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Television viewing frequently limits children’s time for vital activities such as playing, reading, learning to talk, spending time with peers and family, storytelling, participating in regular exercise, and developing other necessary physical, mental and social skills

Television can be a powerful teacher

In some disadvantaged settings, healthy television habits may actually be a beneficial teaching tool (

The average child sees 12,000 violent acts on television annually, including many depictions of murder and rape.

Television viewing makes a substantial contribution to obesity because prime time commercials promote unhealthy dietary practices

Commercials for healthy food make up only 4% of the food advertisements shown during children’s viewing time

Television can also contribute to eating disorders in teenage girls, who may emulate the thin role models seen on television (8). Eating meals while watching television should be discouraged because it may lead to less meaningful communication and, arguably, poorer eating habits

Television exposes children to adult sexual behaviours in ways that portray these actions as normal and risk-free, sending the message that because these behaviours are frequent, ‘everybody does it’. Sex between unmarried partners is shown 24 times more often than sex between spouses (32–35), while sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy are rarely mentioned.

On an annual basis, teenagers see between 1000 and 2000 beer commercials carrying the message that ‘real’ men drink beer.

One-half of the G-rated animated feature films available on videocassette, as well as many music videos, show alcohol and tobacco use as normative behaviour without conveying the long term consequences of this use

tend to believe what they are told and may even assume that they are deprived if they do not have advertised products.

A number of studies have documented that children under the age of eight years are developmentally unable to understand the difference between advertising and regular programming

The average child sees more than 20,000 commercials each year (12). More than 60% of commercials promote sugared cereals, candy, fatty foods and toys

If children are allowed to be exposed to these media without adult supervision, they may have the same deleterious effects as television.

Studies show that parents play an important role in their children’s social learning (44), but if a parent’s views are not discussed explicitly with children, the medium may teach and influence by default.

Music videos may reinforce false stereotypes.

Parents may feel outsmarted or overwhelmed by their children’s computer and Internet abilities, or they may not appreciate that the ‘new medium’ is an essential component of the new literacy, something in which their children need to be fluent.

Music lyrics have become increasingly explicit, particularly with references to sex, drugs and violence.

Some video games may help the development of fine motor skills and coordination, but many of the concerns about the negative effects of television (eg, inactivity, asocial behaviour and violence) also apply to excessive exposure to video games.

The effect of violent video games on children has been a public health concern for many years.

Up to 75% of videos contain sexually explicit material (45), and more than half contain violence that is often committed against women. Women are portrayed frequently in a condescending manner that affects children’s attitudes about sex roles.

The Internet has a significant potential for providing children and youth with access to educational information, and can be compared with a huge home library. However, the lack of editorial standards limits the Internet’s credibility as a source of information.

The amount of time spent watching television and sitting in front of computers can affect a child’s postural development

Parents can use technology that blocks access to pornography and sex talk on the Internet, but must be aware that this technology does not replace their supervision or guidance.

2003 May-Jun

Correspondence: Canadian Paediatric Society

it is important for physicians to discuss with parents their child’s exposure to media and to provide guidance on age-appropriate use of all media, including television, radio, music, video games and the Internet.

REFERENCES

The objectives of this statement are to explore the beneficial and harmful effects of media on children’s mental and physical health, and to identify how physicians can counsel patients and their families and promote the healthy use of the media in their communities.

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Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

"Facebook is transformed from a public space to a behavioral laboratory," says the study, which cites a Harvard-based research project of 1,700 college-based Facebook users in which it became possible to "deanonymize parts of the data set," or cross-reference anonymous data to make student identification possible.

Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer, of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, outlined what the company is learning as part of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology meeting in Austin. Its president, social psychologist James Pennebaker, of the University of Texas-Austin, says privacy is a big issue for the research world.

"Facebook especially, and Microsoft, is scared to death about privacy issues," he says. "A bunch of researchers have access to everybody's posts and Facebook is built on what's yours is private. They are struggling with the problem the same way as the scientific community."

Attorney and privacy expert Parry Aftab, of New York City — a member of Facebook's Safety Advisory Board — suggests that users shouldn't worry because the very large companies such as Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Facebook have privacy policies for users."The sites will never provide personally identifiable information unless they have the consent of the users. And there is legal recourse if they're using it in any other way," she says.

"Be aware it is a space that is watched,"

March 12, 2014

Every time you search online for the best restaurant deal, share good news or bad with your Facebook friends, or tweet to your followers, your "audience" is bigger than you know.

In December of 2009 Facebook made one of the most controversial changes to their privacy policy. No longer could you have a nearly invisible account allowing only those you wanted in by default. A user's profile was now publicly searchable with most of the information opened up for all to see by default. Facebook users were not pleased. Now, this isn't to say that Facebook pages couldn't be public before (they could), it was more about the loss of the choice. And that was the truly scary part.

Realistically, today's article is more of a wakeup call to be cautious how you use the social-networking sites and other parts of the Web that ask for personal information. It's not so anonymous: it's more public than you may think at the time you sign up for that nifty site. Remember that the Internet never forgets: not only are there public archives, but once your information has been copied by other people and saved on their hard drives, you really have lost control over it.

Let's say that you are on top of your security settings and have your Facebook page well locked down. Your boss isn't your Friend and you haven't added or been tagged in any racy or embarrassing photos. Are you safe now? Not necessarily. Glitches in Facebook's own services may still share data, especially with Instant Personalization. Instant Personalization is intended to share some of your

sites to, you guessed it, personalize the experienc