iPhone's safety, privacy extras

Kudos to Apple for building extra layers of privacy and safety right into the iPhones of users who use apps that reveal their physical location. "Apple has long provided pop-ups that ask users to approve an app's use of location information before that app can get access," reports New York Times computer security blogger Riva Richmond, but there will be more in the iPhone's new operating system (OS 4). "To make it clearer just how often approved apps are collecting data about users’ physical whereabouts, Apple will display an arrow in the status bar at the top of the screen, right next to the battery-life indicator, whenever a user's location is being tracked." This is on top of any safety features provided by the services themselves (e.g., loopt's frequent privacy reminders and Glympse's see-where-I-am-only-for-the-next-30-minutes timeout feature, explained by ReadWriteWeb). As the Times's Richmond writes, we all love being able to find friends and great places to eat with the geolocation technology on all new phones, but we're not so crazy about letting just anybody track us or telling "a frienemy where the party is"!

72% of US teens are daily texters: Study

For US teens, texting beats social networking by far for daily communication with peers, according to a Pew/Internet Project report released today. Nearly three-quarters (72%, up from 51% in 2006) of US teens send text messages daily, and 88% of teen cellphone users do. "Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month," Pew says. I compared that "mere" 1/3 sending 3,000+ texts a month to Nielsen's latest numbers, showing all US teen cellphone users sending and receiving 3,146, thinking Pew's sounded more "reasonable." But note that Nielsen's referring to sending or receiving, not just sending. So Pew's 3,000+ figure is pretty amazing. The sending plus receiving figure for one in three teens could be double, or 6,000, since a single text message is usually just part of a conversation or string of messages.

Pew seems to be saying that girls 14-17 own the space: That "entire cohort" averages 100 messages a day (sending), compared to the third of all teen cellphone users. "The youngest teen boys are the most resistant to texting – averaging 20 messages per day," Pew found. As for texting vs. other forms of communication (we now need to make distinctions between purely communicating and entertainment or socializing, where digital devices are concerned): Though texting is No. 1 for communicating with peers, voice calls are No. 1 for doing so with their parents. Where social networking's concerned, Pew says 25% of all teens contact their friends daily via social network site, vs. 54% of all teens who do so via texting. For 15-year-olds, the preferred communication methods with friends fall in this order: texting (54%), talk face-to-face (42%), calling on a cellphone (41%), social network site (40%, and SNSs have features like IM and email), calling via landline (37%), instant messaging (33%), and email (12%).

And communication is obviously not the all of it. Pew reports that teens use cellphones to (good and neutral activities first): "Share stories and photos ... entertain themselves when they are bored (just like adults) ... micro-coordinate their schedules and face-to-face gatherings ... go online to browse, participate in social networks, and check their emails." Some also use cellphones to "cheat on tests and skirt rules at school and with their parents ... send sexts.... Others are sleeping with buzzing phones under their pillows, and some are using their phones to place calls and text while driving." There's so much more to this report, which draws on both a survey and focus groups (quantitative and qualitative information), including chapters on how parents and schools regulate cellphone use, attitudes toward cellphones, and the fact that 84% of teen cellphone users had slept with their phones on or right next to their beds. For some that's because it's their alarm clock, but staying in touch appears to be the biggest reason: "Teens who use their cell phones to text are 42% more likely to sleep with their phones than cell-owning teens who do not text," Pew says. Here's the Washington Post's coverage.

How Americans 13+ use their cellphones

Text messaging is by far the No. 1 activity of US mobile phone users aged 13 and up, according to the latest figures from comScore. Though talking on the phone isn't even on the list (presumably all cellphone users do that), comScore's January figures show that 63.5% of mobile subscribers send text messages. The other mobile activities on the list are "Used browser" (28.6%), "Played games" (21.7%), "Used downloaded apps" (19.8%), "Access social network site or blog" (17.1%), and "Listened to music" (12.8%). Social networking by phone was the biggest growth area between last October and January, at 3.3% growth over the three months.

