While this writer is fully aware that the countless hours spent traversing the vast landscapes of Hyrule, or patrolling the wasteland of Fallout has made him a better person, many people still subscribe to the notion that video games have ruined/are ruining our children.

Nonsense, according to a Michigan State University study. The research concludes that children who play video games tend to be more creative – regardless or whether or not those games are violent in nature.

So remember, “video games” in the context of this report means anything from Mario Kart to Gears of War.

The study comprised of almost 500 12-year-old kids, who were separated into categories based on how much time they spent playing video games. The researchers judged the kids’ creativity based on the widely-used Torrance Test of Creativity-Figural. This test involves having the participant draw “interesting and exciting” pictures from a curved shape, and then elaborating on their picture by writing a story about it (among other activities).

As any gamer would expect, the results showed that the more video games the kids played, the more creative they tended to be in these types of tasks. Although the study found that boys play video games more than girls, the creativity link was no different based on sex. Both boy and girl gamers were more creative.

In fact, race, gender or type of game were not mitigating factors. High video game use = higher creativity.

On the flip side, internet and computer use that didn’t involve games was not linked to increased creativity.

Linda Jackson, who conducted the study, said that it’s the first evidence-based demonstration of this relationship, and that it should motivate video game designers to find the elements in their games that are responsible for increased creativity.

“Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment,” Jackson said.

Of course, “creativity” is hardly an objective thing. And this study only used one type of creativity evaluator to make its assessments (albeit a well-respected one). But screw the grain of salt. Gamers have known for a long time that their childhood was enhanced by all of that time with a controller in their hands – and this study backs up that long-held belief.

I mean, watch 5 minutes of this action from the recent first-person puzzle game Portal 2 and tell me that it wouldn’t help a developing mind –

What do you think? How important are video games to a developing kid? Let us know in the comments.

The sources of the info in this graphic are a Bullguard Internet Security Survey and Parents, Children & Social Networking Consumer Reports.

“There is a lot you can tell about a person by reading their Facebook profile,” says Loreal Lynch at OnlineSchools.com. “From incriminating photos to friendship insights, Facebook tells all. That’s one of the reasons so may parents are joining Facebook, according to a recent study. As it turns out, more than half of parents use the popular social network to spy on their kids’ Internet activity–and 11 percent of parents joined Facebook for the sole purpose of snooping on their kids! But with the growing number of underage Facebook users, are parents snooping, or safeguarding? Find out the stats on parents and Facebook in the below infographic.”

Here’s the infographic:

Courtesy of: OnlineSchools.com

Jackie Cohen at AllFacebook, who gets a hat tip for pointing out this infographic, says, “Half of all parents have been keeping tabs on their teenage kids via Facebook. If anything, we’re surprised that the percentage isn’t higher.”

I guess the last question stated in the infographic is the real question: invasion of privacy or good parenting? What do you think?

Young (really young) kids on Facebook

Although Facebook’s terms of service stipulate that users must be at least 13 years old, that hasn’t stopped many young’ns from creating a profile.

In kids-will-lie and other shocking news, 7.5 million children aged 13 and under have Facebook accounts. Of the 20 million minors (17-) on Facebook, 5 million are 10 or younger.

This comes from a study in the June issue of Consumer Reports. These findings mirror another recent study by McAfee that showed that 37% of 10-12-year-olds are on Facebook. The Consumer Reports study also notes that one million children were subject to harassment, threats and other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook.

The obvious question here is where the hell are the parents? Although kids are pretty crafty, limiting the internet use of a 10-year-old shouldn’t be too tricky. Consumer Reports attempts to answer that question:

Parents of kids 10 and younger on Facebook seem to be largely unconcerned. Only 18 percent made their child a Facebook friend, which is the best way to monitor the child. By comparison, 62 percent of parents of 13- to 14-year-olds did so. Only 10 percent of parents of kids 10 and under had frank talks about appropriate online behavior and threats.

So just remember – before you friend that random person and then call them a “f%@#ing n00b” for some comment they make, there is a strong likelihood that they are, in fact, 9.

Teen Drinking Linked to Social Networking?

Not only are those crazy kids lying about their age, but they’re also boozing it up whilst they do it.

According to an anonymous survey authored by Weill Cornell Medical College, teens who reported drinking also reported spending more hours per week on the computer – not for school but for social networking. Drinking was linked to frequent time on social media sites and to downloading music.

