National Program Helps Parents Understand and Engage in Their Kids' Online Activities

Ottawa, November 23, 2006 – Media Awareness Network and the Canadian Home and School Federation today announced a partnership to present a national school-based Internet literacy and safety program designed to help parents deal with their children’s online activities. The program, Parenting the Net Generation, addresses issues that arise when young people go online and provides tools and solutions to help parents positively manage Internet use in the home.

Online peer intervention

One of the biggest changes in our understanding of bullying over the past few years has been our increased awareness of the important role that witnesses, or bystanders, play in any bullying situation. Research on offline bullying has shown that witnesses can be just as important as targets or perpetrators in determining how a bullying scenario plays out. This is especially relevant in the case of electronic bullying, where witnesses have many more choices in how they might engage: they can choose to be invisible, to join in anonymously, to re-victimize someone by forwarding bullying material – or they can choose to intervene, to offer support to the person being targeted and to bear witness to what they have seen

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.

Young Canadians Speak Out: A Qualitative Research Report on Privacy and Consent

Informed Youth Promote Clarity for All

It’s something we’ve all done before: scrolled past a wall of text to click “I Agree” with no idea what we’ve agreed to. Then, when we’re using the platform, messages like “We’ve made some changes to our Terms and Conditions” simply remind us that we probably didn’t read them in the first place. Our world is becoming more and more influenced by the data that’s being collected about us. For young people in particular, this can lead to serious and unexpected consequences that could affect their entire lives.

Outcome Chart - Ontario - Health and Physical Education Grade 7

This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Ontario Grade 7 Health and Physical Education curriculum with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Excessive media consumption may lead to sedentary lifestyle and risky sexual behaviour

Doctors urged to educate parents and children about healthy media habits 

CALGARY (June 19, 2003) - Media today play a powerful role in the lives of young Canadians. And health care professionals now know that in addition to positive implications, media consumption may also be linked to health issues such as sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, obesity, poor body image and low self-esteem, and even risky sexual behaviour.

The house hippo returns to tackle AI this Media Literacy Week

October 21, 2024 –  MediaSmarts has brought back the house hippo – this time to address the rise of AI-generated deepfakes and to encourage everyone to check the information they see online before they share it.

The Trickle: What to do when your teen is constantly checking their phone

Our older teens, aged 17 and 15, have smartphones. They aren’t big users of social media, but they do get messages from friends fairly often on Instagram, Hangouts and Discord.

Bonding over video games

We’ve been using video games to bond with our kids for a while now. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?