NEWS / TRAINING: First Ever Bahamas Youth Media Camp A Success

Nassau, Bahamas - Thirty campers were immersed into the world of media this summer, thanks to a collaboration between the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture and True Vision Media Group.  Through the government's free summer programme, children ages 8 to 15 learned about the importance of media; social responsibility and the role of media; careers in media; interviewing skills; writing and presentation skills; how to set up camera equipment and accessories; and photography.  

The camp also contained general and social competency components that allowed the children to combine learning media skills with fun and games, creative writing, conflict resolution, and saving and budgeting skills

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RESEARCH: Twitter main social media choice of Japanese youth, says survey (JAPAN)

A poll of young Japanese Internet users showed Twitter is by far their most popular social network, with many saying they want to try Facebook in the future.


The survey shows that 42.5 percent of those around 20 years of age use Twitter more than any other networking site. Only 13 percent of respondents said Facebook was their favorite. The survey was jointly conducted by Nifty, a Japanese search engine, comnico, an online marketing firm, and Lifemedia, a service that pays users to take online polls.

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ARTICLES: Young people and social media: Docs examine pitfalls

Editor's note: Former CNN correspondent Pat Etheridge is a journalist specializing in children's health and family issues. She previously hosted CNN's "Parenting Today."

(CNN) -- They're called "Generation M2": highly tech-savvy children ages 8 to 18, whose lives are immersed in electronic media.

Now, the nation's top pediatric organization is mobilizing efforts around their well-being.

"As pediatricians who are trying to help children behave in ways that keep them healthy and safe, we have to pay a lot of attention to what's happening in social media," said Dr. David Hill, chairman-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics' council on communications and media.

The council led a panel called "Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," at the group's annual conference last month in New Orleans. The goal of the presentation: getting pediatricians current on issues to discuss with young patients during regular wellness checkups.

The American Academy of Pediatrics established the council in 2007 with the recognition that growing media platforms touch on virtually every health concern pediatricians have about young people: aggression, sex, drugs, obesity, self-image and eating disorders, depression and suicide -- even learning disorders and academic achievement.

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NEWS:Du launches Social Media award

Dubai: du on Sunday launched Social Media Awards. Social Media practitioners can nominate their initiatives for the awards through www.du.ae/awards, until November 20. The Social Media Awards aim to achieve multiple objectives such as engaging with the youth and encouraging them to contribute positively to the UAE community through Social Media,; driving patriotic behaviour among the youth and instill a sense of belonging to the UAE and its leaders; showcasing positive practices by active community members on Social Media and; rewarding and celebrating role models who have contributed to driving positive change within the UAE.

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ARTICLES: Average teenager has never met quarter of Facebook friends (UK)

The average 12- to 15-year-old has never met one in four of their "friends" on social networking websites such as Facebook, according to new research.

Telecoms and media regulator Ofcom's annual Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report also found that teenage girls are the UK's texting champions, sending more than 220 a week – a third more than boys.

The regulator's latest research revealed that 12- to 15-year-olds on average spend 17 hours a week on the internet, matching TV viewing for the first time, and that potentially well over a third of three- and four-year-olds use the internet for TV and games.

More than 40% of five- to 15-year-olds who have internet access have a social networking profile, rising to 80% among 12- to 15-year-olds.

The latter age group has an average of 286 online friends and 93% of them claim they are confident they know about online safety.

full article on The Guardian website

SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media used by youth to air social concerns

NEW DELHI: Is it okay for your boyfriend to know your email password and check your mails or for your girlfriend to track your SMSes and screen your friends?

Taking a different perspective on gender violence in a youngster's everyday life, 'Must Bol' - a by the youth, for the youth campaign - is creating ripples in Delhi's youth circuit. Started in December 2010, and having entered the virtual world the very next month, the campaign has hit an instant cord with the youngsters because of the relevance of the issues and the non-preachy manner in which messages are being put across.

full article on the Times of India website

ARTICLES / IT / SOCIAL MEDIA: Children learn the ABC of Twitter

LONG-running ABC program Play School is teaching children who can't even read or write how to use social media.

The popular preschoolers show has tackled space exploration and homosexuality - and now is explaining to toddlers about communicating via Twitter and Facebook.

In a recent episode, presenter Matt Passmore tweeted, blogged, texted, emailed and checked his "play book" on a cardboard computer. "What can I do while I wait, I know - I will Twitter," Passmore said. "Everyone loves my Twitter."Play School executive producer Jan Strandling said the cyber world was increasingly relevant to preschoolers.

