Moms Guide to Technology

I drove by the playground the other evening.  It was empty.  No kids on the swings, the monkey bars nor ‘shirts v skins’ on the basketball court.  Who took the kids off the playground?

It was after dinner, the time when parents are winding down, preparing for the next day. Kids don’t just run off to the play with friends.  Today’s mom can’t say, “be home by dark”, like our moms did.  Concern for their safety took the kids off the playground.

Let’s think of social media as the new playground where young people go to interact and develop social skills.  Let’s help them develop skills, like you did when you showed them to pump their knees to make the swing ‘go’.

Be in the space so you know what’s happening.  But like the playground, it’s bad form for mom or dad to step in on every kid interaction.  They’ll never be safe to go it alone.

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I stumbled on a great idea today online!

It’s called a Mingle Stick and the idea is so simple it’s ingenious.

It’s a usb flash drive, one of those pocket-size media storage devices you can plug into the USB port on your computer.  It can store pictures, music and information.  The price of jump drives is so low [and I only buy them on sale] and the storage space so high, I store individual projects each on their own jump drive.    Jump drives are common place.  The kids have to have one for school to portable their computer work!  Nothing so innnovative about a jump drive.

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Remember when you gave the merchant money and they gave you a product or service?  Well, those days are dwindling … even faster since the new release of Paypal’s iphone app called “ Send Money”.   And even if you ‘old school’ won’t do it, you need to know enough to tell your kids about how it impacts budgeting and banking.

The beauty of apps, of the iphone, is that you have everything in the palm of your hand.  You don’t have to go home to check online.  You don’t have to pay $1.99 for directory assistance… and so on.

I already use my phone [not an iphone] to check my bank balances, it sends me balance alerts and updates and reminders to pay bills.  Smart phones are handy.

And there’s money in that convenience …

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I know I went AWOL for a few days.  My sister and her kids are visiting from Illinois.  It has also prompted frequent weekday visits from my nieces down the street.  Any mom of teens will tell you, given the choice to hug and cuddle with little nieces and nephews or write about digital life, there is no choice.  Life is for living!

But digital life online goes on and I want to talk about GAMING!

Timing:  The Game Development Conference is going on in San Francisco.   Now, I am no gamer.  We need to know about gaming because that’s what our kids are doing.

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My mom always said, “Cheaters never prosper”.  A new iphone app is certainly trying to make it easier for the cheaters.

It’s called Tigertext and the app was released last week and is fast becoming a hot topic.  Here’s how it works:

The tigertexter downloads the app to their iphone [coming soon to blackberry & droid] and when sending a message, they set a time limit, between one minute and 5 days, on the message.  The person receiving the message has to download the app as well and just like Mission Impossible, that message self-destructs when the time runs out.  There is no trail because it never lives on your phone.  The message is on the servers of Tigertext.  Sneaky!  But not foolproof.

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If you work with kids and are not on Facebook, it’s a mistake.

Teens live in a digital world.  Most adults who have not stepped into that world hold back because:   It’s too hard & I’m too busy OR Professional protection.  It’s not hard, it doesn’t have to be time consuming if you just set aside an hour each day.  And it won’t ruin your career if you do it right.

Learning to work out social norms is a natural part of coming of age.  Those natural social interactions are happening in a digital way now.  It doesn’t change the need for role models to provide guidance, support and encouragement.  I heard a speaker last week who made a compelling case that kids are losing access to caring, supportive and guiding adults.  Despite what you hear on TV, the online world is NOT only molesters and freaks. But it needs more caring adults & role models.

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Blog, a contraction of ‘web’ and ‘log’, it’s almost always written by one person.  It’s that person’s take on the world, heavy on the opinion.  It can be a website, part of a website or hosted by a site with lots of blogs where each is editorially independent.   If it’s part of a web site for an organization selling a product, service or idea, the editorially control rests with the organization.  Doesn’t mean don’t read it, just evaluate what you read based on where it’s coming from and who, if anyone is paying for the opinion.

In its purist form, blogs allow people to share experiences and ideas; meet interesting people.  Friends and relatives followed my daughter’s blog about living in China.  Twenty-somethings and older blog.  I wish more teenagers would.  I read an article just this morning that they don’t want to make that time commitment.  They’d rather text, tweet or status update in 140 words or less.

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Everyone is trying to get on my cell phone.  Today, it was a cell phone app I read about online: Foursquare.

You can find it at www.foursquare.com

The idea is a good one for a social networking app.  Here’s how it works:  you sign up and connect with your phone.  Your status is the answer to the question: “where are you?”

They’re targeting young, singles and want them to type in where they’re spending social time.

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Since social media came into our lives, it’s easier than ever before to tell the TV people what local news stories they should cover.

Advertisers think everyone is online looking for stuff to buy.  When the TV sales people come around, advertisers say, “I’m giving you less money because I have to get advertising online.”

TV bosses told their people [anchors, reporters, and more importantly producers, who make the decisions] that everyone is online, social media is exploding and they’d better be there, too.  Then TV bosses can sell advertising on TV and online.  It’s not evil, it’s just the way it is.

TV and online!  You’ve seen the segments on the news, “Tell us what you think …”, followed by some inane viewer comments.  You think it’s stupid and wouldn’t be THAT inane viewer.  But that can be the door to get your story covered.

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You won’t hear your kids say they’re keeping their current phone, but most of my friends do.  Oh, parents will talk about the iPhone; but in the end, there are more important things that buying the fishing app and increasing the dreaded cell bill.

We’re living our adult lives post-telephone deregulation.  That means we got in the habit of a phone where we pay one fee for unlimited local calling.  As we hit our professional stride, the phone/cable companies offered us unlimited long-distance calling from our home phones.   We like to know what things are going to cost us before we use them.  Cell service doesn’t work that way.  The sales people will walk you through the ‘plans’.  But cell phone charges are NOT fixed, so don’t get caught in that false sense of security.

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