An Analog Week

It was a crisis of major proportion. My daughter left her iPhone at her Dad's house and had to survive the week without her "baby." It was awful. We seriously considered a methadone clinic for the severe withdrawal symptoms. It had to be announced on Facebook.

So, you can imagine the excitement at my house when the iPhone was finally returned this evening. As it flickered back to life after a 5 minute charge, the pings accelerated with increasing frequency. What had she missed....in the day it took her to alert all her friends that she was untethered?
17 Snapchats
12 Texts
0 phone calls
and too many Facebook updates and Instagrams to count.

 I knew Snapchat was a hit with teens but I  had no idea that it had become the dominant social network on mobile.

For those unfamiliar with Snapchat, it's a mobile app which kids use to “chat” with friends using photos (or videos) with captions. Sort of like texting with pictures.  The sender can choose how long the message will be visible -- up to 10 seconds -- before it self-destructs.

It's been getting a bad rap as a medium for sexting so I reminded my daughter; "No T&A shots please. Remember Anthony Wiener"  She rolled her eyes and said: "Mom, that was so 7th Grade."

Prom Dress Angst Relieved

With all the web concern these days swirling around teen bullying and sexual harassment issues, social networks have at least made some progress on relieving one great teen angst:  “Is somebody else going to be wearing my dress at the prom?”

Perils of Teen Sexting

A sobering story about the widespread damage created when a teen girl texted a nude picture to a new boyfriend. Moms and Dads - share this with your digitally active teens.
A Girl's Nude Photo, and Altered Lives

Can Technology Humanize Teaching?

This TED Talk by the founder of the Khan Academy blew my mind for two reasons. It has given me an incredible online resource for helping my daughter with math homework. (I've been woefully inadequate  since 5th grade when the curriculum surpassed me.)  But even more amazing is that, with all the educational experts in America, it's taken a hedge fund guy to invent a new educational paradigm. Using YouTube, no less!

Salman Khan at TED

Here's the story in a nutshell. Salman Khan, living in Boston started tutoring his cousins living in New Orleans, remotely. As a supplement, he started posting video tutorials on YouTube as something they could refer back to. To his chagrin, his cousins told him that they preferred him on YouTube than in person. Kahn quickly understood the real lesson in this: they could learn at their own pace (stop, pause or fast forward) and didn't have someone breathing down their neck asking: "Do you get it?" all the time.

Too Young for Facebook

I'm so glad we haven't let our 12 year old onto Facebook yet although she'll probably be driving before she's 16.
Facebook Users Who Are Underage Raise Concerns

Foursquare for Homework?

I just attended a talk by the co-founder/CEO of Foursquare - Dennis Crowley - who happens to look like Justin Bieber's older brother and is probably just as wealthy. For those not familiar, Foursquare is a location based social network that allows users to "check in" at various venues - bars, restaurants, the gym - and keep track of their friends' whereabouts. Users who check-in often can earn free drinks and other prizes and the person who checks in most frequently at any particular venue earns the title of Mayor.

The Techno Nag

In the 4 weeks my daughter was at sleep-away camp I received exactly two letters in the mail. I wasn’t sure how she would survive the no-technology policy at camp but it turns out that she survived pretty well. I’m the one that suffered from withdrawal.

Buzz: The Saga Continues

When Ruby saw that I had joined her Buzz network she wasn't happy.
“Stay out of my life.”
“But I’m dong research for my blog.”
“Go and practice on another kid then. You’re ruining my life!”

The Buzz on Buzz

I’m still persona non grata in my household after deactivating my 11-year old’s Facebook account but I’m beginning to think that I needn’t have bothered. It seems that Facebook is losing some ground to Buzz - Google’s latest foray into social networking. Ruby and her friends are swarming all over it. 

Homework Helper

It started innocuously enough with the back-to-school supply list for 5th Grade. It had only one item – a USB flash drive. “What a great idea,” I thought. “Ruby could transfer homework back and forth between home and school computers and, unless we inherited a dog like Marley, the classic ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse could never apply.”

