The Effects Of Touchscreens and Social Media On Kids

Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician and the lead author of a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics on the effects of media on children, spoke with New Tech City host Manoush Zomordi about the pluses and minuses of the digital age for kids.

In particular, Brown touches on some of the long-term effects of kids using too much technology.

"Kids who have even one device — one electronic device — in their room, much less two or three, are getting significantly less sleep a night," Brown said.

Putting a 13-Year-Old Child Safely on Facebook

In Putting a 13-Year-Old Child Safely on Facebook Nick Bilton talks about how Facebook's privacy settings can be daunting, even for adults, the social media challenges that face teenagers, and what you can do about them.

This is important for everyone, especially the part on ads. Check it out at The New York Times

NYC Traffic Deaths in Context

On The Brian Lehrer Show Robert Kolker, contributing editor for New York Magazine, discusses his new piece on why traffic deaths are up in NYC, and how the city is trying to make intersections safer.

This show may lead to the healing of years of my own trauma & anxiety.

Eason's Race, My Mission

When Eason was 8 years old he ran in our town's 1 mile Turkey "Fun" Run in 9:30. It wasn't too difficult for him and I suggested that we try the 5k in the following Spring Derby. He did not think he would need to practice, saying that he ran around all the time. I explained that running around casually was not the same as running such a long race. Sure enough when the time came he wound up having to walk almost half the race, finishing 3.1 miles in just over 38 minutes.

The good part is that he agreed to start training.

Thanksgiving 2012

We celebrated Thanksgiving, and we had turkey.

Morality Quiz

I took the Moral Foundations quiz at YourMorals.Org.

In the graph, my scores on each foundation are shown in green (the 1st bar in each set of 3 bars). The scores of all liberals who have taken it are shown in blue (the 2nd bar), and the scores of all conservatives are shown in red (3rd bar). Scores run from 0 (the lowest possible score, you completely reject that foundation) to 5 (the highest possible score, you very strongly endorse that foundation and build much of your morality on top of it).

Elections

I was surprised to learn that I side with Barack Obama more than any other candidate, so even though I'm not 100% with him on many issues, that is who I'm voting for in this election. I expected to side more with Jill Stein, even though I did side more with the Green Party than the Democrat Party, overall.

Try the political quiz yourself.