Digital Smarts Blog

TikTok, a favorite social media platform of tweens and teens, is evolving from featuring short-form quirky clips to live video and content related to everything from sports and gaming to cooking, fashion and beauty, says Bryan Thoensen, head of content partnerships. The social platform expects to see expanded educational content, which would boost users' time on the app while helping creators monetize their efforts, and generating more ad dollars, he says. So expect your children may be spending more time on the app.

While stay-at-home orders are being lifted, one change in daily life that seems likely to stay is telehealth. Simply defined, telehealth is the use of digital devices to remotely access health care services, which has been very important during the lockdown, when going out of the house was not suggested. But like most uses of technology, there are pros and cons. Certainly some of the pros are convenience and accessibility since you can manage your health care visits without leaving the comfort of your home. Many a parent has been very grateful not to have to transport, particularly on public transportation, a sick child to the doctor on a cold or rainy day just to get a quick diagnosis. Another pro is that telehealth makes health care more accessible to more people, although it should be noted you do need a smart device to access most telehealth apps and not all adults in the US have or use the right kind of sophisticated technology and high speed Internet to connect.

Another con is patients often fail to notice or mention other symptoms that would be helpful to the doctor in a diagnosis. For example, the tone of a person’s skin, eyes, lips, and body could signify a certain disease, but their discoloration or lack of color might not be evident to a doctor on a video screen. That means that patients become an even bigger factor in their own diagnosis and may need some training to help with diagnosing.

While telehealth is useful during times like this, especially when traveling to and going inside a hospital could put a person at more risk of getting ill, it is important to recognize the limitations. Patients that need physical interaction with doctors for wound care, broken bones, procedures and more still need to stick to the traditional in person visits. Bear in mind that you should always weigh the pros and cons of whether you need to see a doctor in person and choose the one that would be best for you and your family's health and well-being.  

A new term – “freedom of reach” – is in circulation among those who are concerned about how social media sites are handling misinformation and inflammatory comments. Snapchat is the latest to try to answer the question of “freedom of reach versus freedom of speech” after Twitter has decided to label tweets from President Trump that it considers misleading or “glorifying violence”, and Facebook agonized but decided to do nothing. Snapchat’s approach is to no longer promote President Trumps’s verified Snapchat account. His account, RealDonaldTrump, will remain on the platform and continue to appear on search results. But he will no longer appear in the app’s Discover tab, which promotes news publishers, elected officials, celebrities, and influencers. “We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” Snapchat said in a statement. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.”

Since Snapchat is one of the social media sites used mainly by teens and young adults, the fairness of the “freedom of reach” question is one you might want to discuss with your children in the context of misinformation online. Snapchat isn’t deleting Trump’s account, and he is free to keep posting to existing followers. But to the extent that his Snapchat account grows in the future, it will be without Snapchat’s help. In Snapchat’s terms, the company has preserved Trump’s speech while making him responsible for finding his own reach. Trump’s campaign thinks this approach is unfair, but Snapchat has neatly sidestepped questions of censorship by not censoring the president at all. Instead the company has said that if you want to see the president’s snaps, you’ll have to go look for them on your own time.

The College Board announced recently that it is dropping plans to administer the SAT college-entrance exam remotely this year. At issue, the College Board said that students would have required three hours of uninterrupted Internet access, which may not be possible for all students.

Here is another vocabulary term you need to add to your lexicon – deepfakes. Deepfakes are images and audio pulled from social media accounts to create convincing videos – sometimes of people who never existed - for extortion, misinformation and disinformation. Deepfake technology enables anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to create realistic-looking photos and videos of people saying and doing things that they did not actually say or do. Cybercriminals are increasingly interested in the potential use of deepfake videos to pressure people into paying ransom or divulging sensitive information or to spread misinformation, Trend Micro reports, making the vetting of any information online or in media even more important.

And now for something completely different…Rick Crosslin, the resident scientist of a school district in Wayne Township, Ind., has developed a series of science experiments using eggs that students can try at home. Crosslin's "Egg Investigations!" can be seen on YouTube and this newscast, including lessons for making a raw egg turn rubbery, fitting a whole egg through the narrow opening of a glass bottle and getting an egg to float. Check out his other YouTube offerings as well.

