Police Blame Video Games For 2-Year-Old Stabbing 5-Month-Old

from the evidence? dept

It seems that whenever there's any kind of violence involving kids, someone rushes to blame video games. Steve L points us to the latest such case, where it's taken to something of an extreme. Apparently a 2-year-old boy stabbed his 5-month-old brother with a knife. It sounds like he didn't do much damage, but police immediately claimed that violent video games owned by a much older teenaged brother "may have played a role." The only problem? The 2-year-old neither plays the games nor watches his older brother playing them. But, why not blame the video games?

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Bad Idea: UK Launches Database Of Info On Every Child

from the who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea? dept

Apparently, some folks in the UK haven't yet realized that no database is fully secure, and any large database of info will almost certainly be abused at some point. In what appears to be a stunningly bad idea, the UK has put together a giant database including info on every child in the UK. The goal is for it to be used by childcare professionals, but you can bet it will be misused quite soon. As internet law expert Michael Scott notes: "Who thought this was a good idea? And why?"

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New Jersey The Latest To Try To Regulate Social Networks... For The Children

from the please-make-it-stop dept

We've seen a number of attempts by politicians to use the latest "moral panic" around social networks to pass regulations against them. A popular one at the federal level which still (thankfully) has gone nowhere is DOPA, which would require schools and libraries to block social networks. However, state politicians want to get in on the grandstanding as well. Politicians in New Jersey are pushing a law that would require social networks to include a "report abuse" button on web pages and then would make those social networks responsible to investigate each reported "abuse" or face liability.

The unintended consequences of such a law would be awful. Basically, to protect liability, many "social networks" (and the term may be broadly applied to an awful lot of websites out there today) would most likely just shut down the accounts of those accused of "abuse." From a simple liability standpoint that makes sense. Leaving the account up just opens you up to a lawsuit. Furthermore, the button would likely be abused itself. Don't like someone? Click the "report abuse" button! And, no matter what, it makes no sense to put the burden of investigating things on the sites themselves. Hopefully this law goes nowhere, but don't be surprised to see similar proposals pop up elsewhere as well.

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Do Game Consoles Sold In Europe Have Power Buttons?

from the dept-of-redundancy dept

As Mike noted earlier, a new EU study says that video games are good for kids. But the BBC picked up on another angle of the report, saying that games should have a "red button" parents can press to disable inappropriate games their kids are playing. That makes you wonder: if game consoles sold in Europe don't have power buttons, how do people there turn them on? Because isn't that what such a "red button" would be, just a good ol' power switch? Ok, to be fair, many consoles' power buttons these days aren't red, but still -- if parents need a way to stop their kids playing, new laws or rules to force console makers to add a "red button" are pretty unnecessary when parents already have the ability to turn the consoles or computers off. But a law forcing parents to take responsibility is a much harder sell than putting blame on the game makers.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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The Importance Of Pop Culture In A Child's Imagination

from the stop-the-moral-panics dept

There's a long tradition of many parents whining about whatever pop cultural element is enticing their children -- mainly just because it's different than the type of cultural elements they had when they were kids. In some cases, it even reaches the point of a moral panic. However, reader ChurchHatesTucker writes in to point to news concerning some research done into fandom around the Harry Potter series, which basically found that children need pop culture in their lives, as a way of building up their imaginations, and creating the framework for their own storytelling activities. It doesn't seem to matter much the quality of the content -- just that it gives the kids something to work with in order to craft their own imaginative worlds.

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Is Kids' Openness About Risky Activities Good Or Bad?

from the just-wondering... dept

There's a moral panic style study being released that claims that many teens "display risky behavior" on MySpace. Of course, when you look at the details, it's not quite so fear-inducing at all. Basically, some kids talk about drinking, drugs and sex online. That's nothing new. But the way this study is being presented, it makes it sound as if the risky behavior is the fact that kids are talking about this stuff. The article doesn't talk about the actual drugs and sex so much as the talking about it, as if that's the problem:

Many young people who use social networking sites such as News Corp's MySpace do not realize how public they are and may be opening themselves to risks

That seems backwards to me. It would seem a lot better to find out that kids are actually talking about this stuff openly, where they can (hopefully) get good advice to keep themselves safe, rather than keeping quiet and experimenting totally in secret. Yes, there definitely are some risks involved in talking about this stuff publicly. For years, we've wondered what will happen when the MySpace generation runs for office, and we've also seen how social networking profiles can be used against an individual in pursuing a career. Of course, there are some who wonder if this widespread openness will lead to a more accepting population. For example the fact that Barack Obama used cocaine at one point in his life was barely mentioned at all during the campaign -- in part because he had openly admitted to it years earlier. It's only the surprise "gotcha" type info that seems to cause real problems.

