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Feb. 5, 2008: A new research study reported in ScienceDaily.com has found that, despite what parents might believe, there is an enormous gap between what they think their children are doing online and what is really happening. In her study, Prof. Dafna Lemish from the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University surveyed parents and their children about the children's activities on the Internet. "The data tell us that parents don't know what their kids are doing," says Prof. Lemish. Her study was unique in that parents and children from the same family were surveyed.
Prof. Lemish surveyed over 500 Jewish and Arab children from a variety of ages and socio-economic backgrounds, asking them if they gave out personal information online. Seventy-three percent said that they do. The parents of the same children believed that only 4 percent of their children did so.
The same children were also asked if they had made face-to-face contact with strangers that they had met online. Thirty-six percent from the high school group admitted to meeting with a stranger they had met online. Nearly 40% of these children admitted to speaking with strangers regularly (within the past week).
Fewer than 9 percent of the parents knew that their children had been meeting with strangers, engaging in what could be viewed as very risky behavior. Prof. Lemish suspects that this gap is wider in the U.S., where children from middle-class backgrounds have more opportunity to surf online privately.
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: Do you think these results from Israel are similar to what researchers would find in the U.S.? Do you do things online that you don't tell your parents about? Do they ever ask? Do you wish they would, or think they should? Why or why not? Have you ever met someone in person whom you had first met online? Did you parents know? What are some of the real-life things that have happened to young people who met with a stranger they first contacted online, and do you think you would be at risk of something similar happening to you? If not, why not?

Dec. 12, 2007: Children's video gaming habits are causing friction in many families, according to the 12th Annual MediaWise(R) Video Game Report Card issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family. The report card revealed that parents and their children, especially those 8-12 years old, have repeated arguments over when and how much time kids can play video games. The poll also showed that of the kids who play video games, one in five reported that their parents never play any of the games with them. This may be one of the causes contributing to the fact that almost half (49%) of young players (8-12 years old) and most young teens (78%) admit to playing M-rated (Mature) video games. This year, kids successfully purchased M-rated games almost 50 percent of the time they tried to buy them.
        Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: Do you argue with your parents about the video games you play? If so, are the arguments about the content of the games, the time you spend playing them, or what? Have you been able to buy games with Mature ratings? Do your parents monitor the ratings of your games? Should they? Have your parents ever prevented you from playing a certain game? If so, what reasons did they give for not wanting you to play it?

Nov. 7, 2007: Roughly 59 percent of parents see the Internet as a positive activity for their teens, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project study on parent and teenager Internet use. While 59 percent of parents surveyed saw the Internet as a beneficial factor in their children's lives in 2006, that represented a decline from 67 percent in a 2004 study. In the same time span, the number of parents who think the Internet has no effect on their children went up from 25 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2006, and the portion of parents who see the Internet's influence as a bad thing rose marginally from 5 percent to 7 percent. Parents tend to be more concerned with the content their children view rather than time spent with media. Sixty-eight percent of parents regulate the Web sites their children visit, versus television shows (77 percent), and video games (67 percent).
As for the amount of time kids can use various media, 55 percent of parents restrict time spent online, while 58 percent curb television and video game usage. After teens walk away from the computer, 65 percent of parents say they check to see what Web sites have been viewed, and some parents use monitoring software to gain more information than a browser history provides. Seventy-four percent of parents can accurately say whether their teen has created a profile on a social networking site such as MySpace or Facebook. "Parents aren't entirely clueless," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew Internet.
         Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: Do your parents have rules about computer use? If so, how do you feel about the rules? Are they about how much time you spend, or what you do on the computer or sites you visit, or both? Do you think teens are exposed to too much inappropriate stuff? What's the best way for parents to help kids stay safe on the Internet? Do you know anyone who's been cyber-stalked, or who found out that someone they met online was not really who they said they were? How would you feel if this happened to you, and what would you do if it did?

