In a blog last year for the Huffington Post, 13 year old Matthew Wieseltier challenged "hypocritical" parents, including his father, Leon, who chastise their kids for overusing technology when they too are reliant on devices. HuffPost Rise wanted to dig a little deeper to see what the father-son duo have learned about balancing their reliance on technology with real life. Check it out in the video above.
Also on HuffPost:
Studies About Kids And Technology
February 2013: Preschoolers Can Learn Great Things From TV(01 of17)
Source: Huffington Post (to read the actual study, visit Pediatrics -- subscription required)Gist: "New research out today by Dr Christakis finds that putting our time and energy into working to improve what our children watch, not just how much they watch, can have a positive impact on their behavior -- even for children as young as 3 years of age." (credit:Alamy)
February 2013: Media and Violence: An Analysis of Current Research (02 of17)
Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "While longitudinal research does allow us to speak in terms of a 'causal' relationship, it is probably more accurate and useful to think about media violence as a 'risk factor' rather than a 'cause' of violence — one variable among many that increases the risk of violent behavior among some children." (credit:Alamy)
January 2013: Screen Time Not Linked To Kids' Physical Activity(03 of17)
Source: Reuters (to read the actual study, visit JAMA Pediatrics -- log-in required)Gist: "[R]esearchers said the new study backs up earlier findings showing too much screen time and not enough exercise may be separate issues that parents and schools need to address independently." (credit:Alamy)
December 2012: How Families Interact on Facebook (04 of17)
Source: FacebookGist: "We investigated anonymized and automatically processed posts and comments by people self-identified as parents and children to understand how conversation patterns with each other might be a bit different from those with their other friends." (credit:Alamy)
November 2012: Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy (05 of17)
Source: Pew Research CenterGist: "Most parents of teenagers are concerned about what their teenage children do online and how their behavior could be monitored by others. Some parents are taking steps to observe, discuss, and check up on their children’s digital footprints." (credit:Shutterstock)
November 2012: Public Supports Expanded Internet Safety Requirements to Protect Kids(06 of17)
Source: C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's HealthGist: "In this Poll, nearly two out of three adults expressed strong support for proposed COPPA updates, including requiring apps designed for kids to confirm that users are at least 13 and prohibiting apps from collecting personal information from users under age 13." (credit:Alamy)
November 2012: The Online Generation Gap(07 of17)
Source: Family Online Safety InstituteGist: "These surveys indicate that teens’ concerns about their online safety parallel parents’ concerns more closely than parents realize and that many teens are taking steps to protect their privacy and personal information. Nonetheless, teens suggest that parents are not as informed about what their teens do online as parents think they are, and some teens are taking risks by providing personal information to strangers online." (credit:Shutterstock)
November 2012: Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View From The Classroom(08 of17)
Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "America’s teachers -- whether they are long-time classroom veterans or young, tech-savvy ones, at wealthy schools or low-income schools, public or private, elementary or high school -- surface relatively consistent concerns: Students are having issues with their attention span, writing, and face-to-face communication, and, in the experience of teachers, children’s media use is contributing to the problem. On the plus side, teachers find that young people’s facility with media is helping them find information quickly and multitask more effectively." (credit:Shutterstock)
March 2012: Teens, Smartphones and Texting: Texting Volume Is Up While Frequency of Voice Calling Is Down(09 of17)
Source: Pew Research CenterGist: “The volume of texting among teens has risen from 50 texts a day in 2009 to 60 texts for the median teen text user. The frequency of teens' phone chatter with friends - on cell phones and landlines - has fallen. But the heaviest texters are also the heaviest talkers with their friends.” (credit:Alamy)
February 2012: Impact of an Active Video Game on Healthy Children’s Physical Activity(10 of17)
Source: PediatricsGist: "There was no evidence that children receiving the active video games were more active in general, or at anytime, than children receiving the inactive video games." (credit:Alamy)
October 2011: Media Use by Children Younger Than 2 Years(11 of17)
Source: PediatricsGist: “This updated policy statement provides further evidence that media—both foreground and background—have potentially negative effects and no known positive effects for children younger than 2 years. Thus, the AAP reaffirms its recommendation to discourage media use in this age group. This statement also discourages the use of background television intended for adults when a young child is in the room.” (credit:Alamy)
October 2011: Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America(12 of17)
Source: Common Sense MediaGist: "Nine-month-olds spend nearly an hour a day watching television or DVDs, 5-year-olds are begging to play with their parents’ iPhones, and 7-year-olds are sitting down in front of a computer several times a week to play games, do homework, or check out how their avatars are doing in their favorite virtual worlds. Television is still as popular as ever, but reading may be beginning to trend downward. Having an accurate understanding of the role of media in children’s lives is essential for all of those concerned about promoting healthy child development: parents, educators, pediatricians, public health advocates, and policymakers, to name just a few." (credit:Shutterstock)
July 2011: Cell Phone Study ‘Misleading’: Children May Still Be At Increased Cancer Risk, Experts Say (13 of17)
Source: The Huffington PostGist: “[E]xperts have some serious concerns regarding the methods and conclusions of the first study evaluating the connection between cell phone radiation and brain cancer in children and teens. Not only was the study flawed, they note, but it was also financially supported by the cell phone industry.” (credit:Alamy)
October 2010: Children's Screen Viewing Is Related to Psychological Difficulties Irrespective of Physical Activity (14 of17)
Source: PediatricsGist: “This study found that greater television and computer use was related to greater psychological difficulties, independent of gender, age, level of deprivation, pubertal status, and objectively measured physical activity andsedentary time.” (credit:Alamy)
July 2010: Television and Video Game Exposure and the Development of Attention Problems(15 of17)
Source: PediatricsGist: "Viewing television and playing video games each are associated with increased subsequent attention problems in childhood. It seems that a similar association among television, video games, and attention problems exists in late adolescence and early adulthood." (credit:Alamy)
April 2010: Teens, Cell Phones and Texting: Text Messaging Becomes Centerpiece Communication (16 of17)
Source: Pew Research CenterGist: “Fully two-thirds of teen texters say they are more likely to use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them to them by cell phone.” (credit:Alamy)
January 2010: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds(17 of17)
Source: Kaiser Family FoundationGist: “Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.” (credit:Shutterstock)