Parental Lapse

In a moment of weakness today, I let my (younger than legal age) daughter create a Facebook account. I was on Facebook myself and had just read a post that my cousin-in law’s photos were featured in the New York Times.  I called Ruby over to have a look.


One thing led to another and then boom, the question I’d been dreading: “Can I have a Facebook account?” I knew the answer - “NO. Not until you’re legal and that isn’t until you’re 13” - but recently I’d been losing my conviction.  So many of her school buddies belonged that I was feeling that she might be left out (although that was likely me projecting my own insecurities). Also, I reasoned to myself, if I let her join I could teach her the rules while she’d still let me.

The Kid Talks Back

Ok, so you probably know who I am.  Ruby (a.k.a. the tween). Parents, it is ok to let your kids read this one. I have been meaning to write a post for a while and my mom wants me to do a book report on this book "A girl's smart guide to the internet." But I think I will get to that in another post (don't worry, I will have more posts). 

The Dog Ate My Homework

This morning I had to write the modern day equivalent of “the dog ate my homework” letter to Ruby’s home room teacher but this time the blame went to the internet. Or lack of it. Our connection went down last night throwing us both into a panic. I couldn’t access the recipe I was planning to make for dinner. Our Vonage phone line was down. But, most punishing (or rewarding) of all, Ruby couldn’t access her homework, which is posted daily to her school’s intranet site.

Facebook Tops 100 Million U.S. Users

Facebook has crossed the 100-million-user mark in the U.S. a week after announcing it had surpassed 350 million members worldwide. More startling, however, is the fact that if FaceBook were a country it would be the 5th most populous in the world.

According to Comscore, 52% of Facebook users are between 18 and 34 years old and 19% are 35 to 44 but what I really want to know is how many Facebook users are tweens (10 -12 year olds).

A Rite of Passage

My daughter experienced a major rite of passage this past weekend. And it wasn’t her bat mitzvah. She got her first cell phone and it makes my Blackberry Pearl look like child’s play.

Perils of Texting

Pause to Ponder, LG’s new campaign educating teens on the downsides of impulsive texting/ sexting might have been better targeted to celebrities and politicians given today’s article in the New York Times: Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar

Living Life Transparently

One of the hallmarks of “digital natives” is their capacity to live their lives transparently, online. For me, this generation gap is thrown into stark relief when my mom visits. She is constantly astounded by how much people reveal online. “But why on earth would anyone post this much information about themselves,“ she asks when I log on to Facebook to catch her up on my friends’ lives. (I’m scared to even tell her about Twitter). “Because it’s such a great way to keep current,” I counter. “To reconnect and stay connected, no matter what the distance between you.”

The Same Rules Apply

One Friday night, I arrived home from dinner with friends. My daughter was spending the weekend with her dad – alternate weekends off being the major perk of being a divorced mom. It was pretty late but I fired up my computer to catch up on some emails before going to bed. An IM instantly popped up on my screen: “Hi Mom. It’s me, Ruby.”

Living with a Foreigner

My daughter, a true New Yorker, often pokes fun at the quirky accent and idioms of her South African born mother. “Mom!! Waddya mean - don’t get your knickers in a twist?” But the truth is, I’m the one living with the foreigner.

OMG - My Digital Coach is a 10-year old!

Whenever I used to make a digital gaffe at work, I would joke - “Well, that’s what happens when your digital coach is a 10-year old!” Little did my colleagues know the truth behind my bravado. And little did I realize just how much my digital habits had been formed and informed by the tech-savvy 10-year old who shared my computer. Social networking? I learned the ropes on Club Penguin way before I had my own Facebook account. Shortcuts on my Mac? My digital coach taught me more in one tutorial than I had picked up in a lifetime. How to IM on Skype? Once again, geek-kid came to the rescue including a lesson on how to “moon’ someone with an emoticon, a skill I treasure to this day.