I grew up in a small town and the only FM radio station that we could pull in consistently played nothing but typical, Top 40 music. It was pretty safe stuff. We could watch slightly more adventurous fare on television, but with only one TV set our time was limited and being that it was in the centre of the house, almost everyone could hear.

Nowadays kids have much more access to music. Kids can fill up their iPods and MP3 players. Internet radio is growing and it is not going away. As well as online broadcasts of regular radio broadcasts, there are also web only stations. These “pure-play” stations recently struck a deal with SoundExchange, which represents the music industry, on an experimental deal that will reduce the royalties Internet stations would have had to pay and should keep them on the air.

The point is kids have a lot of options with music today. I remember as a teen my mom once erased a copy of an MC Hammer tape my brother had because of a song called She’s Soft and Wet. I also remember telling my brother not to play Nirvana’s Nermind because he thought it was so depressing. I certainly did not play at home the Ice Cube, Ice-T and Cypress Hill tapes I copied off friends.

How do you feel? Do you keep track of what your kids are listening to? Are you worried what influence the music they are listening to might have on them?

Robin

The Parents Television Council and others are concerned about Monday’s upcoming episode of Gossip Girl. In case you haven’t heard about it Gossip Girl is a CW teen soap currently in its third season of tackling some not-so teen issues.  The show stars Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, Leighton Meester, Taylor Momsen. Ed Westwick and Penn Badgley.

A promo for the show’s upcoming episode hints at a threesome. This has at least one parents group up in arms.

“Will you now be complicit in establishing a precedent and expectation that teenagers should engage in behaviors heretofore associated primarily with adult films?” Tim Winter told Us magazine.

With a racy promo like this, parents have the opportinuty to:

a) decide whether they think it is OK for their children to watch this

b) decide whether to speak to their children about this issue and, maybe, sex in general

If parents decide their kids should not be watching this Gossip Girl episode, then they not only have to guard the TV, but also the Internet as well. Episodes can be found online the next day, if not hours, after they are aired. As well, if there is any three-way action. someone will likely post it on YouTube or similar file sharing websites.

Robin

A recent BBC article reports that Danish students are being permitted to use the internet during exams. The pilot program is currently in place in 14 schools across Denmark, and may be rolled out to further schools in the coming years.

Students in their final year exams are provided with internet access and are allowed to search the internet, including Facebook, for answers to test questions. Students are faced with expulsion if they break the “no email” rule, but this is not strictly monitored.

The response so far has been largely positive, with proponents claiming that the internet is a huge part of daily life, and excluding it from school work and testing would be unrealistic. Personal integrity and fear of expulsion seems to have stopped widespread cheating.

An interesting point to consider is the age of these Danish students. Many of them are 18, with well-defined career goals and a commitment to learning. These students are mature, and receive the project honestly because they legitimately want to learn.

Were this program applied to younger students, students without career/education plans, and students who are just waiting out the clock, there would definitely be much more cheating.

What do you think? Should the internet be allowed in tests for high school seniors?

As you might have heard “the kids” have tabbed Ms. Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, as “The Worst Celebritry Influence of 2009.” I think the poll, conducted by the youth-oriented website JYSK.com (Just So You Know, part of AOL and aimed at the 9 to 15-year-old set), actually shows the influence of the Internet.

Miley topped the poll for being involved in such attention-grabbing news stories as having revealing photos on the Intenet, making “slanty eye” photos with friends that surfaced online, quitting Twitter, posing with a sheet in Vanity Fair,  and a controversial pseudo-pole dancing routine during a performance at the Teen Choice Awards.  So, you say the last two are not Internet related? Vanity Fair’s website was bombarded by hits after news of Miley’s photos broke. As well, her performance at the Teen Choice Awards was watched plenty of times on YouTube.

I also think that in today’s world, kids are more in tune with what their heroes and role models are doing because of the Internet. For example, everyone knows that Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle were not the “All-American” boys in every way, but fans heard less about the negative parts of their lives in their hey days.

Following Cyrus on the list were Britney Spears and Kayne West. For her high standards of headline-grabbing behaviour, Britney was actually pretty well-behaved in 2009. Meanwhile Kayne West, the superstar rapper and producer, earned the rage of teens when he upstaged Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) by saying Beyonce should have won instead. High School Musical movie seris star Vanessa Hudgens was fourth in the JYSK poll.

The website also asked young people who were good influences. The top rated on this list ironically included some of Cyrus’ fellow  Disney franchise queens and her friends. Wizards of Waverly Place star Selena Gomez was the winner, followed by Swift, Nick Jonas of the tween fave Jonas Brothers band, Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and singer Justin Bieber.

Robin

PGsurfer - a free parental controls tool for helping kids online

SafeSurfer.org - a great website for kids and parents

Today I came across an online editorial from a Wiconsin newspaper. The Wausau Daily Herald touched on a recent online safety presentation made in that community. The editorial made several good points about keeping kids safe online and the current Internet environment today. You can read it at the Daily Heard’s website.

To me, the best part of the editorial came in its last couple of paragraphs. That is where it repeated the three main guidelines for being safe online as provided by Kristine Midthun of the CyberTipline for the Justice Department’s Division of Criminal Investigation:

1. If kids feel scared or uncomfortable online, they should tell an adult.

2. Children never should give out personal information.

2. They should never meet anyone off-line whom they haven’t met in person before.

As pointed out in the editorial, those rules are not so different from what our parents and probably their parents said years ago. In conclusion, the editorial states:

“But it’s worth remembering that, even though children might be using their computers at home, when they’re using the Internet they are also, in a sense, out in the world.”