It will be very interesting to see what effect the new Executive Order that President Trump signed recently targeting Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act has on cyberbullying and misinformation online. While you may have never heard of this section of the law, it was created almost 30 years ago to protect Internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them. But now it’s under threat by President Trump, who hopes to use this act to fight back against the social media platforms he believes are unfairly censoring him and other conservative voices. Some critics say he is trying to bully these platforms into letting him post anything he wants without correction or reprimand, even when he has broken a site’s rules about posting bullying comments or questionable information.

In a nutshell, Section 230 says that Internet platforms that host third-party content (for example, tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook, photos on Instagram, reviews on Yelp, or a news outlet’s reader comments) are not liable for what those third parties post (with a few exceptions). For instance, if a Yelp reviewer were to post something defamatory about a business, the business could sue the reviewer for libel, but it couldn’t sue Yelp. Without Section 230’s protections, the Internet as we know it today would not exist. If the law were taken away, many websites driven by user-generated content would likely be shut down. As Senator Ron Wyden, one of the authors of the Section 230 says about it, the law is both a sword and a shield for platforms: They’re shielded from liability for user content, and they have a sword to moderate it as they see fit.

That doesn’t mean Section 230 is perfect. Some argue that it gives platforms too little accountability, allowing some of the worst parts of the internet — think cyberbullying that parents or schools struggle to have removed or misinformation that stays online for all to see with little recourse— to flourish along with the best. Simply put, Internet platforms have been happy to use the shield to protect themselves from lawsuits, but they’ve largely ignored the sword to moderate the bad stuff their users upload. It is also important to remember that the cyberbullying that occurs is less than one tenth of one percent of all the traffic online, but it still is important for these sites to acknowledge their role and do more about it.

All that said, this protection has allowed the Internet to thrive. Think about it: Websites like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have millions and even billions of users. If these platforms had to monitor and approve every single thing every user posted, they simply wouldn’t be able to exist. No website or platform can moderate at such an incredible scale, and no one wants to open themselves up to the legal liability of doing so. But if that free flow of information and creativity goes away, our online world will be very different.

So where do we stand? While the executive order sounds strict ( and a little frightening with the government making “watch lists” of people who post or support “certain kinds” of content) , legal experts don’t seem to think much — or even any — of it can be backed up, citing First Amendment concerns. It’s also unclear whether or not the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to regulate Section 230 in this way, or if the president can change the scope of a law without any congressional approval.

Students from wealthier families are more likely to be engaging in remote instruction, according to a survey from the advocacy group ParentsTogether. Data shows that 83% of students from families earning more than $100,000 annually were participating in distance learning daily -- compared with 4 in 10 of the country's students from the poorest families accessing it about once a week or less. The survey also found big gaps reported by families whose children are in special education.

As the pandemic continues, online safety continues to be top of mind. Officer Travis Spencer, a school resource officer in Georgia, warns that whatever an online predator’s motivation, what they want most is information.  They are looking for the kind of information that will let them see into your life, find out where you live, what you like, and let them delve into your most personal thoughts and dreams. Spencer says “Let’s use TikTok for example. The background in your clip for example says a lot about where you are. Like my background right now shows where I work. So, if you were going to put up a very popular video with a current song, your backdrop will tell people not only who you are, but where you live. You might have a poster on the wall, certificate, or something with a school name. Predators will take that information to find out where you live and what you like. So, it’s incredibly dangerous.”

Remote learning is taking a toll on parents’ and students' mental and emotional health, say Peter Faustino, a school psychologist for a public school district in New York State, and Shawna Rader Kelly, a school psychologist in a Montana district. They share strategies to help teachers and parents identify kids who are disengaged, such as logging on for a class but not enabling audio or video, and suggest ideas for offering support.

In contrast, some students are thriving with remote learning, including some who have shown to be distracted or struggle in a traditional classroom environment, or who prefer to learn at their own pace. These turnarounds have also manifested among some teachers, who are faring well with less social interaction.

