Meta’s Threads hits 100m Users – What is it?

Signing up with Threads

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, officially launched Threads, its competitor to Twitter.

Threads has amassed over 100 million sign-ups in less than a week. It’s the fastest launch ever for a social media platform. Everyone from famous brands, celebrities, journalists, and other notable accounts has joined the platform. It’s like a new shiny store has opened and everything is rushing in to see what the hype is about. Will this replace Twitter? Become another social media monster on its own? The timing couldn’t be better as Elon Musk has many twitter users feeling uneasy the social giant seems to move as Elon feels.

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Book: Growing Up Social by Gary Chapman

Growing up social by Gary Chapman & Arlene Pellicane - Children

Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen Driven World.

How is social media influencing the dynamics within your family?
Do digital devices foster closeness or create distance?

While we may all know the right answer, we acknowledge the immense challenge of resisting the pervasive digital era we live in. In a world that is constantly rushing, it becomes incredibly convenient to momentarily occupy a child with a screen, enabling us to attend to household chores, cooking, and the demands of daily life.

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Instagram’s New Tool to Protect Teenagers

Instagram

Instagram announced several new features to protect teenagers.

One of the more intriguing changes will be the inability of adults to direct message (DM) teenagers (users under 18 years old) who don’t follow them. If an adult tries to DM a teenager who does not follow them, they will be shown a “You can’t message this account unless they follow you” prompt. Teenagers will be shown safety notices when messaging adults they do not follow.

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Tik Tok Announces new Family Safety Mode for Parents

Tik Tok Logo Family Parent Restriction

TikTok announced a family-safe feature that allows parents to limit their children’s screen time. This would allow parents to set a time limit for video views. Previously parents could only use this time limit on themselves, but now they can do it for their entire family.

The Family Safe Mode also allows the restriction of inappropriate content as well as restrictions on who they can send direct messages to.

This is now available in UK but plans are to roll this out to other countries soon.

Parents rejoice. Children’s cry. But parenting is parenting.

Enough? Not enough? What kind of screen control would be the most ideal?

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Youtube to ban disturbing children videos… finally.

https://mashable.com/article/youtube-bans-disturbing-kids-videos/
IMAGE: THOMAS TRUTSCHEL / GETTY

Youtube announced this week that they will no longer allow videos that target children that include certain disturbing content. For years, youtube had been criticized for allowing disturbing content targeting children to be circulated.

The policy notes describe disturbing content as “… that contains mature or violent themes that explicitly targets younger minors and families in the title, description and/or tags will no longer be allowed on the platform…”

You can read more: Youtube bans disturbing kid videos

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Increased youth suicide rates linked to Netflix ’13 Reasons Why’

Study associating youth suicide with Netflix '13 reasons why'
Study associating youth suicide with Netflix ’13 reasons why’ – Image: Beth Dubber/Netflix

Two separate studies were released assessing the monthly suicide rates among various age groups with the release of the Netflix show ’13 Reasons Why’. The popular Netflix show depicted the suicide of its main protagonist which had alarmed mental health experts who were concerned about how this may influence and it’s effect on young viewers. The first study found that the suicide rate among 10 to 17-year-olds boys increased significantly in the month after the release and remained higher for the subsequent 2 months. They found no significant changes in the suicide rates among older age ranges. The second study, conducted by a separate team, came to the same conclusion. In the 3 months after the Netflix show’s release, youth suicide rate for 10 to 19-year-olds rose by 13%. This study was done on both male and female youths.

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Top global brand ranking changes 2000-2019 [Infographic]

Check out this amazing infographic of the top global brand rankings from 2000 to 2019 released by Interbrand. You can watch the top list go from global brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and good ol’ Nokia to the rise of some small startups you may have heard called Apple, Google, and Facebook.

Any surprises? Any nostalgia?

 

Follow @cleancutmedia on twitter.

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Limiting screen time or parenting screen time?

The New Childhood by Jordan ShapiroThe overuse of technology has overtaken drugs, sex and bullying as the biggest parental worry, according to the annual Brigham Young and Deseret News American Family Survey.

So what should we do about it? Should we limit screen time? Take away their phones?

Jordan Shapiro, a Temple University professor’s suggest something different. In his new book, The New Childhood, his argument is that we’re not spending enough screen time with our kids. “One of the things I suggest in the book is that kids should be starting on social media much younger,” he says. And, play more video games with your kids, too.

After Shapiro’s divorce, he found himself solo parenting two little boys (now 11 and 13) who were obsessed with video games. He started playing the games simply as a way to connect with them… He came to realize that part of his job as a parent was to help his children make sense of their online experiences and teach them how to uphold enduring values in the new world they are living in.

Check out the book here: https://amzn.to/2sSTxM3

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Vitaminwater offers $100,000 for being off the smartphone for a year

Smartphone Addiction Train Station

No smartphone for $100,000?

Could you live without your smartphone for a year? Vitaminwater has $100,000 that says you cannot.

Unfortunately, only one contestant will be chosen and considering the press they are looking for, I would venture to guess they will select a young millennial. Vitaminwater will select a contestant around January 22nd. The contestant will be given a phone from the 90s and for a year will not be allowed to use any smartphones or tablets, whether it is their own or someone else’s. They will be allowed to use their desktops and laptops.

In case you were wondering about loopsholes… the contestant will be required to take a lying detector test at the end of the contest year.

Want to enter?: Enter the Smartphone Contest

Read more here: Vitaminwater is offering $100,000 if you can stay off smartphones for a year

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Video “gaming disorder” now an official mental health condition

Teen Game Controller - Gaming Disorder

Video “gaming disorder” now an official mental health condition

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced “gaming disorder” as a new mental health condition in it’s latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases.

Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, a member of the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, was the one to propose the inclusion of this diagnosis to the World Health Assembly. Dr. Poznyak said part of the purpose was so health professionals will be more “alerted to the existence of this condition” and can get help as needed.

Gaming disorder has been defined “as a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interest and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences”.

For gaming disorder to be officially disagnosed, the “behavior pattern must be sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months”

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Apple’s Screen Time app to help curb screen addiction

Apple Screen Time iPhone Addiction

Apple’s Screen Time to Help iPhone Addiction

At the latest WWDC 2018 Conference, Apple announce a few upcoming iOS 12 apps to help curb our iPhone screen addiction. Screen addiction and it’s negative affects on both children and adults is widely documented. It’s also not as well known that many tech execs including Steve Jobs severely limited their own kids from using their own devices due to it’s addictive effects.

The new Apple Screen Time App will allow you to see how much time you are spending on your iPhone and what you apps you are spending time on. It will also allow parents to limit their children’s use of apps by putting specific time limits for individual apps. For example you can put an hour limit on Facebook or an hour limit on Snapchat or a game app. You can also designate “downtime” where the device will be blocked and can only be used if they request permission. Of course you can do it for yourself as well!

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