Posts Tagged "Technology"

The Journal of Adolescent Health reported this month that girls who play video games with parents had better mental health than girls who played them alone or with friends.   The study, entitled “Game On… Girls:  Associations Between Co-Playing Video Games and Adolescent Behavioral and Family Outcomes,” not only found that playing games with mom or dad helped girls feel more connected to their families, but that the same girls were better behaved overall.

“It’s tough for many parents to connect with their teenagers, who sometimes view the other as an alien life form.  Maybe bonding over video games, at least for teen girls, is the way to go,” wrote Rachel Silverman in The Wall Street Journal’s popular blog, “The Juggle.”  It’s the face-to-face interaction – the quality time spent on an activity that adolescents enjoy – that makes the experience so impactful, she said.

The study, which focused on children ages 11 to 16, found that the games needed to be age-appropriate to make an impact.  When games were too mature, the research showed that parents and daughters bonded less.  The reason: intense games interfered with conversation and interaction.

While the results sound logical enough, some parents may find comfort in having a scientific study back up their pricey e-game purchase.  (The study found that boys, surprisingly, did not show a measurable benefit when playing video games with parents.)    

Moms: do you play video games with your tweens and teens?  Will this study influence your decision to purchase certain types of video games?

Marketers: Do you make any games that would be perfect for moms and their daughters to play together?

As moms across the country know, iPads and smart phones have quickly become must-have toys for children, including toddlers.  Savvy companies are jumping on the trend by kid-branding many electronic devices that, until now, were formerly reserved for adult use only. 

“We know that kids love to mimic their parents, whether they are role playing with dolls or pretending to go off to work,” notes Reyne Rice, trend expert for the Toy Industry Association.  In recent months, she says, toy companies have released a host of great products that are essentially kid versions of adult tech toys.

Products such as USB drives and iPod docks now carry the familiar faces kids love.   The latest crop of tech toys for tots range from adorable Sesame Street Video USB Drives and Hello Kitty Mouse and Mouse Pad Sets to sturdy iPod docks from Barbie and Lego Digital Cameras.  Even Pottery Barn Kids has launched its own signature collection of electronics, including DVD players, headphones and earbuds.

So, what does this mean for our kids?  Is all this screen time really a good thing?  In a recent New York Times article on the need for parents and children to embrace unstructured playtime, Hillary Stout writes, “most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play.”   The writer argues for less structured time for children and calls for a return to the “culture of play.”

The February issue of Parents magazine points out that 2/3 of kids ages 4-7 have already used an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and observes that “Whether this is good or bad is a moot point now — the real challenge is figuring out how to help our children benefit from high-tech tools while still making sure they are playing and learning in the tried and true way.”

Like most things in life, I think, balance is the key.  Encouraging creative and imaginative play is important for kids.  But a little tech time can be a good thing too, especially in this day and age.  To what degree do you let your kids play with tech toys?  How do you find a good balance between play time and screen time in your family?

We have several moms working in the office at Child’s Play Communications, and a recent post on the Wall Street Journal Digits blog generated a good chuckle around the water cooler last week.  The headline?  “Learning to Play Angry Birds before You Can Tie Your Shoes.”

As i-phones and i-pads have quickly become ubiquitous among urban families, it was just a matter of time before a study confirmed what most parents already knew – technology is shifting the way an entire generation of children learns.  The survey, released by AVG Technologies, found that while only 14% of kids ages 4 and 5 could tie their shoes, 21% could operate at least one smartphone app and 34% could open a Web browser.  And while 76% of the same children could play an online computer game, only 31% knew to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency.

And there is no sign that our appetite for apps is cooling.  According to a recent article in the Boston Globe entitled “Apps Push Parents’ Buttons,” the app market will continue to boom.  “There are already more than 300,000 apps…. The number of downloads is expected to hit 76.9 billion worldwide in 2014,” wrote Beth Teitell.  “Exact figures on apps for children are hard to come by, but specialists expect the children’s market to grow with the rest of the field.”

So how much is too much of a good thing?  We love kids’ apps for their entertainment value and, to some degree, their educational virtues. But when kids become more adept at playing Angry Birds than mastering key developmental milestones, some of us are left wondering if this shift is more alarming than amusing.

Companies that run kids’ Web sites know way too much about your kids, according to an article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. The publication reviewed 50 sites popular with U.S. teens and children and the 50 most popular U.S. sites, which are generally targeted to adults. As a group, according to the article, the kids/teens’ sites placed 4,123 “cookies,” “beacons” and other types of tracking technology — 30% more than the control sites. One youth-focused site alone installed nearly 250 tracking tools.

Collection companies use this technology to identify where people go online, then build a profile of those consumers, which they sell — legally — to companies. The information is NOT sold with a name attached, but can include age, hobbies, shopping habits and general location, such as what city they are in. 

These companies point out that they don’t collect “personally identifiable” information such as names and email addresses and that the information is used primarily to deliver targeted ads. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (Coppa) requires sites aimed at children under 13 to obtain parental permission “before collecting, using or disclosing a child’s personal information, such as name, home or email address, and phone and Social Security number.” Coppa is the only federal law that limits data collection about children.  To avoid having to comply with Coppa, some sites state that they prohibit kids under 13 from visiting. In reality, children can easily circumvent that restriction by fibbing about their age. The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Coppa and considering whether to broaden the definition of ”personal information” to include data “collected in connection with online behavioral advertising.”

For more — including the names of Web sites that do the most tracking — visit the  WSJ article here. 

Marketers, if the FTC makes the proposed changes, how will it impact you?

Moms, does this tracking concern you? Do you feel it’s not a real issue, as the information, according to these companies, remains anonymous? Or  do you find it — as one mom in the article commented — “creepy”?  What are your thoughts?

According to a just released survey by The Family Dish,  “81% of American families spend either more or the same amount of time using technology than with their mother.” The survey also found that nearly 1/3 (32%) of moms join their family when they spend time with technology, including downloading information from the internet.

The Family Dish is a program created by Unilever to inspire mom to increase quality time with her family by getting them into the kitchen cooking together.

Moms, does your family spend more time interacting with their computers, mobile devices, et al than with you? How do you feel about that — is it the way things should be  today, or would you rather wind back just a bit to “olden days” when kids and parents spent more time with each other? What do you do to share tech time with your kids–or to get them more invovled in other family activities?