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.

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?

Taking the Wheel

I’ve recently become the chauffeur for my son and his group of friends, as they go to for a weekly gaming afternoon/hangout at one boy’s house. It’s clear that my role as the driver is to be invisible – they talk and goof around with each other in the car as if I’m not there, and if I do interject in their conversation, there’s a moment when they all freeze, confused as to where this voice from above came from, before ignoring it and carrying on. I’m there to hover on the outside, not to get involved.

The Summer Screen Challenge

In a house full of Lego, board games, basketballs and sidewalk chalk, it’s amazing how quickly boredom can set in. The magical screen seems to fix all – it’s like a siren song, constantly calling them, beckoning them with its flickering blue light.

The Medium is the Message

As a family, we’re watching a lot less advertising these days – at least, I thought we were. That’s because most of our family watching is on Netflix, which has no commercials, and the few shows we watch on regular TV are recorded in advance and ads are skipped over. I can easily go months without being aware of what new movies are coming up, which new developments have occurred in the world of toothpaste, and what new packaging strides Coke and Pepsi have made.

Tablet Parenting Fail

Well, it happened: we had a parenting fail when it comes to technology.

Digital Literacy training program for Canadian educators

By Katherine Lofts of Hands On Media
Content reposted from original article www.handsonmediaeducation.com

For young Canadians, digital literacy skills are vital to:

Diversity and Inclusion Online, Media Literacy Week 2017

Cyberbullying tweets from the President of the United States. Sexism in Silicon Valley. Fake news from social media feeds fuelling online hate.

It’s been a rough year so far on the digital media landscape.

Getting the Rules Right

When screens started being part of our daily lives – not just for work, but for entertainment, communication, and news – we parents had to do some serious thinking. What would the rules be? How would we govern these new devices? What were the best choices?