parental

When the world's most famous companies are run by boys who seem to have only slight familiarity with shaving, it's easy for grown-ups to give up.

Somehow, this newfangled digital world has created an entirely new species of human -- one that ultimately wants to eradicate all species that are currently thought of as human.

Who can even lift an eyebrow, therefore, at new research that suggests parents are largely clueless about their kids' activities on laptops, phones, Facebook, and all the other places to which kids choose to disappear?

A new study from McAfee, touchingly called Digital Deceptions, … Read more

Many parents apparently still aren't getting the message about the dangers of distracted driving.

Among 618 parents surveyed for a study out today from the American Academy of Pediatrics, almost 90 percent of them admitted to chatting on the phone, texting, fiddling with the GPS, or doing other things while driving with their children in the car.

The parents who participated in the poll were asked specifically how often they engaged in distracting activities while driving with their child over the last month. Those activities included talking or texting on a cell phone, surfing the Internet, finding directions on a GPS or map, and changing a CD or DVD, as well as eating or grooming, and taking care of their child.… Read more

Twitter might well be a repository for half-truths, halfwits, and even the half cut, but sometimes it has its uses.

One consists of trying to get your followers to provide some entertainment.

How can one not commend Nathan Fielder, star of Comedy Central's "Nathan For You," for creating art in action with the help merely of his followers, their phones, and their parents?

He took to Twitter and made a very simple request. He asked his followers to text their parents accidentally that they had drugs for sale and to screenshoot their reactions.

The text they were to send read: "Got 2 grams for $40." A price not to be sniffed at. They were then to offer an oopsie that the text had gone to the wrong recipient.… Read more

Weapons cost money.

This is something we hear all the time in discussions about budgets cuts.

It's also something the Kitchen family discovered when they gave their little 5-year-old Danny the passcode for their iPad.

Danny, you see, wanted to play Zombies vs. Ninja, a game that somehow has passed me by. Still, the future brigadier-general of the British army explained to his parents that the game was free.

Greg and Sharon Kitchen of Warmley, England, were busy entertaining, so what better way to keep their little 5-year-old quiet than to bury his fascination in an iPad?

As the Telegraph reports, … Read more

Even though smartphones and tablets can be both fun and useful for children, these devices also open children up to a dangerous world of unlimited information exchange. Whether it be inappropriate text exchanges, adult Web site content, or excessive usage that may rack up fees, Parental Control will help safeguard your kids.

Parental Control is quick to set up on a mobile device. For the most part it runs in the background and is not visible through normal use. The program itself is password-protected so the child may not simply disable it or delete it. The main portion of the … Read more

I had always imagined that adults entered the world of Facebook because they wanted to re-enact their teenage years, find a new lover, or "connect" with long-lost relatives whom they never really liked.

Yet a new piece of research has proved mind-altering.

My failure to regularly read the Education Database Online has been mitigated by Mashable and has led me to a new appreciation of the adult world.

For these vital statistics reveal that American parents aren't trying to imitate children so much as spy on them.

It's perfectly well-known that children can be trusted about … Read more

If there's one thing young people truly understand, it's bribery.

From their very formative years, parents bribed them to keep quiet, behave, wear appropriate clothing -- even, sometimes, desist from using rude words.

So it might seem utterly canny of Paul Baier, the vice president of a Massachusetts energy company, to find a veteran's method to get his daughter away from Facebook.

But this tale isn't quite so simple.

I am grateful to Daily Dot for revealing that Baier made 14-year-old Rachel sign a Facebook Deactivation Agreement, which he then posted to his own blog. … Read more

Sometimes the lure of Snapchat, Facebook, and Miley Cyrus' latest blouse can be too much.

It can lead you to iniquities. It can lead you to dishonoring your own family.

At least this is alleged to be the case in Placer County, Calif., where two teenage girls stand accused of spiking milkshakes in order to get online.

You might imagine that getting online doesn't normally involve involuntary unconsciousness. It normally results in it.

Police say, however, that one of the girls had parents with rules. As The Sacramento Bee describes it, the Internet was shut down at 10 p.… Read more

The Federal Trade Commission today moved to make a key children's online privacy law more up-to-date in a world of smartphones and social networks.

The agency has approved amendments to the regulations implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, that would require apps and Web sites that target children to obtain parental consent before collecting geo-location information, or photos, videos or audio files that include a child's image or voice. The law was also expanded to cover services that track kids' online activity -- namely, which sites they visit -- and then give the information … Read more