What Influences Our Media Use?

MediaSmarts’ research shows that on average, Canadian youth spend 1-2 hours per day using digital devices each weekday (not counting time spent using them for schoolwork) and more than three hours per weekend day. Average weekday screen time, therefore, falls just within the range recommended by the Canadian Pediatric Society’s Digital Health Task Force, though weekend screen time does not. Other research has found that more than a third (37 percent) of Canadian youth exceeded screen time recommendations in 2023. There are often significant differences, though, between how much time we think we’re spending on media and how much time we actually spend.

Surveillance and algorithmic decision-making

Sociologist and surveillance scholar David Lyon defines surveillance as “any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered.”

Outcome Chart – Ontario – English: Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Voices – University Preparation Grade 11

Strand A. First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives and text forms in Canada 

Overall Expectations: 

A2. Deconstructing: demonstrate an understanding of how representations of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals, communities, and cultures in text forms created in Canada are influenced by perspectives related to or shaped by historical period, cultural background, and social and political conditions and events, including perspectives related to gender and the role of women; 

Book review: "This Gaming Life" by Jim Rossignol

The recently released Pew Report Teens, Video Games and Civicshas revived the question about whether video games can be a worthwhile activity. Another recent entry in this debate is Jim Rossignol's This Gaming Life, a survey of computer gaming culture and a chronicle of its role in the author's life.

Social Media in the Classroom

When I finished Grade 11 in June, I reflected on what I had learned in the past school year. I was taught how to solve quadratic equations, the origins of world religions and studied the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Oh and I know the legal requirements of marriage! But there was something I wasn't taught. Scrolling down my Twitter timeline, it hit me -- why was I never taught anything about social media?

Convergence, Collaboration & Media Literacy: A CBC Experience

This week, the Students whom I work with at Golf Road Junior Public School had an amazing opportunity directly related to our work together in studying Media Literacy, specific to Television and Film Media. After being approached by Media Smarts, I was connected with the CBC who wanted to engage with and film a class focused on Students’ perceptions and opinions on Violence within popular films.

Outcome Chart - Newfoundland and Labrador - Healthy Living 1200

Outcome Chart - Newfoundland and Labrador - Healthy Living 1200

Sexuality and Romantic Relationships in the Digital Age

There’s a long-standing relationship between sex and the Internet. As far as back the 1980s, Usenet and local bulletin board systems were used to share pornographic text files and crude (in both senses) graphics, and people have been using digital media to form and carry out online relationships at least as long. However, just as estimates of how much online traffic and content is made up of sexual material tend to be exaggerated[1], our new report – Sexuality and Romantic Relationships in the Digital Age – from MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wired World survey of 5,436 students, shows that for Canadian youth, sexuality and romantic relationships play a fairly small part of their online lives.

Fighting misinformation: Why pausing before you share really works!

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more clear than ever that dealing with the misinformation surrounding COVID-19 requires us to come at it from every possible angle. We have needed trusted voices to provide strong, clear and sharable counter-messaging on social media.

Science evolves! And so does (and should) health policy and the scientific consensus

Studies have shown that communicating the scientific consensus on a topic can be a helpful strategy in the fight against misinformation. For example, a 2015 study found that “emphasizing the medical consensus about (childhood) vaccine safety is likely to be an effective pro-vaccine message.”