'Sext education': US- and Canada-based resources

Citing new US figures showing that two-thirds of 8-to-18-year-olds own cellphones, Canada's CBC points to a new Web site designed to educate people about texting – textED.ca – "set up by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, in partnership with Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association." The CBC says it includes "sext ed," but I don't see much in the site specifically about photo-sharing, and there – slightly frustratingly – isn't a search box in the site that allowed me to search for "sext ed." But for parents there's an "acronictionary" with abbreviations and acronyms often used in text messages, and for kids there's a "Need help now" form, which they can fill out and which promises to get back to senders within 24 hours. From here in the US, PC Magazine's John Dvorak offers 7 reputation-protection tips that "can save your kids – and you – from a lifetime of online embarrassment" (offline too!). They cover everything from Twitter and Facebook to blogging and vlogging to video chat on Stickam (take special note of that last genre, parents – not a good place for kids in online stealth mode). See also ConnectSafely.org's "sext ed" and "Sexting: New study & the 'Truth or Dare' scenario." As for anti-sexting legislation, here's a commentary from Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use offering ways to adjust laws so as to help rather than harm youth.

[The new US data the CBC refers to is from the just-released Kaiser Family Foundation study I blogged about and linked to in "Major study on youth & media: Let's take a closer look."]

Texting good 4 spelling & reading: Study

In a study of students' texting habits, the British Academy British Academy found no support for the "negative media and public speculation" around young people's texting. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports, "the kids who used more 'textisms' – abbreviations such as “plz” (please) and “l8ter” (later) [shouldn't that be "l8er"?] – showed higher scores on some spelling, phonetics, reading comprehension and other English language competency tests." The study's authors are Coventry University psychology Profs. Beverly Plester and Clare Wood. In three separate studies of groups of 60-90 8-to-12-year-olds, they found, among other things, that 1) "the proportions of textisms that kids used in their sentence translations was positively linked to verbal reasoning; the more textspeak kids used, the higher their test scores" and 2) "the younger the age at which the kids had received mobile phones, the better their ability to read words and identify patterns of sound in speech." [See also "Major study on youth & media: Let's take a closer look"]

Haiti mobile-relief update

The Red Cross reports that $22 million had been raised via cellphones for Haiti earthquake relief (about a fifth of the $112 million in total donations), the Washington Post reports. The previous cellphone fundraising record was a mere $400,000.

Social Web's help for Haiti

With emails from President Obama, tweets in Twitter, and cellphones sending “Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief," fixed and mobile social media are raising millions for Haiti earthquake relief. Yesterday (1/14) may've been "the biggest day for mobile giving to date, CNET reports, adding that Facebook said its users "have been posting more than 1,500 status updates a minute containing the word Haiti." The New York Times reports today that "the American Red Cross, which is working with a mobile donations firm called mGive, said Thursday that it had raised more than $5 million this way" and "nearly $35 million" in general by Thursday night, "surpassing the amounts it received in the same time period after Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami." This is an important media story for classroom and dinner-table discussion, but parents and teachers will also appreciate this "teachable moment" for new media literacy. Because, unfortunately, "with any urgent call for donations often comes a rash of scams that can pilfer cash or result in identity theft," another CNET post warns. The article offers advice for applying critical thinking to texted, posted, and tweeted solicitations – and so does the FBI.

Tech-induced mini generation gaps?

That's what the New York Times's Brad Stone has noticed, citing examples like his only-just-verbal 2-year-old calling his Kindle – a device he says he's not completely sold on – "Daddy's book." But even 9- or 10-year-olds wouldn't call it that – it wasn't ubiquitous enough when they were "growing up." Now all sorts of Kindle-like handheld readers are coming out. They – the Alex, the Que proReader, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, the tablet Apple's supposed to announce soon, and the "smartbooks" aimed at teens I blogged about earlier – were all over the Consumer Electronics Show floor in Las Vegas this past week, Stone and Nick Bilton report in another article. But, to the generational question, I wouldn't call them mini generations just because the term itself suggests solid starts, stops, and gaps that I'm not seeing, even at my house, with five years between two teenage and almost-teenage kids. The whole construct doesn't allow for all the individuality and diversity so evident in young people's (and everybody's) use of new media and technologies. I think kids' tech use has more to do with their interests (and those of their friends, of course) than their ages, and I'm seeing more social flow across age groups in this generation than in mine. I guess what I'm saying is that it's not the technology that dictates kids' tech use so much as the kid who uses the technology (and not entirely either way). If that was clearer than mud, argue with me – here or in the ConnectSafely forum!

