A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
I've been writing about the technology industry for much of this decade, and now I have an awkward admission: I've fallen out of love with technology. When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area about six years ago as a technology journalist, I was struck by the feeling that this was the only remaining [...]
An app that allows teens battling mental health issues to send an alert to a personalised support crew is set to launch. Wellington firm Melon Health, formerly Social Code, has designed and developed Code Blue to encourage youth struggling with bullying, anxiety or depression to reach out in their time of need. The app has been years in [...]
In past decades, teenagers struggling to deal with their emotions might have coped by taking a razor blade to their forearm or extinguishing cigarettes on their skin. Today’s teens, products of the internet era, have found an additional outlet. Approximately 6% of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old engage in a practice known as [...]
Gaming on a computer or device is a wildly popular pastime for kids in Australia. In fact, 94 per cent of children between 6 and 15 play games and, while girls are fast gaining on them, gaming still remains more popular with boys. It seems that although (almost) everybody’s doing it, a lot of parents feel [...]
Ringing, pinging devices are eating into children's sleep and it's undermining their happiness, a major new study into the wellbeing of younger Australians shows. And this lack of sleep is associated with them feeling isolated and unsafe in their own homes. The latest 'Happiness Survey' of almost 47,000 children has found that children who regularly [...]
New research has revealed that apps installed on smartphones can be used to significantly reduce anxiety. Published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, the study is the first ever meta-analysis of all published evidence on the effect of smartphone-based therapies on anxiety in 1,837 people. The research is a collaboration between The University of Manchester, [...]
Anyone raising a child today has likely fretted about screen time and wondered about the impact of devices on our kids. Does the technology affect their brains? Does it limit their social development? Could it harm them emotionally? Could it delay when they start talking? I had never thought about that last question until a [...]
Australian researchers have contributed to a 7 nation study of the impacts of media violence on youth. The study, just published online in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, used the same research methodology in each of Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania, and the US. It found that: violent media use was positively and [...]
Toddlers who spend time playing on smartphones and tablets seem to get slightly less sleep than those who do not, say researchers. The study in Scientific Reports suggests every hour spent using a touchscreen each day was linked to 15 minutes less sleep. However, those playing with touchscreens do develop their fine motor skills more [...]
Perhaps Facebook should carry a health warning. A study has revealed that the children who spend more time on online social networks feel less happy in almost all aspects of their lives. The research by a team of economists at the University of Sheffield, to be presented at this week’s Royal Economic Society annual conference [...]
