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But does it all help you to be a better father, or mother, or is it all a massive distraction from the serious business of parenting?

While tracking proved useful as a reminder of feedings, and gave an objective insight into longer term sleep patterns, there wasn’t much she could do with the info.

It's the same problem quantified self devotees have: what to do with all that data. Unless you're a math or data viz wizard and prepared to take it all incredibly seriously, the numbers that consumer gadgets and apps spew out can be pretty meaningless — even more so when you're dealing with an unpredictable baby.

The Mimo and the Owlet are just the tip of the emerging infant tracking iceberg.

even in the absence of information about the character’s past.

The age of 8 has been identified as a watershed at which children become measurably more likely to act out aggressions after watching violent behavior on television

. The children recognize that in the real world it’s impossible to fly without a plane or to be born with skin that deflects bullets. 

By age 10 or 11, children will make fairly complex judgments about characters’ motivations and they regularly distinguish between justified and unjustified violence

One study also found that if you ask children between the ages of eight and ten who they most want to be like, they are far more likely to cite superhero type characters than everyday folks like their parents.

but conflict play continues to provide a unique transitional space for children to explore and express their own tensions

We also aim to develop conflict play scenarios where children can experience the benefits of cooperation. With the fate of the world (or even the entire universe) hanging in the balance, children must learn how to build teams, trust in others and work together towards common goals. In those pretend situations, developing social skills may be the only way to overcome the lords of evil!

describes the rules and restrictions we put on screen time. Some of these restrictions limit time, other restrictions filter content.

Restrictive Mediation

Unlimited access to media becomes one of the markers of adulthood.

Instructive Mediation describes what happens when we talk to our kids while watching a movie or playing a video game with them. Make it a teaching opportunity

Instructive mediation is key for raising kids that are critical thinkers and intelligent adults in a media saturated world–kids who know how to THINK about the media they consume.

Social Coviewing is when you watch something with your kids but don’t necessarily talk about it. This is what happens in a movie theater.

This is what happens when I watch Phineas and Ferb with my kids.

Parallel play is kind of like multitasking. I can be typing on my Chromebook next to my son while he’s playing minecraft. We engage in peripheral conversations, some tangential, and some directly related to the game he is playing.

Asymmetrical joint media engagement

While interacting with me online, I hope they learn good web etiquette. I’m teaching them lessons about propriety and social media. They see the kinds of things I write in emails and chats.

Other common signs include neglecting spending time with family and friends, changes in sleep patterns (artificial light from phones damage sleep hormone signals), foregoing healthy activities such as walking and socializing, difficulties relating to other kids and people, stress on fingers and the body and behavioral issues such as delinquency.

digital detox specialist

it has said that its second-largest market outside its home country is Brazil, where it has about 29m users. On Monday, it announced that it has 9m users in Germany and has previously said that it has more than 14m users in the UK

Analysts only just started releasing their estimates last year, suggesting the app could generate between $1.2bn and $2bn in sales in 2016

Instagram’s monthly active user base could reach up to 520m by the end of 2016.

Instagram launched an advertising format that allowed marketers to include links to their products and websites. The so-called “carousel adverts” allow a brand to display several images at once and use a “learn more” button to lead consumers to its own sit

the company had no immediate plans to introduce a “Buy” button, similar to the one that Facebook has been trialling. Retailers want the group to introduce functions that will allow users to purchase products seen through the app

Instagram is attractive to advertisers partly because of its popularity with hard-to-reach teenagers.

A lobbying push by big technology groups, including Facebook, helped to water down the proposed ban. National governments will now be able to reduce the age at which personal data may be used to 13

It is addictive

children grow up not caring about the natural world.

The list of physical and social maladies associated with sedentary behavior—an almost inevitable corollary of time spent on electronic devices

American Academy of Pediatrics used to recommend that parents limit screen time to less than two hours a day for children over the age of two

digital reality as the new normal

Make shutting down the devices a family thing.

challenging as Millennials can be to manage – managers cannot shrink from embracing them and their attitudes. After all, as he points out, they and the generation following on from them will account for more than half the workforce within 10 years.

Among the Millennials’ attributes are a willingness to collaborate, a tendency to do extensive research before making a decision and an eagerness to network.

The research by Accenture referred to above mentions the need for organizations to adapt to the increasing numbers of women in management positions.

businesses need to ensure they are adapting their strategies to recruit, reward and retain these talented and valued leaders.” Then there is the matter of businesses becoming genuinely ethnically diverse

Harford argues that much can be done to make public space safe for children. “I would like to see pedestrian-friendly crossings more frequently on streets. I would like to see the streets be more kid-oriented with wider sidewalks, as well as a more coherent attitude amongst people on the street to be watching out for kids.”

in “real life, only from the ordinary adults of the city sidewalks do children learn – if they learn it at all – the first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.

Ronda Howard, a Vancouver senior city planner, notes that when there are greater incentives for people to walk in their neighbourhoods, there are more eyes on the street: thus the streets become safer.

Despite the challenges facing parents raising children in the city, different social networks can augment child involvement in public space. Harford says that strong social ties help increase her son’s autonomy in Vancouver

When we actively engage with others who are different from us, we have the opportunity to become more sophisticated and tolerant citizens. When we get to know the diverse members of our communities, we create social networks that make our cities safer and more enjoyable. Public spaces are integral to making this happen. These spaces are an antidote to the inward gaze of individualism. We need to reclaim public space and work to expand its boundaries. It’s time for us to leave the house of the self in the background, and go outside

They need time to daydream, deal with anxieties, process their thoughts and share them with parents, who can provide reassurance.

Texting looms as the next national epidemic, with half of teenagers sending 50 or more text messages a day and those aged 13 through 17 averaging 3,364 texts a month, Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Research Center found in a 2012 study