while stoking campfire flames and telling each other about their latest dreams. No one asked for screen time.

Now that we are back - and still unpacking - I look forward to more camping trips and hope they result in just as much free-form fun and as many lasting memories. Not just for me, but for my kids. I also sincerely hope my kids - and their friends - have internalized how much more thrilling camping is than even the heartiest round of Angry Birds. They better. Hardy or not, camping with kids is a lot of work.

**This post first appeared over at Silicon Valley Mamas on June 3rd.  Come check 'em out.