Technology is inevitable and even critical to our daily lives today and plays a vital role in our mental and physical existence in the world – it’s no longer “I think, therefore I am” but is “I digitize, therefore I am”. While technology offers a new and unlimited medium for information and knowled
Parents of teenagers would be able to relate to the scene in which their adolescent ward is staring into their homework, with their thoughts lightyears away. Occasional funk is nothing to be worried about – after all which of us does not need an occasional external motivator to get out of ennui? A t
Many parents do not allow their kids below 13 on social media (and rightly so) but cannot exclude all forms of communication. Emails are a good option here, because there is control on who can communicate with the kid, and emails could actually help the child develop communication skills, like writ
I remember a time in my life that as I closed my eyes to sleep, my brain filled with nursery rhymes and the alphabet song. Since I am a nerd, I decided to teach my kindergarten kid the periodic table song (yes, I see a psychologist's couch in my child's future). When I was too exhausted to entertain
During the Covid-19 pandemic, social media sites have become the top tools for communication. While teens can already use mainstream social media apps, younger children started finding other ways to keep in touch. Marco Polo is one of the new apps kids started using during the pandemic. But, before
Teenspeak in the digital era“WTH*” says my teen, as I pour water over her sleepy head. “KMN*”, she groans, when I remind her that online school starts in about thirty-six seconds, and says, “TSNF*”. *What-The-He##, Kill-Me-Now, That’s-So-Not-FairLiving with a teenager teaches me that this breed of
While the age of digital information is here to stay, and indeed benefits humanity in many ways, its risks to kids and adolescents cannot be stressed enough. One such risk is exposure of kids to age-inappropriate content such as pornography – the elephant in the room that must be tackled before th
Why is cyberbullying a serious problem?It is well-established, both objectively and from experience, that the effects of cyberbullying are serious and cannot be ignored. The effects of cyberbullying range from social withdrawal to suicides and are exacerbated by the boundaryless nature of the Intern
Screen Time is one tool that a majority of parents use today on iPhones and iPads. Right from monitoring iOS devices to tracking all the apps and the amount of time spent on them, Screen Time gives parents a report on what their kids have been up to and whether there’s any intervention required. But
The Roman poet Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (“Juvenal” in English) lived in the 2nd century AD. In his book of satirical poems, he wrote: Rarus enim ferme sensus communis - “common sense is generally rare”. Twenty centuries later, after we’ve sent man to the moon and connected the world in zettabytes o
Yubo, previously known as Yellow, is extremely popular among teens. A number of controversies erupted as soon as it started getting a large number of tween and teen users. It mimics adult social media & dating apps like Tinder and has been called out for being a dating app for teens. Parents, teache
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. No event in the near past has called for more extraordinary measures, than the enigmatic Covid-19 virus that has, apart from shattering lives and livelihoods, torn the fabric of normalcy in every walk of life.The difference between the current si