And as for these new "books," I don't care what devices we get into school, but we do need to get social media into school, pre-K through 12, all classes – to narrow the gap between formal and all the informal learning kids are doing with social media outside of school, make school more relevant and interesting to students, and get school doing for social media what it has done for books for hundreds of years: guide and enrich students' experiences with them (see "School and social media: Uber big picture"). I'm pleased to see others saying this too now. Here's Nicholas Bramble in Slate: "Schools shouldn't block SNS." [See also "From digital disconnect to mobile learning" and "School & social media."]

'Teens would ignore texting-while-driving laws'

With texting up 10-fold over the past three years and as momentum for a nationwide law against texting while driving builds, there are indicators that the driver demographic that texts the most would benefit the least. "Already 19 states and the District of Columbia ban texting by all drivers, while 9 others prohibit it by young drivers," Reuters reports, but "at least one major study has found that, with mobile devices now central to their lives, young people often ignore laws against using cell phones or texting in the car." Police say such a law would be tough to enforce for the mere fact that they can't see the phones when drivers are texting. "The California Highway Patrol has handed out nearly 163,000 tickets to drivers talking on hand-held phones since mid-2008" partly because the phone is at the ear and can be seen through the window. When texting, drivers' phones are in their laps, out of sight. Reuters talked to four teens in the Phoenix area, where there has a ban on texting while driving since 2007. Three of them "admitted texting while driving and a fourth said he had stopped only after his cousin caused a serious traffic accident while sending a message." Parents, at least be sure you never text your teens while driving; I recently heard an interview in which a teenager said that even when she texts her mom to stop texting her while driving because it's unsafe, her mom won't stop!

iPod Touches in the classroom

The Salisbury Post tells the story of how a school district in North Carolina got its start with mobile devices in the classroom – in this case, iPod Touches narrower than "a deck of cards," weighing a little over 4 ounces, and putting "the complete works of Shakespeare, movies, a dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia, SAT preparation materials, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, USA Today, the Weather Channel and educational games" in the palms of North Rowan High School freshmen's hands. What I found especially interesting in the story the possibility of a spatial element to improving student engagement. One student told writer Maggie Blackwell that it really helps when what's being taught isn't across the room, it's right in his hand, and when it's "right here," there's less distraction, more ownership. The ownership part of that comes from the district tech director, Phil Hardin, who told Blackwell it's not about putting technology in students' hands ("that way, they would just be spectators," he said) but rather how they learn with it and demonstrate that learning (so that they come to "own the knowledge"). They use the iTouches to do research, listen to podcast book reviews, play educational games such as "Word Warp" during class transitions, etc. "One of the first projects the teachers developed spanned all subjects. Students learned about philosophers in history and science. They talked about Euclid and Pythagoras in math and Julius Caesar in English." Everything the students needed was available through the iTouches. Maybe attendance is a measure of student engagement: "In the month since iPods were introduced, absences have dropped 4.6%," Blackwell reports. Tardies have also dropped. The devices are configured to work only on the class network. [See also "From 'digital disconnect' to mobile learning."]

Tiny computers, er, phones proliferating

What does this say about kids 'n' tech? Well, what we've been saying for some time: that their social lives, informal learning, media-sharing, social producing, and creative networking are getting increasingly mobile and 24/7. The media- and tech-enabled part of their lives are in their pockets, wherever they are. [It's one reason why they don't wear wristwatches - have you noticed that?] But here's some evidence: Acer – the world's 2nd-largest computer maker after Hewlett-Packard, according to Forbes – is "joining the stampede into mobile phones," where the grass is very green. "Worldwide sales of mobile phones – an estimated 1.1 billion units this year, including 150 million smart phones – far exceed the expected sales of 280 million personal computers." Forbes adds that smart phones earn "gross profit margins of 30% or more, compared with the 3% or 4% for the low-cost computers that compose much of Acer's business." I think this is a solid sign that Web 3.0 – the mobile Web – is here!

Social lives, media in their pockets

If our kids text, 80% of us do too, according to The Nielsen Company. Nielsen doesn't say why, but we all know: Our kids "hear" us better when we text them, and – besides – it's fun to text with them! Here's some more interesting cellphone data from Nielsen:

Phone owners are getting younger: Last year kids typically got their first phone at age 10.1; by the beginning of this year 2009, the phone ownership age "was down to 9.7." Same for borrowing: In 2008, the average age when kids started to borrow a cell phone was 8.6 years"; now it's 8.