Robin

For a great tool in helping your children navigate the Internet waves, please check out PGsurfer.

To learn more about online safety - and a great place for kids online - go to SafeSurfer.org.

The holiday season is just around the bend and many people will be heading online in search of a bargain. Whether it is parents or kids, you have to be carefully about what you are buying online. Perhaps the biggest example, which is in the news now, are the stories about buying H1N1 drugs online.

The U.S.’s Food and Drug Administration is warning people seeking to protect their families that drugs sold online could be contaminated and might include unknown ingredients. In a recent report, the FDA states it ordered drugs online. They arrived, according to the report, in an unmarked envelope from India, and included white tablets taped between pieces of paper. The pills did not contain ingredients that are in the FDA-approved drugs, but included talc and acetaminophen.

Currently the only FDA-approved anti-viral drugs for the virus (which has been called swine flu) are Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir).

Robin

PGSsurfer - an innovative tool for helping your children safely navigate the waves of the Internet

SafeSurfer.org - a safe place for children to visit online and a great resource about safe surfing for parents

Is there a correlation between Internet use and weight?

A new survey from the Journal of Medicial Internet Research states that Australians using the computer and the Internet for more than 5 hours a week were 1.5 times more likely to be overweight and 2.5 times more likely to be obese than people who didn’t use the computer at all. The people using the computer the most were 2.5 times more likely to do more than five hours a day of other sedentary activities.

So, what does this all mean? That’s the big question.

“Is it that you become overweight because you use the Internet a lot, or is it that overweight people simply use the Internet more?” asked Corneel Vandelanotte, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Health and Social Science Research at Central Queensland University.

Robin

PGsurfer - Give this free parental controls software a try

SafeSurfer.org - A safe place for kids online

Last week Facebook shut down a bunch of fake profiles because they were part of a large malware attack. Each contained a link to what was supposed to be a video but was actually a scam for a phony anti-spyware program. It would show a fake virus alert. This scam was used by its authors to sell software that is not needed (and probably doesn’t work!), steal credit card numbers and even download spyware onto a user’s computer.

This scam is not overly new. The part that struck and concerned me is that in the news story I read, one of the experts suggests that the cyber criminals have mass-produced the Facebook profiles and, perhaps, have cracked the Captcha. Captcha is that hard to read text that is used to help secure a variety of websites so that it is humans and not computer drones accessing them.

This is concerning as if it is true it means more and more cyber criminals could be running rampant online, especially in social networking communities. As this where a number of young people go online it is of a great concern.

Robin

PGsurfer - a free, customizable tool for guiding your children’s activities online

SafeSurfer.org - an innovative safe place for kids on the net

Do you Tweet?

ParetoLogic is active on Twitter, and we can be found @ParetoLogic

We do more than tweet, we also check out breaking news and trends in the Twitter world, and follow a variety of Tweeters. Here are a handful of great people to follow on Twitter for news and tips on child safety.

@nocyberbullies

As the name implies, Stop Cyberbullying tweets about bullying, cyberbullying and other facets of child safety.

@wiredmom

Wiredmom tweets about online safety for kids. At over 12,000 followers, Wiredmom is one of the most popular child safety Twitter accounts.

@parryaftab

Parry Aftab is one of the most active and prevalent child safety and privacy advocates. Much more can be seen at http://parryaftab.blogspot.com/

@WebWiseKids

Their bio says it all: empowering today’s youth to make wise choices online

There are many more valuable posters on Twitter, but these four should help you get started Tweeting about child safety online.

Growing up in the 1980s I fondly remember watching cartoons Saturday mornings. When I was young, my parents often watched with myself and my brother. This is a tradition I now repeat with my two children.

One thing I have noticed - other than the absence of G.I. Joe and the Smurfs - is how tied into the web the broadcasters of children’s shows are now. PBS frequently promotes its http://pbskids.org/ site during its slate of shows that include Barney (which I try to stay away from!), Martha Speaks, Clifford and Curious George. Meanwhile Canadian broadcaster CBC has jumped into the online world in a big way. They have http://www.cbc.ca/kids/ and a special preschool section (http://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc/). They have also launched a subscription-based service (www.KidsCBCWonderWorld.ca) which features learning activities to help prepare children for school using characters from such CBC shows as Animal Mechanicals and Super Why. As well, CBC has launched a parents’ portal (www.cbc.ca/parents).

As I sit there watching with my children (who are both under six), I did have to wonder why there was a lot geared to young children? Are these kids even online?

Well, it might take a while but I might get my answer! On the CBC parents portal, one of their forums asks “Is your preschooler online and if so where do they ask to go? Does your preschooler spent time online? If yes, what does he or she like to do? If no, why not?”

So far only one person has given their opinion. They indicated their preschooler is online and visits the kids sites of CBC and the BBC. They also said their youngster tries to go to the sites an older sibling frequents but becomes frustrated with them.

Maybe CBC is on to something. Perhaps there is a void here and they are trying to fill it. What do you think?

Robin

PGsurfer - a great, free tool to keep your kids safe online

SafeSurfer.org - a fun, safe site for young people