Teens and their cell phones cannot be separated - even at the wheel it appears!

A new report released by Pew Research shows that teens text while driving. This is scary, especially considering we are talking about new drivers.

The report shows the results of a survey of 800 young people aged 12 to 17 years old. A third of the cell phone users who were 16 and 17 said they have texted while driving. One female teen reportedly said “everybody texts while they drive … like when I’m driving by mysefl I’ll call people or text them cause I get bored.”

In the Pew study, half of the 16 and 17 year-olds who own a cell say they have talked on it while driving. Of all the kids surveyed, 48 per cent reported they have been in a car where the driver was texting. Forty per cent say they have been in a car where a driver was using a phone “in a way that put everyone in danger.”

While some teens didn’t seem concerned about texting while driving, some did say they only did so at a red light or gave their phone to a friend to text while they drove.

Of course, it is concerning that anyone is texting while driving. A Vlingo survey shows that 26 per cent of mobile users (of all ages) say they have texted while behind the wheel.

Robin

Looking to protect your teen online? Check out a free, parental controls tool - PGsurfer

For a safe, commercial free place for young people on the web, take a look at SafeSurfer.org

If kids want to use their Xbox 360 to access the popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, they need parental permission.

This news comes out during a time when the Microsoft Corp. launched a lot of new features for its Xbox Live service. One of the features is that users can now update their Facebook and Twitter statuses directly from the console. This means that you can now tell your friends how you are doing on your games faster!

However, Microsoft says only Xbox Live gold level users over the age of 18 will be able to use this feature. However, younger gamers can use it if their folks will change the Xbox 360 privacy settings.

The Xbox’s rival, the Playstation 3, also allows access to Facebook. Before this, you could do status updates on the social media sites by using the console’s Internet Browser.

It seems that Xbox and Playstation are jumping on the social networking band wago in a bigger way to improve their market shares. The Wii still outsells both consoles.

Robin

Check out PGSurfer, a free, parental controls software program to guide your children online

For a safe place for kids online, take a look at SafeSurfer.org

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 caused people to line up in drove outside of electronics stores as it broke sales records recently. The violent, war video game sequel sold an estimated 5 million copies worldwide on its first day, according to the UK’s Daily Star. This broke the previous top sales mark set just last year by Grand Theft Auto IV, which sold 3.6 million copies on its first day.

It is does appear to be just your typical gamers who are buying this game. The Daily Star reported that Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas and other celebrities slipped their way into launch parties for the games. No word if Fergie or her husband, former Las Vegas and Transformers star Josh Duhamel, have played it!

However, in all seriousness, what does a parent do about this game? Anything? It carries a warning and age limit, but kids can get it if their parents or an older sibling or friend buy it.

One U.K. mom has this to say to Daily Mail about purchasing it for her 16-year-old son:

“I know the game is an 18 certificate but I was still happy to buy it for him. If I don’t but it he would probably just play it a friend’s house.”

As a war game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is, obviously, violent. The graphics are fantastic and can reportedly can really draw a player in. There also has been a great dealing of criticism about a particular scene where the player can choose to kill civilians to protect his or her “cover.”

So, as a parent, what do you do about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2:

1. Let them play it. They know that real world violence is wrong, but a video game is different.

2. Forbid them from buying it and playing it.

3. Talk to them war and its impact and the rights and wrongs of warfare … then let make the choice.

Robin

PGsurfer - a free parental controls tool to help guide young people online

SafeSurfer.org - a safe, child-friendly website for games and information

Google has given parents the ability to lock down the Safesearch feature of the Google search engine.

Safesearch has been around for a while, and provides an easy way to filter Google search results, and omit explicit websites and pictures. However, this was always an optional tool, and could simply be turned off.

The new feature allows parents to sign in with their Google account and lock the Safesearch settings in place. In order to be turned off, the parent will have to re-enter their password.

Parents can quickly confirm that Safesearch is activated by looking for the coloured balls in the top right of the screen. This indicates that locked Safesearch is active.

This is a great move by Google, but parents should be aware that there are many ways for children to come across explicit material, not just though Google searches. However, it is an excellent feature, and would go well with existing parental controls software.

We write often on this blog about online content and its potential impact on children. However, we rarely discuss the physical impact a computer can have on a child.

Between 1994 and 2006, injuries caused by computers that sent  people to the emergency room went up 732 percent. Yes, more people had computers in their homes in 2006, but computer ownership went up less than 370 percent. The info comes from 100 emergency rooms across the U.S.

It was children under the age of 5 who were the ones most often hurt due to tripping on cables, being hit by falling components or “getting caught on equipment.” The most common injuries were deep cuts, bumps and bruises.

Here are some tips to prevent computer injuries:

1. Put the computer against a wall and away from the high traffic areas

2. Push the computer or monitor back far enough on the desk that it is unlikely to fall over on someone

3. Make sure cables are safely out of reach

4. Anchor computer desks to the wall

Robin

PGsurfer - your free, trusted online tool for keeping kids safe

SafeSurfer.org - a great place for young people online

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.