“While the specific factors linking teenage drinking and computer use are not yet established, it seems likely that adolescents are experimenting with drinking and activities on the Internet. In turn, exposure to online material such as alcohol advertising or alcohol-using peers on social networking sites could reinforce teens’ drinking,” says Dr. Epstein, assistant professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Children are being exposed to computers and the Internet at younger ages. For this reason it’s important that parents are actively involved in monitoring their children’s computer usage, as well as alcohol use.

Companies in the UK crack down on Social Media

A study in Britain has found that 48% of companies have banned workers from tweeting or posting on Facebook in the last year. This is based on research by HCL technologies and is reported on by the Telegraph

Some feel that while social media sites can, naturally, cause a distraction to workers who use them too much, banning the services outright can hamper creativity and productivity. They suggest that stipulating strong guidelines for social media use is a better tactic than banning it altogether.

Vineet Nayar, HCL Technologies’ chief executive, said: “It is quite remarkable that in this day and age, many employers are still putting their employees’ interests as a low priority by not allowing them to use sites like Facebook.

“Banning them outright will impact employees’ approach to work in a negative way, having a detrimental effect on the business as a whole.”

Of course, my job dictates that I spend time on social media sites. But how do you feel about this issue? Does banning social media hamper productivity? Or is it too much of a distraction risk tha…………

Before I comment on the letter, I want to tell you a little bit about its author, Tony Orsini. I can’t say that I know him very well, but all four of my kids attended his Ridgewood New Jersey middle school and he is a good principal. He is passionate about what’s right for his students, and I guarantee you that every word in his letter is built on what he believes is right.

I just think he is misguided on this one. And it is very understandable how that happens, because it happens to all of us when faced with new technology. Because the technology is the thing being injected into our otherwise settled equation, it feels right that the technology is the problem, when we are our own worst enemies. It’s not the technology. It’s us.

Think about it. Tony points out that Facebook and other social networks have become the newest venues for bullying, which is an incredibly serious problem. But the issue isn’t where the bullying is happening. The issue is the bullying. Let me make this point with a personal story.

Even though I am older in dirt, I was in sixth grade once myself. My family had moved from another state and I was "the new kid." I was short and scrawny–a patsy. I was the easiest victim they’d ever seen, so the other boys in my grade bullied me for well over a year at every recess every school day.

One day, in seventh grade, I decided that I wasn’t going to subject myself to it anymore, so when everyone else went to play at recess, I just plopped myself down away from the other kids and did not move from there. A teacher who had apparently never noticed the bullying going one for months noticed me today and asked me what was wrong, so I told her. At that point, the school cracked down on the kids and my life got better.

Schools have changed a lot since I was 12. They now take bullying extremely seriously and no kid would go through what I did, because the kids are told that the adults care about this problem and that they can be approached. I never knew that anyone would care if I told them and the bullies had made it clear that that wasn’t my best strategy. So, I wasn’t intending to tell someone about my problem when I removed myself physically from the bullying. I had taken Tony’s solution. Instead of addressing the problem, I canceled my own recess.

So, I understand where Tony is coming from. If they are bullying you at recess, cancel recess. If they are bullying you in Facebook, cancel Facebook. But that was my solution as a 12-year-old. Fortunately, the adults, the teachers and other educators, have spent the last 40 years figuring out how to stop bullying without canceling recess. And as far as I can tell, it has been highly effective. The teachers try to monitor bullying behavior more than they once did, yes, but the main thing they do is to empower the victims of bullying by telling them what to do when it happens. And they also drill into kids from an early age that bullying is unacceptable. And it works. Without canceling recess.

The truth is that although Facebook seems like this brave new world to us oldsters (and in some ways it is), it doesn’t repeal the laws of human behavior. The problem is not bullying on Facebook. The problem is bullying. 40 years ago, many teachers said things like "boys will be boys" over this problem because they felt helpless about what they could do to stop it. It is understandable that we might feel a bit helpless about cyber-bullying now, but canceling Facebook is not the solution.

Instead, we must accept that bullying is unacceptable no matter where it happens. And we must accept that in the real world or the cyberworld, adults can’t always monitor what kids do. And we must accept that this technology will be used no matter what we want. At what age is Facebook OK? How do children learn how to act appropriately online? We must step up to teach them and we must emphasize that they are accountable for what they do online as well as everywhere else. And we must emphasize that we care what happens to them online, just as we do everywhere else. Canceling Facebook is just drawing a line that cannot hold.

