A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Research on Internet addiction originated in the US by Dr. Kimberly Young. In 1996, she presented the first paper on the topic at the American Psychological Association’s annual conference. Dr. Young applied the diagnostic criteria for pathological gambling to Internet Addictions. Despite being harshly criticized, she remained undeterred, because more and more people began to [...]
For many young players it is the ‘fantasy world’ of the game that attracts them and it is this that they become addicted to; they would rather live in a world of online games than participate in the real world around them. This is especially true of RPG’s (role playing games) where the player morphs [...]
20% of parents use a mobile devise to keep their child entertained* This year parents are under increasing pressure to buy their child an electronic device for Christmas. Even pre-schoolers are asking for the latest interactive media. Yet at $600 a pop, iPhones, iPads and iPods are not toys. So what dilemmas might [...]
Facebook is the most popular Social Networking Site (SNS), with 93.4% of teenagers using it, followed by MySpace, with 26.6%. Many students use more than one SNS. A recent study carried out in Victoria, Teenagers, Legal Risks and Social Networking Sites, took 1,004 students aged 13 to 16 years old, 204 teachers and 49 parents [...]
In the UK a concerned parent, Dr Paddy Clarke, has developed the world’s first cyber bullying alert system for Facebook. The application is called KnowDiss and it monitors children’s Facebook accounts for hostile or telltale keywords and phrases. “If any text is picked up that’s suspicious an email is immediately sent to parents so they [...]
A Facebook site created in Canada is calling for the banning of sex offenders on social networking sites and it has now reached 5 million members worldwide. On the site's discussion posts, several people talk of the horror of logging in and seeing a "friend suggestion" - generated by Facebook - of their abuser. The [...]
Warner Bros. Television and CBS produce the highest grossing sitcom on TV in America. Two and a Half Men is also a huge hit in the UK and Australia. It has been nominated for 2 Golden Globes and has won a further 20 awards with over 50 nominations. So you would think then, that this [...]
20% of children are bullied at school 20% of teens do things online they later regret Clinical Psychologist and Generation Next speaker, Andrew Fuller says school yard arguments have become more intense and that cyber bullying has become more vindictive during the last few years. “There has been a change in bullying from mild schoolyard disputes [...]
A UK study has found that consuming alcohol is more destructive than taking drugs in the long term for both drinkers and society as a whole. The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and recently published online in the medical journal The Lancet. Experts in the UK studied the effects [...]
92% of kids socialise with family and friends online 62 % of kids aged 8 to 17 have had negative experiences online 55% of kids have made friends online* Officially young people have to be 13 years old before they can open an account on the social networking site Facebook, however peer and social pressures are [...]
