MediaSmarts and Facebook Tackle False News in Canadian Initiative

MediaSmarts is partnering with Facebook Canada to help Canadians become better informed readers in the digital age. False online content isn't a new problem, and it's not unique to Facebook, but it is up to all of us to fight it. Many of us lack the search, authentication and critical thinking skills we need to find accurate information online and to recognize false or misleading content. That’s why MediaSmarts has partnered with Facebook to help build the authentication skills of all Canadians.

How Do Canadian Teens Make Decisions When Sharing Photos?

Building on MediaSmarts’ findings on youth and privacy from our Young Canadians in a Wired World research, our new qualitative study, To Share or Not to Share: How Teens Make Privacy Decisions about Photos on Social Media examines the reasoning that teens apply when sharing photos online.

To Share or Not to Share

How Teens Make Privacy Decisions about Photos on Social Media

Building on the privacy findings from our Young Canadians in a Wired World research, this qualitative study of youth ages 13 to 16 examines the reasoning that teens apply when deciding to share photos of themselves or other people electronically.

When it comes to posting photos on social media, teens are anything but spontaneous, new study shows

Ottawa (April 19, 2017) – A new study released today by the not-for-profit organization MediaSmarts and researchers from The eQuality Project shows how teens carefully compose, select, and edit the photos they share on social media to build and maintain a consciously crafted image. The report To Share or Not to Share: How teens make privacy decisions about photos on social media reveals how teens decide what photos to share online and the pressure they feel to always post images that show them in the best possible light – while not standing out from the crowd.

Kids to learn the importance of being inclusive online for Media Literacy Week 2017

OTTAWA – MediaSmarts, Canada’s leading centre for digital and media literacy, and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) today announced this year’s Media Literacy Week, to be held Nov. 6 to 10, will focus on diversity and inclusion online for children and teens.

Four tips for managing your kids’ screen time

Minimize screen use, especially for the youngest children:

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.

Doctors should counsel parents of young children on screen time

June 1, 2017 – As exposure to digital media in Canadian family life increases, so have concerns about how screen time affects children and families. A new statement from the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) recommends that physicians and health care providers counsel parents and caregivers of young children on how to minimize screen time and mitigate its potential negative effects. The CPS also recommends that physicians guide parents on how to mindfully use and model healthy screen use to encourage positive habits.

Welcome to the Jungle

Hi there! I’m Lynn Jatania, the new MediaSmarts Parent Blogger.

The internet is one wild and woolly place. It sometimes astonishes me how far we’ve come from our own childhood – days when we wrote programs in BASIC on our TI-99 and saved them on cassette tapes, and our modem made a cool whoo-eee sound while preparing to tie up our single phone line for the next three hours. We were a long way from the connectivity and social media sites that are second nature to our own children.

Family TV Time

Sometimes I wonder if watching TV is going the way of the dodo. Remember when we were kids, and there was concern about how watching TV was going to turn all of us into mindless zombies?