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Managing tech at home during the holidays

The holidays are a perfect time to cozy up as a family and watch festive movies and TV shows together. It’s also a time when kids are on the receiving end of a lot of marketing, and some kids will be given new tech devices as gifts.   We've compiled some of our best resources for managing tech at home during the holidays, from setting rules around digital devices, to teaching kids about consumerism, to engaging with your kids on the content you’re watching together.  

Managing Television in the Home

Television watching should be a fun and relaxing activity for kids and adults alike—but too often it's a source of family conflict. If you're concerned about television, banning it isn't a practical solution. Instead, you need to learn to co-exist with television by managing how much your kids watch, and what.

Managing Video Game Playing in the Home - Tip Sheet

Good-quality video games offer lots of benefits to children and teens.

MediaSmarts and CIRA release cyber security tip sheet for online commerce

MediaSmarts has partnered with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) to develop the Online Commerce Cyber Security Consumer Tip Sheet – the fourth in a series of tip sheets on cyber security issues.

Movies - The Concerns

In this section, we examine some concerns related to the movies kids enjoy and we offer tips for talking about problematic film content such as violence and gender and racial stereotyping.

My Connected Life

In today's day and age, social media is everywhere. If you own a smartphone or computer of any sort, odds are you have at least one social media account and checking it is a part of your everyday routine. In high school, you’re constantly surrounded by social media! Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, high school life nowadays revolves around these three entities. It’s a great way to connect with friends, make plans, help spread information if you’re in a school club or sport, and it can even help you meet new people. Although there are many great things social media can offer, there can be a couple downsides too.

New tips and resources on screen time for parents

Kids today are using screens more, earlier, and on a wider variety of devices than ever before, and more and more parents are seeking help in taking control of their children’s screen time.

New tool from Twitter for combatting trolls

One of the challenges of being a parent in a digital age is (a) keeping up with all the new tools and websites and social media channels our kids may or may not be using and (b) keeping track of new developments and updates within existing tools. Honestly, sometimes it feels like I’m trapped inside a 21st century hamster wheel!

New tools for Aboriginal youth for making good decisions about sharing online

Today, Facebook, MediaSmarts and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) released a series of newly translated guides for Aboriginal teens, which provide tips for sharing and making decisions online. The Think Before You Share guides were released in Winnipeg during the opening of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba.

News you can use

Online news is one of the hardest things to verify. Sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on the Internet, and people may spread false reports for commercial or malicious reasons, or even just for “fun.”