the social family
Slate’s Katie Roiphe talks to the controversial danah boyd about kids online
We all know there’s a lot of wild and crazy stuff on the internet, stuff that we don’t want our kids to see, but that’s no reason to hover over our kids’ shoulders as they go about their business online, says Microsoft researcher danah boyd. (Yes, it’s danah boyd, not Danah Boyd, and it looks awfully foreign, especially at the start of a sentence.)
Slate’s Katie Roiphe met with boyd and afterwards, decided she didn’t need to worry about what her 9-year-old was doing online. (When she snuck a peek anyway, her daughter was simply looking up Harry Potter characters.)
Roiphe writes: Read more...
the social family
New niche home design is flexible, intuitive and totally automatic
What do you look for in a solid family home? backyard? Good water pressure? A new generation of home builders are taking these necessities to the next level. Enter the smart home, where curtains are motorized, walls change colour on command and digital appliances let you know if the milk is low. Of course, you can control it all with your iPad.
A handful of niche developers in England are now offering these luxuries to a new era of families – hi tech, cutting edge, design-forward families. Modern designed townhouses and full-sized houses are aimed at young couples, starting at £535 000 ($853, 400 CAN).
Sure, homes all over the world are already well-equipped with automated garage doors and timed coffee machines, but the smart home is essentially a robot — it can sense and process data and act accordingly. Designers are capitalizing on this new human-aware intelligence (or ambient intelligence or ambient computing) with the goal of making home life not only maximally comfortable and secure, but also environmentally sustainable. Read more...
The Good Divorce
New apps may lead to more smiles in the court room and beyond
As web-based help becomes increasingly available for divorcing couples, judges are now officially turning parents to online sources to manage their families post divorce. Results have shown that couples taking their issues online has allowed them to tame the emotions that threaten their families and traumatize kids.
One woman from Maryland deemed co-parenting impossible when her high conflict relationship made her divorce impossibly complicated. Kelly Collis found relief with Our Family Wizard, a resource that offers shared custody calendars and visitation schedules, expense tracking, and messaging. The tool also helps parents can stay up to date on their kids health records, school info, and immunization histories with the information bank. It has an iPhone app so you can stay organized wherever you go. Read more...
the social family
Hasbro and Mattel jump on the app train
Recall the days when there was a staunch divide between classic toys and digital devices?
In a classic “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” quandary, major toy makers are now adapting many enduring childhood favourite games for the digital age. Mattel is introducing a line of games called Apptivity for their classic brands including Hot Wheels, Fisher Price and Barbie. Following suit, Hasbro has released zAPPed editions of The Game of Life and Scrabble.
In a recent article by The New York Times, Mattel senior vice president for marketing Chuck Scothon said, “We know kids are going to play with technology, with iPhones and iPads and Android devices, our job is not necessarily to avoid that, but if you can fix it, feature it.” Read more...
the social family
A question for the iPad and other tablet-owning families
A new Neilson survey finds that in tablet-owning households, 70 percent of kids get to play with the tablet device. Not only do the kids get to use it, parents are relying on the tablet to keeps the kids occupied when traveling or sitting in a restaurant. Here’s how tablet usage breaks down:
How does your family use your tablet (if you have one)? We sort of expected more communication usage, but we guess games really do dominate on our iPad too. That and hockey-related YouTube clips.
Photo by Paul Mayne via Flickr, chart via Neilson.
the social family
Here’s what you might have missed
Yesterday, we hosted a Social Media Week panel that was a bit of a continuation of last year’s Social Family discussion. Specifically, we were interested in talking about how within 12 short months, our families’ relationships with social media, especially on mobile platforms, has changed so drastically. We invited back our favourite parenting expert, Alyson Schafer and brought in innovative educator Royan Lee and a blogger from one of our favourite sites, GeekDad’s Brad Moon.
Here are some highlights, captured by our audience via Twitter:
@elanamatic: “Teaching kids about tech and social media is part of parenting today” @alysonschafer, which follows
@elanamatic “it’s important to create a safe environment for kids to share what is happening in their online life”
What if you’re not digitally savvy yourself? Alyson Schafer says tough! It’s just another thing we have to do with our kids now. Read more...
the social family
Knowing the power of social media to shape one’s image
A large majority of 11-year-olds, 86 percent of them actually, are using social media to build their personal brands, say the Ambition AXA Awards.
According to Simply Zesty,
“The concept of a personal brand is something that adults are just beginning to get their heads around, but for the younger generation it is clearly something that shapes their use of social media from the very start, as they become aware of the power of image-creation and how you can control social technologies to affect the way in which you are perceived.”
No kidding! So not only are kids using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to stay in touch with friends and family, they’re acutely aware of how they’re presenting themselves online. Read more...