Research showed that children as young as one could use smartphones. And preschoolers are becoming so tech-savvy that Play School now has iPhone apps and online games for under-fives, she said.

full article on the Herald Sun website

GAMES / EDUCATION: Reading, Writing, and Good Digital Citizenship: A Future Tense Event Highlights the Promise of Tech in Elementary Education

Kids love video games. And iPads. And even Twitter. But what can they learn from high-tech tools—and, perhaps more importantly, can the ways they use technology give us insight as tohow they learn?

Those were the guiding questions at “Getting Schooled by a Third-Grader,” a Future Tense event on technology in early education held this afternoon at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. During the introduction, New America Foundation fellow Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media—From Baby Videos to Educational Software—Affects Your Child, noted that we frequently think of educational technology as the realm of middle or high school. But research currently suggests that children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years spend an average of 120 minutes a day with screens. Meanwhile, teachers—and companies producing educational software and games—are increasingly bringing technology into the classroom to appeal to kids who enter kindergarten already familiar with iPads, smartphones, and Microsoft Kinect.

full article at slate.com

ARTICLES / SOCIAL MEDIA: Young people need guidance to cope with the threats posed by social media

Professionals must be trained to deal with the social problems young people can come up against when using today's technology

This week marks the first anniversary of the summer riots, where mobile devices played such an important part in connecting rioters with each other and were used to capture much of the carnage and brutality. Of course, the technology didn't cause the riots, but as the police found out,BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) helped crowds gather at remarkable speed and to circumvent police lines.

A year is a long time in terms of technology. New mobile handsets and apps become integrated into our lives at astonishing speed. Over the last 12 months I've been working with young people excluded from mainstream schools who are taught instead in pupil referral units (PRUs). The project we've been working on is called Munch, Poke, Ping, which I have written about previously in these pages, and has looked at how these young learners are engaging with social media. Through film-making, we've been able to explore the paradox that despite being digitally connected young people are largely having to cope alone.

full article on The Guardian website

NEWS / PROJECTS: Namibia: Youth Trained in Social Networking

The Namibia Business Innovation Centre, with the assistance of the RLabs Academy, has trained a number of young people to use various social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging to plan and implement online marketing strategies.

In the past, the RLabs Academy has successfully trained hundreds of participants in South Africa. In Namibia, the RLabs programme, first introduced four months ago, has successfully trained fifteen young participants in the fields of internet and social networking.

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NEWS / ARTCLES: Social media's impact on kids merits big debate (USA)

Jim Steyer, founder of Common Sense Media, a San Francisco think tank focusing on media and families, said the technology that Facebook represents is having "an enormous impact" on youngsters, families and schools worldwide.

"We need to have a big national, if not global conversation about the pros and cons of that," Steyer, a father of four who is also a civil rights lawyer and Stanford University professor, told AFP in an interview.

While social media such as Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter offer "extraordinary possibilities" in such areas as education, he said, "there are also real downsides in a social, emotional and cogitative development way."

"Hopefully, after the flurry of the IPO and after the valuation of Facebook is done, then we can have a very serious ongoing discussion of what this means," he said.

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ARTICLES: How Iraq is Using Reality TV and Facebook to Inspire a Generation of Peacemakers

Educational reality TV and social media are the drivers inspiring a group of Iraqi youth demanding a different future — one with peaceful resolutions and equality.

Nareen, an 18-year-old Iraqi whose last name has been withheld for safety reasons, starred in Iraq’s first youth reality TV show called Salam Shabab to compete for the title of becoming an “Ambassador of Peace” last year. Salam Shabab is a competitive TV show with the ultimate goal of uniting Iraq through peace building.

The first step to peace building is getting Iraqis from different races, religions and geographical backgrounds to respect and understand each other and work together. Iraqis have immense local pride, but do not have a strong sense of nationalism. This could be due to the fact Iraq’s regions are divided and traveling to different provinces is limited. Most youth have not interacted with people from different regions or left their hometowns.

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Crackdown on online junk food advertising aimed at children say MPs

Junk food advertising on social networking sites and the internet should be controlled to prevent manufacturers from targeting children, according to a new report by MPs.

The Environmental Audit Committee has called for a clampdown on advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to children as part of a strategy to combat soaring levels of obesity across Britain and encourage healthier eating choices.

They warn that many junk food manufacturers have turned to the internet and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to directly target children.