Having said that, i have no issue with parents who want to follow Tony’s advice. That might be the right approach for your kid. But it can’t be right for every kid. There are plenty of mature eighth graders that can handle Facebook, just as there are probably some ninth graders that can’t. Each parent can make that decision based on their own kid. If Tony’s letter helps parents reclaim their confidence to make that decision, good. But if his letter just scares everyone into thinking that putting our heads in the sand will keep the cyber-bullies away, that would be a shame.

It’s easy to demonize Facebook for cyber-bullying. It’s harder to address the problem of student behavior, whether it happens online or off. But just as 40 years ago we ignored the problem offline, we have learned enough to know that we must confront bullying wherever it happens. On Facebook, too.

Thanks for raising the issue, Tony. I know it comes from a good heart. I just think we need to take a different approach.

Comments

Google demonstrates how to to lock SafeSearch with the following short clip:

When SafeSearch is locked, there is a big image in the top right-hand corner of Google that shows colored balls. This makes it easy to tell whether or not SafeSearch is locked. "Even from across the room, the colored balls give parents and teachers a clear visual cue that SafeSearch is still locked," Google says. "And if you don’t see them, it’s quick and easy to verify and re-lock SafeSearch."

You can lock SafeSearch by simply going to Search Settings from the Google home page. There is a "SafeSearch filtering" section there, where you can adjust the settings and lock them if you choose. When you lock SafeSearch, you are automatically choosing the "strict" setting (as opposed to moderate).

Can Certain Words Get My Content Blocked?

People have often wondered if their content is being blocked in SafeSearch if they have certain words on an otherwise family-friendly site. In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts recently addressed such concerns in a video at Google’s Webmaster Central YouTube channel.

"We try to write our algorithm such that just having a single word mentioned here or there really won’t have that much of an impact," says Cutts. "Now, of course some words are worse than others. If you’ve got some slang or something that’s misspelled and really is not a word that you can repeat in polite company, that makes it more likely that that page will get flagged. But in most cases you should be in relatively good shape as long as most of your content or most of the words on your page are family-friendly."

It stands to reason that if you are producing content that you are hoping that families and children will view, it’s in your best interest to keep your language family-friendly. That’s pretty much common sense, but Google has put it into a search engine visibility light as well.

Related Articles:

> Google’s Safe Search Filters

> Google Won’t Remove Pages About You

"In today’s digital environment, parents have less time to supervise their kids’ behavior," says James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media. "Communication and socialization in our kids’ world is increasingly moving from face-to-face to face-to-cyberspace, and parents vastly underestimate the amount of time that kids spend on their networks. That makes it more challenging for parents to actually parent in the crucial areas of social interaction and development, and, in a digital world, parents need to play a more important role than ever in ensuring that our kids get the best of these technologies and are using them safely."

You may recall Common Sense Media from this video on Google’s Tips for Online Safety page:

Here are some key findings from the poll:

- 22% of teens check social networking sites more than 10 times a day, while only 4% of parents believe kids are checking that much

- 51% of teens check social networking sites more than once a day, while only 23% of parents say their kids check more than once a day

- 28% have shared personal information that they normally wouldn’t have shared in public

- 25% have shared a profile with a false identity

- 39% have posted something they regretted

- 26% have pretended to be someone else online

- 54% have joined an online community or Facebook/MySpace group in support of a cause

- 4% have volunteered for a campaign, nonprofit, or charity

Common Sense Media says that conversations that start in the hallway move online to the social networks. "Teens are using social networks to share information, make connections, and develop their identities in new, exciting ways," says the organization. "But when teens communicate either anonymously or through a disguised identity, the doors are left wide open for them to not be held accountable. That kind of communication also leads to a disconnect between actions and their consequences, which is how irresponsible behaviors like cyberbullying become a reality."

Last month, the PointSmart ClickSafe Task Force (of whom Google is a part) released guidelines for best practices for online safety and literacy for keeping kids safe online. Google has tips here, and the task force’s site is here.

"The most important and timely recommendation from the report (which previous online safety task forces all agree upon) is the need for digital media literacy and safety education that empowers kids, parents, and educators," says Google Policy Analyst Jennifer Marsh. "It’s important that kids of all ages learn what it mean to be a digital citizen and how to navigate the online world safely, and it’s equally important that parents and educators have the resources and online tools to help kids make the right choices online."

The guidelines discussed in the Task Force’s document cover things like:

1. Education and information
2. Registration/creation of user profiles
3. Identify authentication and age verification
4. Content screening
5. Safe searching.

Google views its own role in the online safety of children as consisting of three primary elements.