How they use phones: 66% of tween phone owners took photos with their phones in the past year; half played pre-installed games; 40% activated the speakerphone feature; 28% filmed a video clip; 24% listened to tunes. We've already seen this reported, but "the average 13-17 year old sends more than 2,000 text messages per month."

Younger phone owners: more than half of 8-year-old owners "used their cell to send text messages in the last 12 months. "That figure soared to 81% for 12-year-old mobile users," with "the vast majority" (90%) of those texts going to friends and family."

Parental controls: More than half of cellphone users' parents don't use parental controls. Among the minority who do, "20% limit the number of calls, texts or instant messages, followed by download limits (17%), talk time or voice minute allocations (16%), mobile website access limits (15%), locator services and restricted in/outgoing number access (13% each), time of day restrictions (11%), and alerts to unauthorized texts, IMs or callers (6% each); 60% of parents "forbid downloads onto their children’s phone for financial and security reasons."

For parents' own views, see also a piece in the Washington Post about when texting becomes nagging; "When Dad banned text messaging" in a New York Times blog; and another mom's view of her kids' texting at TMCnet.com.

UK teachers union chief: Un-ban cellphones in school

The head of Britain's largest head teachers' union said it's time to rethink the banning of cellphones at school. "Schools should be harnessing the fantastic educational opportunity children carry around in their pockets, instead of banning the phones with their cameras, voice recorders and internet access," The Guardian cites Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, as saying. As in the US, schools in the UK cite the potential abuses of the technology – and the need to protect children from them – as the reason for the mobile-phone ban most of them impose. However, educational technology consultant David Whyley told The Guardian that, "in schools where children were provided with handheld computers with phone and Internet access to use in lessons, teachers have reported very little misuse. His program, Learning2Go, has been in place for five years at 18 primary and secondary schools in Wolverhampton, the paper adds. See also "From 'digital disconnect' to mobile learning."

Nokia wants to help family communication

If you're interested in how a mobile phone maker is thinking about how to improve family communication, listen to Rafael Ballagas at the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto describe what his group - which does research for implementation 5-10 years out - is finding. They're looking at current family practices with an eye toward "promoting a stronger sense of family," Ballagas said. One thing they've found is that a lot of families still use standard voice calls, while children, particularly around 7 or 8, "have a lot of different difficulties communicating on cellphones," from cognitive (e.g. holding a phone up to their heads in a sustained way, pointing at things the listener can't see) to social (such as the give-and-take of voice conversations) to motivational (getting kids to stay engaged in audio-only conversations).

Live video streaming from phones

Think mobile Webcam. This is just the sort of tech development that's good for us parents to think about out of the gate: software that turns mere camera phones into videocams, making it that much easier for people to "broadcast" whatever they want live to the Web or another phone. Stephen Balkam of the Family Online Safety Institute blogs about a spectrum of implications in the Huffington Post, but let's zoom in on the part about kids, "the early adopters of all things mobile," Balkam writes. "Parents have bought their teens and tweens mobile phones in the millions to keep in touch with them and, in some cases, track where they are at any given time. Do they realize they've just handed them a mobile production unit for live television? Will this take sexting and cyberbullying to a new and more challenging level?" Great fuel for family discussion!

Cellphones = wireless connected computers

Landlines may be going away (see CNET), but don't think of cellphones merely as their replacement for voice communications - at least not if you're a parent. Because to get a better handle on how young people use phones, think of them as "the world's most ubiquitous computers," as the New York Times put it recently, adding that there are 4 billion mobile phones in use worldwide right now. The social network sites certainly get it. MySpace "has seen its mobile user base grow by 400% from last year, and now nearly 20 million users access the site through [mobile] phones," InformationWeek reports, and Facebook "is also looking to expand its mobile presence and is reportedly in talks with Nokia and Motorola for tighter integration into handsets." (BTW, on the landline subject, CNET reported that 17.5% of US households depended solely on cellphones for their phone communications during the first half of 2008, up from 13.6% a year earlier.)