Parents are more invested than ever in what their children are learning during this period of prolonged school closures, and Katie Parsons, mother of 5 and editor of SmartBrief on EdTech, says technology providers should consider ways to better engage parents. Parsons - an education technology advocate- shares what this challenging situation has revealed to her and other parents, including that "edtech can do more," particularly when it comes to equity in education. She also discusses her view of the shortcomings of online learning and her belief that customized learning isn’t custom enough.

During the pandemic it has been almost inevitable that kids and adults are playing more games online. The usual top pieces of advice about keeping your kids safe with online games is to be familiar with the games they play, to play with them if possible, and to talk to them about how they feel about these games. With luck, parents may have had a little more time to do just that during the lockdown. Beyond that basic advice, there are several categories of things parents should also be thinking about:

1. Privacy

• Make sure your child picks a username that protects their identity. Try to pick something that has no clues to name, birthday, hometown, school or phone number. Be creative!
• Remind kids to never share with their password or gaming account with anyone else, even good friends. That password may be a way for a stranger to figure out passwords for other accounts if they are similar. Having that information, even if only for a “joke,” can let someone else use their account to harass, bully, or post inappropriate things.
• Kids are easily led into sharing little tidbits of information about their life but instruct them to keep any conversations with people they are playing with about the game itself. If someone starts asking personal questions, it might be best to stop talking to them.
• Most online games and gaming apps have privacy settings that you can set (an online search to help you find out how for any particular game). Many have privacy settings that have options for showing information such as when you're online and what games you're playing. Additionally, consider limiting who can play with your kids in the game.

2. Avoiding Cyberbullying

• Kids should understand that people can and do lie about who they are online, especially when they are playing games. While it is fun to talk to people kids meet while playing, it is smart to assume they are lying about who they are. They should always treat online “friends” as strangers and never agree to talk to or meet them in real life.
• Cyberbullies have discovered gaming is a great place to find targets. Your children need to know that they can tell you when someone is being mean to them online and that their experience isn’t going to bring an abrupt end to their gaming life. When they do tell you about an incident, talk to them about what happened and help them figure out how to block that person. Emphasize to them that it is never okay for someone to send mean messages or mistreat them while playing a game, but sometimes things can be said in the heat of the moment when someone is angry about losing. It is important for them to know that repeat patterns of harassment or abuse are not acceptable.
• Most important, keep talking to your kids about their gaming experiences. Reiterate the importance of protecting their personal information and listen carefully when they are talking about their online friends for any clues to that fact that there may be bullying going on. Ask if they have needed to block anyone. Questioning them about what their character in a game is currently doing can also help you decide if the game is appropriate for them.

3. Beware of Scams and Expenses

• Caution kids to avoid downloading tip or cheat sheets for online games as they may contain a virus or spyware, even if these come up in the game itself or appear on the website of the game developer.
• Help your children to review ratings and reviews on games before they play. Always make sure a game is appropriate for your child’s age range. Make sure that other players say they enjoyed the game and did not experience technical issues.
• Turn off in-app purchases so your child can’t run up a bill. Some games are free to download and may also offer free game play. However, these games are often set up for in-app purchases if players want access to higher levels. Your child may accidentally make expensive in-app purchases while they’re playing, which can result in a huge bill. Open the app or mobile settings on your child’s phone and switch off in-app purchases
• Other players may offer to sell your children characters or gear, but as with anything on the Internet, it may not be what it seems. Be sure to research that the person is active on gaming sites and has been around long enough to have the characters or gear they’re selling. It’s better to pay through a service like PayPal so you can file a claim if the person is scamming you.

4. Set Limits and Offer Breaks

• Gaming is fun, but kids can get carried away and not realize how long they are playing. Limit how much time your child can play in a single session.
• Tell you children they can’t play games until their homework or chores are done.
• Offer alternative activities like getting outside to play catch, take a walk, play with the dog, etc.
• Make sure your kids are taking breaks when they are tired, hungry, or getting frustrated by a game.

Filament Games, a game-based learning development company, has released a list of free learning games in multiple subjects, including life science, media and news literacy, math, and women in STEM. Some examples of these unique games are Rigged, by Bellweather Partners -- which teaches about poverty and the impact of decisions; and Beats Empire, from Teachers College at Columbia University, which lets players learn about running a music studio and record label. The free list includes games for all ages across a range of subjects.

