This is an interesting example of a video game targeting mental health. The designers created a 3D fantasy world with different realms in which players learn mental behavioral techniques used to combat depression. The game was found to be effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression in teens with mild to moderate depression.
Such a great idea. In rural areas, the lack of mental health practitioners is a serious problem so we reserve referrals for children who are in dire circumstances. Children with moderate or mild depression almost never get services. This game has great potential!
This article explains why twitter is increasing in appeal among teens. Quite interesting. I thought I posted this article awhile ago, but just realized I never shared it with this group! Sorry guys
Older teens and Net Geners spend more than 20 hours per day using media. This is accomplished not by not sleeping but with considerable multitasking, which peaks at seven simultaneous activities for older teens.
preferred media choices differ dramatically across generations: For children, it's television; for tweens, it's video games; for teens, it's texting and social networking; and for Net Geners and Gen Xers, it's being online. And for Boomers, it's, of course, back to television.
Some 62% of US internet users aged 12 to 17 are going online for news and political information or find out about current events
the decline in blogging among teens and young adults is striking as it looks like the youth may be exchanging "macro-blogging" for microblogging with status updates.
I would be interested to see why teens are looking at news online. My skeptical side wonders if teens are going online for news and political information as a result of assignments and homework and if these stats simply reflect their tendency to turn more and more to digital technologies, neglecting print sources.
A very inspiring story! This is an example of engagement, motivation and flow coming together! If this 15 year-old boy can achieve this, why can we not foster it in other children?
What are the benefits and risks to teen online participation? Dr. Boyd immerses herself in youth communities and researches issues of race, gender, social networking, activism and more.
Updating diary research to blogging. It seems blogging can be therapeutic for teens. More girls in the study than boys. Comments from readers seems to put some difficulties into perspective.
Students earn virtual currency by completing math "missions" with third party content. This is a start-up incubated by Pearson. To unlock premium content, students would pay real money (this portion is modeled on Zynga's facebook games)
Nice to see the customization revolution well underway. Makes sense to focus on the upper teen segment who might be inspired to try something new to NOT dropout of HS or college. I wonder if their preliminary studies find changes in performance in traditional classes?
an interesting point from the article: "adolescents aren't reckless because they underestimate risks, but because they overestimate rewards-or, rather, find rewards more rewarding than adults do."
I really enjoyed this article, thank you. I find it very interesting to explore from a neurological perspective how some aspects of our modern world impact children and teens. So often parents say that the world is different today, but it is important to realize that the way we function does not change so quickly.
I noticed this article as well - I think it's absolutely fascinating! Now I'm curious about the implications of these findings for designing educational technologies for adolescents: how can products take advantage of these proclivities? A more difficult question would be - is there any way that technologies can counteract these tendencies in order to bring more balance/rationality into a teenager's world?
An opinion from Kera Murphy at Boston's Tech Superpowers. She points out that the lack of multitasking on the device (an omission many are complaining about) may actually be an advantage when trying to focus easily-distracted kids and teens. She wonders whether the limitations of the device will prevent it from being a useful content creation device.
Kwedit, an online lending site, lets teens sign a virtual "play now, pay later" contract in exchange for real-world currency for virtual games.
Is this model really valuable for teaching credit responsibility, or does it take advantage of the draw of virtual games to make a profit...or both?
a new study finds that when adolescent girls play age-appropriate games with
their parents there may be some benefits, such as feeling closer to family
members and having better mental health.
A new study finds that when adolescent girls play age-appropriate games with their parents there may be some benefits, such as feeling closer to family members and having better mental health.