This video is quite old but still so funny and… true !
Everybody belongs to different networks in real life: family, colleagues, friends… Hence the need for different online networks: Facebook for friends, Linkedin for work and Yoocasa for family members.

Is the digital divide between young Internet users and their parents growing ? Are parents becoming “old school” ?
A new web American website tries to remind us that our parents alos had their moments of glory and awesomeness, with the slogan:

Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome.

So, My Parents Were Awesome proposes to publish pictures of our parents to keep in mind these moments of glory.

The Swedish organization, the Youth Care Foundation (Stiftelsen Ungdomsvård), wrote a very pessimistic report about gaming habits of children.

“I believe we’re dealing with a problem of pandemic proportions.”

Sven Rollenhagen of the Youth Care Foundation

This organization has long experience in treating the children’s gaming addictions. So, they have a deap understanding of the problem. But, is gaming really comparable with a pandemic.

A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan “all” + δῆμος demos “people”) is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.

Wikipedia

So, with its international spread, if gaming would be an infectious disease, it would definitely be a pandemic. But, it is neither contageous nor a disease. It is an addiction. As such, it is more comparable with tobacco or, even better comparison, gambling.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t make it a smaller problem. The good thing about infectious disease is that most of them can be treated with a vaccine. And pandemic, if treated early and systematically, can also most of the time be stopped.
With addictions, one of the problem is that most of the patients don’t realize their addiction and are not interested in changing. When accepted, the treatments involve psychological treatments: it usually tries to identify specific ways to avoid the addictive stimulus, and help the client learn healthier ways to find satisfaction.
But, even if addictions are very complicated to treat, they are easier to avoid than infections, especially with gaming. Parent can help their kids prevent the addiction, by spending some time playing with their kids. It helps creating a common reference, useful to communicate, understand and suggest good gaming practices to their children.

Parents tend to forget it, but they are the first models of their children…
This vidéo from Children Friendly Australia is a good call to order…

After the Digital Natives… are the Mobile Natives coming?

This beautiful picture from Asim Bijarani proves, if still necessary, that mobile phones are part of the daily lives of our teens.

It’s a well-known experience: promise a second marshmallow to kids if they can resist to eating the first one.
But this video of the kids resisting to the temptation is very funny.

Would you have resisted ? And to a 500 € bill ?

If you always wondered what are virtual worlds like Second Life or massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft, the documentary Second Skin might interest you. Indeed, Second Skin explores the impact of virtual worlds and MMOs on players from different backgrounds.

It takes an intimate look at three groups of gamers whose lives have been transformed by these virtual worlds, that allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. And, out of these 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted. From people struggling with addiction to couples who fell in love without meeting physically; from disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose to gold farmers, entrepreneurs and widows, Second Skin opens viewers’ eyes to a phenomenon that may permanently change the way human beings interact.

Having received great reviews and despite the criticisms of some players who do not recognize their own experience in it, Second Skin will give you a first glimpse of these worlds and their attractions.