A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Joanne Orlando, Western Sydney University COVID has led to children spending more time on screens using social networks, communication apps, chat rooms and online gaming. While this has undoubtedly allowed them to keep in touch with friends, or connect with new ones, during the pandemic, they are also being exposed to increased levels of online [...]
Jane Mavoa, University of Melbourne and Marcus Carter, University of Sydney Play is a core part of a healthy childhood, through which children develop social, communication, cognitive and physical skills. Children’s play adapts to its circumstances. Recently children have been incorporating pandemic related themes into their play, such as coronavirus tag, where the point is [...]
Lisa Mundy, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and George Patton, University of Melbourne Children aged 8 and 9 who watched more than two hours of TV a day or spent more than one hour a day on a computer had lower scores than their peers on reading and numeracy at ages 10 and 11, our study [...]
Associate Professor Terry Bowles and Emma PhillipsEmpathy is one of the major ways we come to understand ourselves and those around us. It is often described as a broad capacity, ability or skill that enables people to perceive and resonate with other’s emotions – effectively, it allows us to ‘walk’ in another person’s shoes. Empathy [...]
Louise Stone, Australian National University Last week, the Australian government announced it will provide ten extra Medicare-subsidised psychological therapy sessions for Australians in lockdown areas due to COVID-19. In such a stressful time, many people are experiencing poorer mental health, and some need additional support. However, our mental health system is complex and fragmented, so [...]
Peter Carew, University of Melbourne and Valerie Sung, Murdoch Children's Research Institute During the coronavirus pandemic, have your kids been using headphones more than usual? Maybe for remote schooling, video chats with relatives, or for their favourite music and Netflix shows? We have to be careful about both the volume and duration of headphone use. [...]
Snapchat has announced a new feature called “Here For You” that promises to “provide proactive in-app support to Snapchatters who may be experiencing a mental health or emotional crisis”. The popular youth-oriented app is the latest to join a wave of social media platforms setting out to monitor and improve the well-being of their users. [...]
Like any eight-year-old, Ryan Kaji loves to play with toys. But when Ryan plays, millions watch. Since the age of four he’s been the star of his own YouTube channel. All up his videos have gained more than 35 billion views. This helped make him YouTube’s highest-earning star in 2018, earning US$22 million, according to [...]
If you have kids, chances are you’ve worried about their presence on social media. Who are they talking to? What are they posting? Are they being bullied? Do they spend too much time on it? Do they realise their friends’ lives aren’t as good as they look on Instagram? We asked five experts if social [...]
It's fairly settled by now that too much screen time isn't good for kids, but for specifics we have to turn to science. A new study from researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center may have filled in some of the blanks, finding that preschool-aged children had lower levels of white matter in their [...]
