Digital Smarts Blog

A study in the Journal of Adolescent Health evaluated survey data involving close to 75,000 eighth and tenth grade students and found that everyday social media use was not linked to depressive symptoms after accounting for the fact that those with frequent social media use already had worse mental health to begin with. "Daily social media use does not capture the diverse ways in which adolescents use social media, which may be both positive and negative depending on the social context," said senior author Katherine Keyes.

It’s back to school – in some form or another – but bullying and cyberbullying can still happen with virtual schooling, and for those attending in-person, there is another factor as well – masks. Mask bullying is a little different and is, as experts put it, “a response to political differences, versus dominance and power dynamics associated with popularity for children." Of course, any form of bullying, about masks or anything else, has the potential to negatively affect the school year and learning, "since social humiliation or bullying will reduce opportunities for learning for children who are targeted," says Dr. Joel Haber, a cyberbullying expert who founded the site Respect U. Parents should also be aware that mask bullying will not take place just in person, but will potentailly spill over to cyberbullying as well.

If your child is going back to in-school classes, you should know that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has even gone as far as adding to their web site some advice on the subject. "Stigma, discrimination, or bullying may arise due to wearing or not wearing a cloth face covering. Schools should have a plan to prevent and address harmful or inappropriate behavior. Not all families will agree with school policies about cloth face coverings. Schools should have a plan to address challenges that may arise and refer parents, caregivers, and guardians to CDC’s guidance on cloth face coverings.”

To ensure your network can handle family members using it for work and school at the same time, take a look at this article for tips before your family’s usage gets heavy. Place your router in a central location and set it up for both 2.4 and 5 GHz channels. If you're still experiencing lag, it may be time for an upgraded router.

Over the past eight years, more than 137 million students and teachers around the world have used free resources from CK-12, including digital books (“Flexbooks”), adaptive practice exercises and science simulations. Officials report registrations for the service are up 460% since the coronavirus pandemic. Check it out whether you are doing virtual learning or need a supplement for science and math.

According to a study by Rutgers University, the fact that kids can so easily find information online is  hurting students' long-term retention and even resulting in lower grades on exams. During the most recent two years of the study, when students were asked how they did their homework, students who benefitted from homework reported generating their own answers and students who reported copying the answers from another source did not see the same retention of information. Of course, this calls into question the kinds of queries that are part of homework. If students are able to just plug in an answer, and are not being asked to do any critical thinking about the content or context, then it probably does make the information fairly forgettable. Something to think about as you help kids with virtual learning this school year.

Popular gaming platform Roblox is under scrutiny over so-called "condo games" that could expose young users to naked figures, simulated sex and crude language. Operators of Roblox say the platform, which enables users to program their own games and play games created by others, is used by at least half of American kids under age 16. Roblox is often played on a smartphone, tablet or laptop, and enables kids to create themselves as virtual characters and explore different environments, pretend they are superheroes, raise pets and even invent their own games. Some of these games, according to an article published in Fast Company, are written in computer code that bypasses Roblox's child safety filters (known as “condo games”) and could expose children to inappropriate images and scenarios in the game.

Many parents are pressing social media companies to clamp down on cyberbullying and misinformation and most social media sites give lots of lips service to the fact that they are doing more about it or stepping up enforcement. But what does that actually look like? Take a look at Twitter’s new Transparency Report with sections dedicated to various elements of enforcement. Over the most recent six months, Twitter has been working to enforce various elements of concern, including discussion around the #BlackLivesMatter movement, misinformation around COVID-19, and controversial, divisive political content - including commentary from the US President. 

Chinese-owned ByteDance has until Nov. 12 to divest its U.S. TikTok operations, per an executive order by President Donald Trump. TikTok, the personal video sharing site, is particularly popular with tweens and teens. In issuing the order, which also requires ByteDance to destroy all data on U.S. TikTok users, Trump said, "There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance ... might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States." The question for parents, of course, is what app will teens and tweens put their energy into if TikTok goes away.

High-school students across the country are signing petitions and addressing school boards and leaders to demand changes to how Black history is taught, and increase diversity in reading lists with more books written by people of color. Social media has helped fuel the student activism, with protests spread across the US. Schools are expecting social media is going to continue to be a conduit of students protest and activism as the elections approach.