Oct. 21, 2007 : While older kids still dominate in time spent per week on gaming, a recent annual survey on children and video games showed the most significant spike in hours spent playing video games (comparing this year to last year) occurs in the 2-to-5-year-old and 6-to-8-year-old groups. First-, second- and third-graders spend 75% more time than they used to on gaming, adding an average of three hours per week to their playing time. Nick Shovar, director of research at game publisher Ubisoft, said, ""This is a great benefit for the gaming industry. Kids are becoming more sophisticated with video games at a much younger age, and there are more video games available today that fit the 6- to 8-year-old gamers. Ubisoft's casual games, such as the 'Imagine' and 'Petz' games, are a great start for kids because they not only introduce them to the portable and console systems, but they also offer them fun and accessible games that will engage them socially and intellectually."
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: When Mr. Shovar from the Ubisoft game company says that his company's games "engage [kids] socially and intellectually," how does he know the games actually do that? What kinds of research or studies, if any, do game manufacturers have to have to prove those types of claims? When he says, "Kids are becoming more sophisticated with video games at a much younger age," is that a good thing, and if so, how do we know it's a good thing? Some people are concerned that playing such games keeps young children from other activities that would develop important social or physical skills, such as outdoor activities, playing indoors with friends, etc. Do you think these concerns are valid? Can video games substitute for "old-fashioned" ways that kids used to play together? In what ways can they do so, and in what ways can they not be a substitute?

Feb. 8, 2006: Thirty-five percent of parents say they play computer and video games. Among those "gamer parents," 80% play with their children and two-thirds (66%) feel that playing games has brought their families closer together, according to a national survey released by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA, the trade group representing U.S. computer and video game publishers, says that  “This first-ever study of ‘gamer parents’ dramatizes the increasing and positive role that video games play in American family entertainment." Three-quarters (73%) of gamer parents say they are regular voters, and a large majority (85 percent) of all voter parents (both gamer and non-gamer) say that " they  -- not government, retailers, or game publishers --should take the most responsibility in monitoring childrens’ exposure to games that may have content that is inappropriate for minors. Further, by a nearly two to one margin (60% vs. 36%) parents agree that it is not the role of government to regulate game sales in an attempt to protect kids from exposure to violent and/or sexual video game content."
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: One of the core concepts of media literacy is to ask, "Who is sending this message?" When you know who is sending the message, you can ask yourself, "What is their purpose in sending this message?" Why would the ESA want to know if the parents were voters or not? The ESA is a trade organization that lobbies Congress on behalf of computer and video game publishers. Does that help explain why they ask about voting and what gamer parents think about government oversight of game content? Notice the difference between the percentage of parents who think that they (parents) should be the most responsible in monitoring children's exposure to games (85%), and the percentage of parents who think it is not the role of government to regulate game sales to protect children (60%).  How does the wording of the questions affect the results? Why doesn't Lowenstein comment on the dramatically lower percentage of parents who feel that the government should be involved?

Nov. 9, 2005: The Los Angeles Times reports, "The amount of sexual content on national television has nearly doubled since 1998, with nearly 70% of all programs containing some sex scenes or related language. Sexual context, including talk about sex and scenes of kissing and depictions of sexual behavior, was even more commonplace during evening prime time viewing hours, according to Sex on TV 4, a biennial study released Nov. 9 by the Kaiser Family Foundation....Nearly 8 in 10 prime time shows or 77% included sexual content, averaging 5.9 sexual scenes per hour. Among the 20 most popular shows with teenagers, 70% include sexual content, and 45% include sexual behavior, according to the study. The least amount of sexual content was found on reality shows, with fewer than 28% of programs containing sex scenes or language."
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: If reality shows have much less sexual content than other types of shows, does that suggest that in reality (real life), sexual situations happen much less often than they are portrayed in prime-time TV? In your personal experience, do TV shows portray sexual activity (including anything from sexually-oriented conversation to physical acts) more often than happen in real life? If so, why might that be? Does it matter? Are young people influenced by the amount of sexual content on TV? How?

April 1, 2005: A USA Today article asks, "As U.S. children are exposed to 8½ hours of TV, video games, computers and other media a day, are they losing the ability to concentrate? Are their developing brains becoming hard-wired to "multi-task lite" rather than learn the focused critical thinking needed for a democracy? These troubling questions are raised by a Kaiser Family Foundation media study this month, says educational psychologist David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a Minneapolis non-profit. Even more troubling is the answer: We don't know, Walsh and other experts in the field say."
          Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: The article says the problem intensifies after the third grade. Do you think YOU have trouble concentrating on a task long enough to do a good job? If so, do you think your media habits have anything to do with it? Most students think they are fine, but how do you know, if you've never been any other way? What does research tell us about how the brain is shaped by its experiences in the early years of a child's life? If you have friends who watched little or no TV when they were young (many home-schooled children fall into this group), do they seem to be able to concentrate more in school?