That isn't to say that kids today shouldn't be at least aware of the potential consequences of over-sharing information, but I worry that a study like the one being discussed here leads to eventual misplaced blame and worries over a problem that might not be nearly as significant as some make it out to be.

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Yet Another Study Shows That Social Networks Are Good For Kids

from the yet-politicians-still-want-them-blocked-in-schools dept

This has been covered before, of course, but it's always good to see more research on the subject. The MacArthur Foundation has just released Mizuko Ito's latest study about online socializing, and found that it's an important and healthy part of youth communications these days, and politicians and parents who freak out over the amount of time kids spend chatting with each other online are overreacting. Hopefully, with more studies like this, we can get politicians to stop trying to ban social networks in school, and recognize that it can be a healthy part of the way kids communicate.

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Yet Another Study Points Out That Video Games Aren't Evil

from the and-again-and-again-and-again dept

We've seen a bunch of similar studies over the years, but the folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project are out with their latest study noting that video games don't turn kids into isolated angry loners unfit to deal with the real world. Yeah, that seems obvious, but you wouldn't know it listening to some of the rhetoric from politicians and anti-video game activists. What the study found, instead, was that nearly every child (both boys and girls) now plays some form of video game, and many of them use video games as a social activity to interact with their friends. Also, video gaming doesn't take away from other social activity. And, finally, video games are often useful tools for teaching kids decision making and how to approach moral dilemmas. Most of this shouldn't be all that surprising, but it's nice to see it confirmed by yet another study. Hopefully this means we're on the tail end of Congress blaming video games for things, and we can move on to the next technopanic.

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Should Kids Get Control Of Their Data When They Come Of Age?

from the but-Dad,-I-don't-want-them-spamming-me... dept

If you're under a certain age, websites (at least under the law in many countries) cannot collect data on you -- or are required to get "consent" from an adult first. However, that's leading to a separate discussion about whether or not kids should have the right to take back that data once they come of age. A parent may agree to share certain data about a kid with a certain website, but once that kid is old enough, what if he wants to revoke that permission? It may sound like a simple thing, but once that data is out there, getting it back is nearly impossible. Yet, some politicians are trying to make that the law, even though it will be almost impossible to enforce in many cases.

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Stealing Credit From A Baby

from the growing-concerns dept

With more publicity talking about identity fraud, and more people checking to make sure they haven't been victims of identity fraud scams, apparently the type of identity fraud that's on the rise is taking social security numbers from kids. It's still a small part of the total identity fraud problem, and it's not so much an online phenomenon as most cases involve family members, but it's much more problematic, as it's often not identified until many years later when the kid actually applies for a credit card. For all the data that the big credit firms keep on people, you would think they'd have something about a person's age.

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Do Parents Really Need An Online Test To Know If Their Kids Are Obese?

from the parenting-by-computer dept

We've seen all sorts of stories about governments trying to do a parent's job for them, but, honestly, do parents really need an online test to tell if their children are obese? The article is actually a little vague about what this "test" is. It sounds like kids in the UK are having their height and weight measured, with that info being sent to parents by mail. Parents are then urged to type the height and weight into an online system that will do a simple body mass index (BMI) calculation to tell you that the kid is obese. However, if you need a computer to tell you when your kid is obese then perhaps the real problem is your own eyesight. Do we have an online test for that?

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Press, Parents And 'Experts' Blew Online Safety Threat To Children Way Out Of Proportion

from the kids-are-pretty-safe dept

If you pay attention to most of the mainstream press these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that the internet is a den of sin, where children are constantly preyed upon by predators from every angle... especially on social networks. After all, we've been told about all the sex offenders on MySpace and Facebook. There are even a few so-called "experts" who you see quoted repeatedly on just how dangerous it is for kids online -- even though study after study has actually shown that fewer kids are being solicited -- and most kids seem smart enough to be able to deal with unwanted contacts just fine. However, you don't see those stories very often, because it's not as headline grabbing to say: Hey, Everyone's Overreacting! But sometimes it does happen... and USA Today has a nice article explaining that many parents and politicians are significantly overreacting to the "threats" online facing children. As the article notes, it's extremely rare for someone to "stalk" a person via their profile and abduct them. In fact, sexual abuse cases against children are way down (by 50%) from 1990 to 2005, as the internet became so much more popular. So, the idea that the internet and social networks have somehow put more children into harms way seems totally incorrect, and it's nice to see a news source like USA Today making that clear. This isn't to say children shouldn't be taught how to deal with strangers online -- but it's like learning how to deal with strangers you run into on the street. You don't keep your children from meeting strangers completely, you teach them how to be safe.

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