Two months ago if you asked a teen or young adult to call someone on the phone they most likely would have looked at you like you were crazy, preferring communicating by text or social media instead. Now in the solitude of quarantine, a craving for intimacy and personal connection means people want to hear each other's voices and see each other's faces more than ever. In an article on the rewriting of social connections during the crisis, cultural anthropologist Megan Routh describes the ways the pandemic is reshaping the way people connect with each other, including the democratization of online communities as people turn to social platforms for interaction (i.e. anonymous Zoom dance parties). She writes that young and old consumers alike are rejecting aspirational content from social influencers and instead are seeking relatable content that reflects real life, seeking optimism instead of snark and having more respect for facts.

Telehealth with a live health care provider is proving to be a lifesaver during this pandemic, but it seems computers aren’t going to be taking over the medical field anytime soon. An analysis of 36 international mobile and web-based medical apps found that online symptom checkers that provide diagnosis or triage advice come up with the correct diagnosis as the first result only 36% of the time, and as one of the top three results only 52% of the time. Advice to seek medical attention for emergency and urgent conditions was correct 60% of the time, but accuracy was only 30% to 40% for nonurgent care, researchers reported in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Check out some of the latest digital educational resources for kids:

• Summer Camp Hub shares four free virtual summer camps for students. The camps focus on different themes and offer activities in STEM, art, space, nature and music, among others. 
• Reading Eggs is offering several free educational printouts for reading and math, including Alphabet iSpy placemats and a phonics book for kindergarteners. Teachers and parents can also sign up to get a free 30-day trial.
• Money Experience’s Essentials program is a self-paced financial literacy course designed for students and young adults ages 15-24. The program walks users through different milestones -- including education, jobs, retirement and family -- and demonstrates how the decisions made at each point can affect their long-term financial health and lifestyle goals. The program is free to high schools and colleges through the end of June.

Tech companies have been creating apps and devices for tracking employee wellness and promoting customer safety as restaurants and other businesses start to reopen, but experts caution that they could give employees and customers a false sense of security and possibly do more harm than good. "Some companies are embarking upon things that are not going to help and may actually set us back," said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Tools that the technology relies on, such as antibody test results and infrared thermometers, can be inaccurate, leading to a false sense of security.

Facebook is combating hate speech and misinformation by developing natural language processing models and a database of meme examples for training artificial intelligence moderators. The company, together with DrivenData, will also launch the Hateful Meme Challenge, which will award $100,000 to researchers who develop AI models that can detect hate speech in memes.

You’ve most likely had the discussion with your children not to believe everything they read on the Internet, and especially with the digital world that we are in, that you cannot believe everything you see. Image manipulation has become commonplace and has become increasingly common in scientific research as well, with images duplicated, manipulated and/or "borrowed" from other data sets. Elisabeth Bik has become one of the world's preeminent image sleuths because of her amazing ability to spot fraudulent images that accompany scientific research. A recent article talks about her unique skill set, how she got into the field, and how her sleuthing capabilities have become so prized. It may make you think that we all need to pay more attention to what we see online. Could you be an image sleuth? The article includes an interactive test you can take to see if you can spot 5 duplicated images.

The coronavirus tracking apps coming onto the market, initially hailed as an important tool for containment of the virus, have quickly encountered fears about privacy, cybersecurity and effectiveness. Tracking apps are already in use in Australia, India, China, Singapore and South Korea, and under development in France and Germany. In the United States, tech giants Google and Apple are teaming up to develop “exposure notification” software for use in iOS and Android apps. The technology uses Bluetooth signals to determine the distance between phones. A person with a confirmed case of coronavirus can automatically send notifications to other phones with the contact tracing app, alerting users that they may have been exposed to the virus. The software, which is in beta testing, will be shared with local health departments. Apple and Google say location services will not be used and any personal data would be anonymized and stay on the user’s phone, rather than going to a centralized database. However, researchers say that anonymized data can be reverse-engineered and mined for valuable particulars including gender, age and marital status.