Common Sense Media: Tweens, Teens, Tech and Mental Health: A Generation Coming of Age in Crisis

Posted on July 29, 2020 at 4:21 pm

A new report from Common Sense Media examines the impact of the pandemic on the already-increasing levels of anxiety and depression among tweens and teens.

When the coronavirus pandemic upended our lives, it introduced new social distancing requirements, public health challenges, and social unrest. Almost overnight, school, social activities, and work were all pushed online. It’s too early to know the lasting effects of this radical shift in behavior. Instead, this report seeks to understand how best to reach adolescents who are disproportionately affected and most vulnerable, support them in digital spaces, and improve their mental health outcomes.

The in-depth literature review, combined with essays from leading experts, synthesizes what’s known about associations between digital technology use and adolescent mental health—and outlines what stakeholders can do to help.

Geoffrey Canada: The Digital Divide is a Bigger Problem Than Lacking Access
Jacqueline Dougé: Meeting Teens Where They Are
Sonia Livingstone: Parenting for a Digital Future
Jennifer Siebel Newsom: We Must Design Tech and Media Platforms with Kids in Mind
Lina Acosta Sandaal: The Burdens of the Latinx Family
Tiera Chanté Tanksley: Finding Peace During the Protests: Digital Wellness Tools for Black Girl Activists
Andrew Yang: Our Kids are Walking Around with Slot Machines in Their Pockets

Amazing New Movie Technologies

Posted on January 9, 2013 at 3:59 pm

It seems like something from “The Jetsons,” but according to The Creators Project, these new technologies will help us literally see and make movies in new ways very soon, including 3D without glasses, laser projection for sharper, more high-contrast images, and “4D,” with smoke and wind machines in the theater to make you feel that you are a part of what is going on in the film. I am excited about the new smaller cameras that will give filmmakers the chance to make films in new locations and with lower budgets, less excited about apps that just encourage viewers to multi-task while watching a film.

USA Today on New Techniques in Marketing to Kids

Posted on August 15, 2011 at 3:55 pm

USA Today has an important article on new technologies for marketing to kids.

With the use of new, kid-enchanting technologies, are savvy marketers gaining the upper hand on parents? Are toy marketers such as Ganz, food marketers such as McDonald’s and kid-coddling apparel retailers such as 77kids by American Eagle too eager to target kids?

At stake: $1.12 trillion. That’s the amount that kids influenced last year in overall family spending, says James McNeal, a kid marketing consultant and author of Kids as Consumers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children. “Up to age 16, kids are determining most expenditures in the household,” he says. “This is very attractive to marketers.”

Children who play on websites like Webkinz are bombarded by ads. The article follows one girl who repeatedly clicks on an ad for Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, not because she has any interest in the film but because clicking on the link is the way she earns accessories for her virtual characters.

“We occasionally introduce limited-time promotions so that our Webkinz World members can enjoy fun, unique activities and events,” says Susan McVeigh, a Ganz spokeswoman.

That corporate doublespeak is appalling. The purpose of these “limited-time promotions” is so that children can be targeted for ads, and this is all within the context of a site that is itself an enormous interactive ad for Ganz. Parents should be aware of the new avenues for trying to sell to kids and should have continuing conversations with children and tweens about the way that marketing is designed to make them think they want things that are not really important. Or, in the case of the “Judy Moody” movie, to see movies that ARE a bummer.

Joe Queenan on Movie Plots that Technology Killed

Posted on August 1, 2011 at 8:00 am

Brilliantly funny Joe Queenan has a great piece in The Guardian about how today’s technology would have saved some classic movie characters a lot of misery — and eliminated the plots for the movies and the enjoyment for the audiences.

Imagine Janet Leigh, driving around with that stolen money, looking for a place to spend the night. She’d check Trip Advisor on her iPhone and end up bypassing the Bates Motel. And Clint Eastwood could use caller ID to block those “Play Misty for Me” calls from Jessica Walter. The mistaken identity in “North by Northwest?” Not after Google!

You’ll think of some of your own examples when you read his list. “Casablanca?” You could print out fake letters of transit using Photoshop. “Citizen Kane?” He wouldn’t have to spend all that money on the newspaper; he could be a blogger!

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Ebert: Thumbs Down on 3D, Up on Maxivison48

Posted on January 30, 2011 at 4:21 pm

Roger Ebert says the case is closed on 3D — it can never work. He has some powerful support for his position, a letter from Walter Murch, “the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema.” Murch says that “horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.” He says our brains are not capable of processing 3D movie technology, because “the glasses “gather in” the image — even on a huge Imax screen — and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.”
I’m not sure I agree; I expect a glasses-free 3D technology is possible, for one thing. But I do agree with Ebert that there is a much less gimmicky and much more powerful enhancement — Ebert’s counter-recommendation — called Maxivision48.
Movies “move” because we see a series of still pictures so quickly that it fools our eye through something called “persistence of vision.” It’s the same technology as a flip-book, and it hasn’t changed much since it shifted from 16 frames per second to 24 when movies added sound (this is why silent films often seem jerky). Unlike current digital equipment, which replicates the 24 frames per second standard, Maxivision combines digital and film to eliminate wasted space and project at 48 frames per second to give the audience a fresher, clearer, more distinct image.
I love their tagline: “See What You’ve Been Missing.”