Public health officials and health care professionals say their advice is being undermined and their jobs are complicated by rampant misinformation on social media about the novel coronavirus. A study estimates that at least 800 people worldwide died in the first quarter of this year after following advice on social media to drink highly concentrated alcohol to kill the virus, and physicians say patients are demanding unproven treatments and accusing them of lying. Keep talking to your kids about misinformation online and how to vet and evaluate sources.

Teachers, students and parents in remote learning environments have plenty to juggle -- including cybersecurity. Ryan Cloutier of SecurityStudio outlines three steps everyone can take to create a more cybersecure learning environment including how to know your personal risk, how to understand and avoid scams and how to protect personal digital devices.

As some schools prepare for a return to remote instruction, Google recently announced 50 new features -- including a widget that will help students manage assignments -- on its Classroom and Meet platforms. Google also will help support online learning with the release of a new Assignments app and a digital toolkit for families.

A study by the National Literacy Trust in the UK challenges stereotypes about young gamers. The new research finds that there are many benefits students get from playing video games . 2 in 5 gamers reporting being motivated to read and look up news sources after playing. About 5,000 players aged 11 to 16 were included in the study, which also found that students improved their emotional well-being and developed empathy in the process of playing games.

Although schools across the country are varying in their approach to safety during the pandemic, many colleges campuses are still active. With the addition of new “touchless” technologies, concerns about facial recognition software continue to come up. A study from the University of Michigan, confirmed the noting that facial recognition technology has the potential to display racism and other prejudice, as the facial recognition is less accurate for people of color, children, women and other groups

Sadly, 48% of US teens who have been in a romantic relationship say they have been stalked or experienced harassment after the relationship ended. The rise of social media seems to play a huge role in this alarming stat because it presents so many more communication channels for harassment and/or virtual stalking. Lessons for parents? Pay attention to what’s going on, and be there to guide tweens and teens if there are signs that a relationship is becoming unhealthy.

Kidsay, a market research firm specializing in brand engagement for kids, tweens and teens, has a new report entitled Devices and Digital Engagement: The Impact of COVID-19 (So Far) on Device Use of Kids, Tweens and Teens that you can access for free if you sign up. Some takeaways include that smartphone use (and ownership) is on the rise, especially in the 5-to-7-year-old demographic and that 74% of tweens and teens say that they are using their favorite devices more often during COVID that they were pre-COVID. Predictions for the future in the report include: eSports will continue to grow its youth base, animation will become even more prominent in kid-centered content (since it does not require filming on location the way live action does), and TikTok and Instagram will continue to rise since they deliver the connection and content kids seek. Kidsay also says that in the near term, kids will continue to have an unprecedented amount of free time, causing increased parental concern for the amount of time they spend on their devices.

With talk about whether TikTok is going to be sold or banned, it is important to remember what the debate is all about – privacy. Read this quick update on the status of the complaints against TikTok (written for teachers but relevant to parents) because with kids online more this upcoming school year, it is important to know what privacy concerns on this popular app are at stake.

As kids across the country are getting ready to go back to school, one page you may want to bookmark is a free web site called ASSISTments. The site offers students math homework hints that have been crowdsourced from teachers using that particular math curriculum. So far research has shown students answer problems correctly in 58% of cases, compared with 54% for those without access to the hints, according to a forthcoming study. Neil Heffernan, a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts who established the program, says that more importantly is to determine whether the hints help students complete more math homework, rather than giving up when they get stuck.

With even more purchasing being done online, the FBI is warning online shoppers to be on the alert for fraudulent e-commerce websites that offer what appear to be great deals but never deliver the merchandise. The sites are typically accessed through social media or search engine shopping pages, and have privately registered domains with URLs ending in .top or .club. Take a look at the FBI posting to for tips on how not to get scammed and ideas on what to do if you have an issue with one of these sites.

More than two-thirds of US parents surveyed by Pew Research Center have concerns about what is advertised to children on YouTube. Hispanic parents -- at 74% -- rated highest in concern in the "Parenting Children in the Age of Screens" study of 4,000 parents in March. The study found many parents are also acutely concerned that their children will encounter "inappropriate content" while surfing on YouTube or in th etypes of videos that are recommended to them based on YouTube's algorithms.