Making news this week is a recently-released Pew study that reports teen trends and attitudes on social media sites. The study, entitled "Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites," is a collection of interviews with 799 teens aged 12-17 and includes results from focus groups and phone surveys. Primary findings show that 95% of all teens access….read more

There are many different opinions out there about what schools' responsibilities are in educating students about topics related to social media and online citizenship. There has been criticism that schools don't adequately prepare kids for the ever-growing and evolving digital world, as well as stories about teachers themselves displaying inappropriate online behaviors in cases of oversharing….read more

A popular request I often get from parents is: "how do I talk to my kids about online safety?" When it comes to kids and teens navigating the web, inevitable mistakes will be made. Kids lack the impulse control for good judgment, meaning we have to be vigilant in our efforts to keep our children safe. Parents who get involved….read more

With a slew of new changes to Facebook announced in the past few weeks, there was bound to be some criticism, confusion and conflicting opinions about ways people are sharing online and what many of the new apps mean for users. Today we want to address a few interesting articles from GigaOM and Poynter.….read more

Is social networking making your kids less aware - or less affected by - inappropriate language and offensive slurs? According to a recently-released study from the Associated Press and MTV, most young people aren't offended by discriminatory slang used online, including racial slurs and sexist insults. It seems as though today's….read more

Following the tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi on September 22 (link to prior post), there has been an increased push to get schools to teach kids to be better citizens on the web - or "netizens" as it were.  As noted in yesterday's NPR article, researchers believe that schools have found themselves on the other side….read more