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ARTICLES: Saying Yes to Digital Media in Preschool and Kindergarten

You, a parent of young children, may be tethered to your phone, iPad and laptop. But you cringe at the thought of touchscreens and apps slinking into your children's preschool classrooms. You worry about your 4-year-old turning into a device-obsessed zombie who barely notices the world around her. You might even suggest that screen technology should be banned from any setting designed for young children.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children doesn't agree with you. And with good reason.

Today, the NAEYC, the largest trade organization for early educators in the country, released a statement in conjunction with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media about technology and young children (up through age 8). Though the groups discourage "passive screen technology" usage -- like TV and DVDs -- with children under two, they don't suggest a ban on screens for preschoolers or kindergartners as some child-advocacy groups have suggested. Nor do they say teachers should avoid using technology with young kids. Instead, the groups puts the onus on teachers to make smart decisions and use technology appropriately.

full article in the Huffington Post

TRAINING: Youth enlightened on social media (NAMIBIA)

The Namibia Business Innovation Center (NBIC), together with Rlabs Academy, is hosting its first session of three workshops aimed at training young people in social media and its applications at the NBIC Innovation Village. The workshop started on 13 February and will end on the 24th of this month.

Rlabs Academy’s mission is to teach young people how to use different social networks and to learn IT skills, thus allowing them to become trainers, consultants or software developers for organisations that want to create, enhance and develop their networking activities. Previous workshop graduates have gone on to become trainers or consultants for businesses, creating about 400 jobs in total.

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ARTICLES: Children's influence growing in digital age

Digital media such as social networks and mobile devices are giving children more influence than in previous generations, a new book argues.

Distinguished Professor John Hartley, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at QUT, said the prevalence of 'new media' had given children's actions and choices more significance.

In his book Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies, Professor Hartley said that as children engaged with one another and wider society online, they exerted a largely unseen, but growing influence.

"For example, children's online actions are already being closely tracked by business to determine their preferences in order to satisfy their demands for various products - and thus influence the course of industry," Professor Hartley said.

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RESEARCH / SOCIAL MEDIA: Youth sickened by social media (INDIA)

New Delhi, Jan 22: Youngsters in urban India have started experiencing social-media fatigue as excess use of these sites has started telling on their mental and physical health and even their professional, academic and personal lives.

The youngsters said they tend to log onto social networks like – Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Orkut, Linkedin, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, BigAdda and others less frequently than earlier when they had initially signed up, according to a recently concluded survey carried out by apex industry body ASSOCHAM.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) conducted a survey under the aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF) to examine current usage trends vis-à-vis social networks among youngsters and time spent on these websites.

Majority of all the respondents said that compulsive social networking has led to insomnia, depression, poor inter-personal relationships, lack of concentration, high level of anxiety, ignorance and rudeness in their general behavior as they tend to replace real-life social interactions with online social media.

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SOCIAL MEDIA & CHILDREN: ICT Feature - Social media sites for your children

When we hear the term ‘social media sites’ we automatically think of Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. With some of the recent negativity surrounding social networking sites it’s no wonder that parents fear the worst when their children visit such sites. Yes, they can be useful for socialising, enhancing creativity and developing technical skills but according to a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, social media can expose children to inappropriate content and cyberbullying. So what is a parent to do?

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prevents websites from covertly collecting personal information about children under the age of thirteen. Fortunately for mums and dads of tweens eager to update their status online, there are many children-friendly social networks available which offer far better options rather than banning your child from the Web. Parents can now adopt a different approach with their children; they can make the experience safer by directing their children to a number of child-safe networking sites. These are ten sites which aim to give children a voice but still allow parents to maintain control and peace-of-mind.

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NEWS / SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media is the space for change, says the youth of India

NEW DELHI: In a nationwide survey conducted amongst the youth of India, nearly 76 per cent of youth believe that social media empowers them to bring change to the world we live in. 

They are convinced that causes for women and movements against corruption can be driven through this medium that is now growing as a source for information. In fact, as many as 28 per cent source information from social media sites whereas around 54 per cent prefer a mix of print, television and social media.

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ARTICLES: Update Urged on Children’s Online Privacy

Aiming to catch up with fast-churning technology that touches children's lives every day, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday proposed long-awaited changes to regulations covering online privacy for children.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or Coppa, was enacted over a decade ago, long before the advent of social media and smartphones. It requires companies to obtain parental consent before collecting any personal information about a child under the age of 13.

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