"First, we empower families with powerful and innovative tools to create a safe experience online, like SafeSearch, community flagging tools, and granular privacy controls for our products," says Marsh. "Second, we partner with law enforcement and industry partners to stop illegal content and activity online — we’re especially proud of our work with NCMEC and the technology we provided them to fight child exploitation online. Third, we support educational efforts — both Google and YouTube have developed online safety resources for parents and kids, including a Online Family Safety Guide, and we continue to work and support many of the non-profit organizations doing great work in this space including FOSI, NCMEC, Common Sense Media, and iKeepSafe."

Marsh says Google supports the SAFE Internet Act, which would establish a $175 million competitive grant program for state and local education agencies and nonprofit organizations to promote Internet safety education.

Google provides tips for online safety here. Of course there is more information at the Task Force’s site.

ClickZ reports on the office supply giant’s efforts to help kids help kids. Of course there is a tremendous display of altruism here but let’s also remember the good business sense that a campaign such as this makes. This one smells of a win / win which is cool.

The office and school supplies retailer tapped New York agency Mr Youth to create a Do Something 101 Facebook page and an “Adopt a Pack ” Facebook application where participants can tag friends, virtually “fill” a backpack with school supplies, and then go to a Staples store t “o buy the supplies they selected and have them donated to other students who are living in poverty.

How is this good business? Let us count some of the ways:

1. Helping kids in poverty is a good thing all by itself
2. Helping kids in poverty is great PR for your brand
3. Helping kids to help kids in poverty is good for society
4. Helping kids who do have money to know your brand for something other than office supplies is just plain smart

Staples did something similar last year through DoSomething.org (who is still involved) but changed things up a bit this year to focus on the social networking habit of kids and, in many cases, their parents.

Mr Youth Managing Partner Doug Akin said the campaign will be publicized through outreach to youth bloggers and some online media. He declined to say how much the campaign will cost and he said it’s too early to provide metrics about its early success. “There’s definitely been strong adoption of it and users are tagging many friends and creating multiple images,” Akin said.

Of course, the hope is that there is a high participation rate and lots of kids learn good lessons and get the supplies they need to succeed in tough situations. While this type of activity to help young people is not unique to Staples by any means it certainly can give the company a chance to cut through the clutter of a noisy marketplace and tell a story that might influence someone come to them instead of their competition. Good cause, good business and I wish them good luck.

A side note: Have a great weekend and Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. Your role in helping to shape the future with kids who would take part in something like this could have impact far beyond your own little world. Make sure you hug your kids this weekend. They need you.

Comments

Silly? Not really. Not when you consider a new survey out of the UK that suggests 49% of kids aged between 8 and 17 have a social media profile.

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children.

“Social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives,” said James Thickett, director of market research at Ofcom.

Why is this important to internet marketers? It should be obvious, but I’ll spell it out. Think of all the 20+ years olds that grew-up using search engines such as Google. What do we have now? Millions of young men and women entering the workplace, all acutely aware of just how beneficial search engines can be.

Fast forward 10 years or so and those 8 to 17-year olds, who admit to having a social network profile, will hit the workforce. When they do, they’ll have a new mindset: valuable information can be found, not in a search engine, but in a network of people with similar interests.

If you’re strictly a search engine marketer, make hay while the sun’s still shining. I predict you’ve got about 10 years left to make the good money. After that, you’d better have a few social media marketing tricks up your sleeve, otherwise you could find you’re obsolete and back in that corporate job you worked so hard to escape–probably working for a 21-year old that does “get” social media.

(The report also looks at the real dangers kids face from revealing too much info on social networks. That doesn’t fit with our internet marketing focus, but go read it anyway!)

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 49% Of UK Children (8-17) Have A Social Networking Profile

"Despite the fact that the minimum age for most major social networking sites is usually 13 (14 on MySpace), 27% of 8-11 year olds who are aware of social networking sites say that they have a profile on a site," states Ofcom.  "[A]lmost half (49%) of children aged 8-17 who use the internet have set up their own profile on a social networking site."

Then, "Two-thirds of parents claim to set rules on their child’s use of social networking sites, although only 53% of children said that their parents set such rules."  Neither of these numbers are especially high, and the discrepancy between them suggests that some kids aren’t being held back in any way.

On the (potentially) bright side, it seems like the UK is preparing to do something about these problems.  Ofcom’s report comes less than a week after the Byron Review‘s release; both have received a fair amount of coverage, and focus more on issues of education than regulation.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Bebo, Facebook, and MySpace took independent action in response to all the attention.