A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

Description: The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them.

Source: NYTimes.com

Date: Oct 26. 2018

A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.

“Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little,” said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. “If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more.”

Ms. Stecher, 37, and her husband, Rushabh Doshi, researched screen time and came to a simple conclusion: they wanted almost none of it in their house. Their daughters, ages 5 and 3, have no screen time “budget,” no regular hours they are allowed to be on screens. The only time a screen can be used is during the travel portion of a long car ride (the four-hour drive to Tahoe counts) or during a plane trip.

Recently she has softened this approach. Every Friday evening the family watches one movie. read rest of story

Questions:
1.  Will you buying your future children smartphones? Why or why not?

2.  How does this make you feel about your own smart phone usage?

Uber Explained

Description: Uber and black cars and taxis, oh my! The latest video in our Mashable Explains series takes a look at how Uber works for both employer and consumer.

Source: Mashable.com

Date: Oct 9, 2014
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Questions for discussion:

1.  Describe Uber?
2.  Would you use Uber? Why?
3.  Is Uber an example of dis-intermediation? explain

Google Opens Universal Analytics Beta To All

Description: Google has just released their newest version of Google Analytics called Universal Analytics. This new software bridges the gap between online and offline behavior tracking.

Source: TechCrunch.com

Date: March 22, 2013

Last October, Google announced the limited beta of Universal Analytics, an effort to bring new features like cross-platform and mobile app analytics, as well as the ability to incorporate data from offline sources, to Google Analytics. Today, it is opening up Universal Analytics to all Google Analytics customers.  Read Rest of Story.

Questions for discussion:

1. What is replacing the standard Analytics cookie and what benefit does this new technology bring?

2. What does Google’s new protocol allow for?

Facebook May Soon Be Tracking You At All Times

Description: Facebook already knows who all of your friends are, when you broke up with your last girlfriend/boyfriend and what you did or wish you didn’t do on spring break last year. But if that wasn’t enough, Facebook may soon be tracking you at all times.

Source: Forbes.com

Date: Feb 5, 2013

Facebook users have already been voluntarily “Checking-In” to the social networking site to update statuses with a current location. This new app will take this idea into a more extreme direction and remove the voluntary part of the equation. It will be interesting to see what users are OK with Facebook knowing where they are some of the time, but not all of the time. Then there’s similar apps by Apple and Google that track and record user’s locations in order to share with friends.

In an effort to increase its mobile product, while also increasing revenue across all platforms, a Facebook tracking app makes a lot of sense — though it may be better for the social networking site’s advertisers rather than its users. Read Rest of Story 

  Questions for discussion:

1. Facebook is “developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users … even when the program isn’t open on a handset.”   Is this a good thing?  Why or Why Not

2.  How do you feel this will accepted in the marketplace?

Silencing the Smartphone

Description: some companies are adopting policies aimed at weaning employees from their electronic devices.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Date: Dec 31, 2012

A study conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found that while mobile phones were valued as a way to stay productive, there were downsides to being available at all times. The nationwide survey of 2,254 adults found that 44 percent of cellphone owners had slept with their phone next to their bed and that 67 percent had experienced “phantom rings,” checking their phone even when it was not ringing or vibrating. Still, the proportion of cellphone owners who said they “could live without it” has gone up, to 37 percent from 29 percent in 2006. Read Rest of Story 

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you feel organizations would gain benefits by limited their employees’ exposure to mobile devices? Why or Why not?

2.  What is your best reason or evidence that mobile devices affect either productivity or non productivity in the workplace?

Cell phones are driving friends away!

Description: It’s probably better to talk: How checking our phones 60 times a day is driving away friends
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Date: Dec 1, 2012

 

Young people’s attachment to their mobile phones is eroding their personal relationships, according to a new study.  The claims come after research revealed that young adults – in addition to sending over 100 texts – check their mobile up to 60 times a day.  Experts behind a new study have now said compulsively checking a mobile phone is an addiction similar to compulsive spending or credit card misuse.  Read Rest of Story

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you feel cell phone usage has a detrimental affect on personal relationship development?  Why or Why Why not?

2.  Should young people be regulated as to how much usage of their cell phones they are allowed?  Who should be doing the regulating?