Google-brand social mapping

Google just launched its version of social-mapping called "Latitude." It reportedly works on a lot of phones, not just Google's own Android, and people get the little app by going to Google's page on the subject, typing their mobile numbers into the box and getting a text message from Google with a download link in it, ComputerWorld reports. "The idea is you install Latitude on your cell phone and invite your geeky friends to do the same. Then they can see exactly where you are on a Google Map on their phone or the Web, and you can see them. Feel like hiding from the world? Tweak the privacy settings and you disappear. Or you can just X out certain friends when you're no longer feeling so friendly toward them." So if it sounds a little invasive, good, that means you'll work through the privacy features (and help your kids do the same). In fact, it's so easy to get that you might want to talk with your early adopters right up front about privacy features and why they're important. Latitude is not new, though. Three-year-old Loopt, also in Mountainview, Calif., is a pioneer in the social-mapping space, and particularly in user safety and privacy. Coverage in Forbes and CNET too.

Stalking texters, sexting monsters: A bit of help

You wouldn't think that the guy who made "Extreme PB&J Sandwich Making" would be an excellent source of advice on establishing digital boundaries. But YouTube and post-YouTube star Brandon Hardesty delivers brilliantly in his 4.5 minute video "What If" in ThatsNotCool.com. If your kid even knows someone who knows someone who's getting pressured by a peer to send nude photos of him or herself via cellphone, you might appreciate watching Brandon playing the roles of Mom, Dad, guidance counselor, and boyfriend as potential confidants in a situation like this. You might also love the quite fruity "Pressure Pic Problem," providing a slightly less agnostic perspective than Brandon's. I did. ThatsNotCool.com is brilliant too. It's co-created and -sponsored by the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Ad Council, and Office on Violence Against Women "to address new and complicated problems between teens who are dating or hooking up — problems like constant and controlling texting, pressuring for nude pictures, and breaking into someone's email or social-networking page." Besides the videos, which make for great family discussion talking points, there are "Call-Out Cards" with little messages like "I appreciate your concern for my location EVERY TWO MINUTES" that can be downloaded, emailed, or sent to MySpace or Facebook friends and annoying acquaintances. There are also a discussion forum where people can give and receive advice from peers and a Help section where they can reach out for professional help. BTW, for a bit of context: Nielsen Mobile reports that a typical US teen sends and receives more than 1,700 text messages a month (that's more than 50 a day).

Mobile devices 'key to 21st-century learning'

Kids' use of games, cellphones, and smartphones (next-generation, Web-browsing, media-sharing phones), "if carefully managed, could significantly boost their learning," Education Week reports, citing a just-released, 52-page study by a research center based at the Sesame Workshop (formerly Sesame Street) in New York. "Mobile devices are part of the fabric of children's lives today: They are here to stay,” said Michael H. Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, in a statement about the report. "It is no longer a question of whether we should use these devices to support learning, but how and when to use them." Among the report's recommendations are "investments in research and development aimed at understanding the impact of mobile technologies on children’s learning and development, including brain and behavioral functioning" and "a digital teacher corps that would train other teachers and after-school caregivers to use digital media to promote 21st-century literacy." Here's the Joan Ganz Cooney Center's blog, with links to the executive summary and full report in pdf format.

Japan's mobile bullying problem

Mobile phone bullying is on the rise in Japan, where some 96% of high school students own mobile phones, and the country's Education Ministry is proposing a nationwide ban on cellphones at school. "Nearly 6,000 incidents of mobile phone-related bullying were reported in schools last year, a rise of more than 1,000 compared with the previous year," The Telegraph reports, citing Japanese government data. "The panel also proposed mobile phone companies install public payphones in schools and introduce function limitations on mobile devices while parents establish domestic rules regulating phone usage." An 18-year-old student in Kobe committed suicide last summer "after classmates posted a nude photo of him on a Web site alongside his name and telephone number before sending emails demanding money," and the governor of Osaka has already banned mobile phones in his prefecture's schools. "Japan has the largest mobile phone market in the world, with annual sales of 50 million phones," according to The Telegraph, which adds that about a third of all elementary school students own mobile phones. As for bullying in general, in the US, every day some 160,000 students miss school for fear of being bullied, The Coloradoan reports in "Positive relationships end bullying." In the UK, 48% of 10-to-15-year-olds have been "verbally or physically abused in the last year," The Telegraph reports, citing findings from a survey of 150,000 kids by education watchdog Ofsted. See also USATODAY's "Bullying victimization devastates lives ... until victims find ways to heal."