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.

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 …

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…

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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”.

At the latest WWDC 2018 Conference, Apple announce upcoming iOS 12 apps to help curb our iPhone screen addiction. Screen addiction and it’s 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.

An app called “Hold” launched in Norway in 2016, targeting college students. The app is simple in that it rewards users with discounts to businesses for staying off their phones…

A new study on teen smartphone usage from San Diego State University showed that teens who spent more time on their smartphones were markedly unhappier. Professor Jean M. Twenge analyzed data of a survey given to more than a million U.S. 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. This survey asked the youth about their phone, tablet and computer usage as well as various questions about their happiness, relationships and social interactions…

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Did you know almost 7 in 10 middle and high school students are exposed to e-cigarette ads. E-cigarette advertising dollars have risen from $6.4 million in 2011 to $115 million in 2014…

It’s done. California has passed legislation that will allow terminally ill patients to legally choose to end their lives using doctor-prescribed drugs. Jerry Brown an announcement today (OCT 5th) that he has signed this bill…

Non-pology is where a person seems to apologizes but carefully crafts their words to not take any responsibility for what had happened and thus maintain their innocence and their pride. Politicians do it all the time. So do athletes. So do many ordinary people. We hear it all the time, though we might not always catch it. Some examples:

How many of you read on your iPhone or iPad before going to bed?

Check some news?
Check your facebook?
Check your email?
Play some Angry Birds? Flappy Birds? Big Birds?
Poke around your apps for no good reason and waste a good 30 minutes?
Then feel tired the next day regretting it all?

Well guess what. It isn’t just the 30 minutes (or 2 hours) sleep you had lost. Additional New research suggest the problem is much more serious.

“I feel a certain contradiction when I look at the picture,” Yen told National Geographic. “On the one hand, I feel the liberating gift of technology. On the other hand, I feel people don’t even try to be neighborly anymore, because they don’t have to.”