Digital Detox, Blog Hiatus, and Fresh New Focus for 2013

Jan. 2013-Shaping Youth has taken a first ever, full month long blog hiatus until Feb. 1, 2013. You can follow our posts on Twitter in the interim while we unplug the blog to repower the system with fresh approaches to timely topics you care about concerning media and marketing's impact on kids. Media management and recapturing focus has been challenging for many of us in … [Read more...]

Media Unplugged: Clamping The IV Digital Drip (Pt1)

Dec. 14, 2015 Update Don't miss this Wall Street Journal article, "Is your Doctor Getting Too Much Screen Time? which is a huge patient/service complaint and a disconnect especially among seniors navigating health care systems often being told to do things online when they are not even conversant in that "language." It's a digital health "epic fail" on the transition tactics … [Read more...]

Media Slave? ReShaping Habits For More Summer Fun

July 27, 2010 “Why aren’t you posting on Shaping Youth every day like you used to, Amy? Are you on summer hiatus like the networks?” Um, I guess that’s what you’d call it. Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed to ‘inform’ people that I was trying to eke out some ‘white space’ and life balance in the name of healthy media consumption, because it seemed like an … [Read more...]

COPPA: Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Filing

July 1, 2010 For those mumbling, "COPPA schmoppa, there goes Amy into policy wonk land, please translate media jargon into usable tidbits" I'll offer a few primers... What is COPPA? Why do we need it? (see DigitalAds.org for an interactive show-n-tell which all ages can grok for an 'aha' moment on food and beverage marketing targeting kids in the digital age) Who are … [Read more...]

6th Grade Boy Pulls A Susan Boyle To Trump LadyGaga

May 20, 2010 Riddle me this… What dynamo 6th grade boy from Edmond, Oklahoma performed LadyGaga’s Paparazzi managing to segue the local audience from ‘ho-hum, just another piano number’ talent show inattentiveness to jaw-dropping admiration in ‘omg, this boy has some SERIOUS pipes’ style? (video after the jump) AND... How did digital media turn Greyson Chance into this … [Read more...]