February 15, 2005:  Researchers have reported that very young children’s interactions with TV and computers are a mixed bag of opportunities and cautions, while teenagers’ Internet use has changed so much that the myths of several years ago need to be debunked. Said Amy Sussman, program manager for the National Science Foundation (NSF), “Reaping the benefits of various media while avoiding pitfalls is no easy task. Parents and policymakers need to inform their decisions about whether and how to guide their children’s media use through scientific knowledge. Different developmental stages call for different strategies."
       Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: Where can parents find the information they need to make the right decisions about how much media their children can use, and what types of content are appropriate at which ages? How does our media culture make parents' job much harder than it was in the past? How can the people with helpful information for parents best reach them, and what communication or message strategies should they use to get parents to pay attention?

November 16, 2004: Citing the film’s promotions with Burger King, Kellogg’s, and Keebler, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) is warning parents to beware of the excessive and harmful levels of commercialism in the new SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. “This movie is essentially a ninety minute commercial for junk food,” said CCFC’s Dr. Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood. “Parents who take their children to see the film should expect to be besieged with requests for products from the movie’s promotional partners.” It has become commonplace for media characters popular with children to adorn the packages of food products of dubious nutritional value. Marketing to children is a factor in childhood obesity. Psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint of the Judge Baker Children’s Center hopes that parents will factor in the film’s commercial ties when deciding whether or not to let their children see SpongeBob on the big screen. “The cost of this movie is more than the price of a ticket. The nagging that marketers deliberately and effectively cultivate can be extremely stressful for families. And for those parents who give in, there are the potential costs of childhood obesity and its attendant health problems.”
     Classroom focus/media literacy discussion: How do we determine the difference between "Hey, it's just a movie," and "Why am I paying money for my kids to watch a 90-minute commercial?" Are there moral and ethical issues about marketing unhealthy food to children, and if so, who should be speaking up for children? Should this type of marketing be stopped, and if so, how can that be justified in a free market economy that grants corporations the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, no matter what the message? Should parents be educated about the importance of these issues, and if so, how can that best be undertaken?

Sept. 7, 2004: Children who watched a lot of TV with sexual content were about twice as likely to start having intercourse during the subsequent year as those with little exposure to televised sex, researchers found. Just talking about it also created the effect -- "Exposure to TV that included only talk about sex was associated with the same risks as exposure to TV that depicted sexual behavior," said Rand Corp. behavioral scientist Rebecca Collins and colleagues. TV "may create the illusion that sex is more central to daily life than it truly is and may promote sexual initiation as a result," the researchers said. Read the entire study published by the journal Pediatrics.

   Media literacy family discussion: Does TV present both positive and negative aspects of sexual encounters? If not, why not? How does the commercial nature of U.S. television create the incentive for being less than realistic in these types of stories (i.e.,  Why is everyone usually beautiful? Why is sex usually great, with rarely any disease or unwanted pregnancy? Why is the necessary and difficult conversation regarding "safe sex, as part of an initial sexual encounter, almost never portrayed? Should it be?) The Media Awareness Network's articles Sex and Relationships in the Media and Sexualized Images in Advertising can be good starters for discussion between parents and older teens (ads may be too explicit for some younger teens; parents should review).

July 19, 2004: (from a Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children News Release) The July16th congressional briefing, "Predatory Marketing: The Impact on Children's Health," sponsored by Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children (SCEC) in cooperation with The Children's Caucus, was a howling success!  Over forty people attended, representing about twenty congressional offices...twenty congressional offices, members of the public health, education, and faith based communities--as well as executives from the marketing industry.

     We are encouraged by the attendance and by the concern that several congressional staffers expressed about the issue. It's clear that our message--that being bombarded by marketing is harmful to children--is beginning to to take hold. For more information about the briefing, and to read summaries of the presentations, go to the SCEC web site.

     One especially hopeful bit of news: There is some interest in the House of Representatives in introducing a bill similar to Senator Harkin's effort to return to the FTC the power to regulate marketing to children. We will keep you posted on this as it develops. If you haven't already contacted your Senators urging them to support Harkin's bill, this is a good time to do so. Here's the link to do that. It's impressive, given the current political climate, that any members of congress are willing to take on even thinking about regulation!
     Media literacy questions for discussion: What is the justification for regulating advertising to children? What other countries do so, and what are their reasons? Are these reasons valid in the U.S.? Why or why not?