Facebook turned six this week and so did my relationship with it.  Initially, at its creation, I was a voyeur on my kids’ sites because I didn’t have the requisite college .edu address to access to the site.
Soon after, when it expanded to include high school students, it dropped the .edu address requirement. It wasn’t [...]

I like to remind parents that the Internet is not an all-or-nothing place for kids. Just like you wouldn’t give your kids the keys to the car and tell them to “grab a bunch of friends and drive across the country” on the first day that they’re licensed drivers, you don’t want to give them [...]

My 80-year-old dad just invited everyone he knows to join him on Desktop Dating. (I’ll refrain from providing the URL.) Desktop Dating is a porn dating site. The site’s opening screen shows two people engaged in some powerful human one-on-one interaction.
So what was going through Dad’s head when he invited everyone in his AOL address [...]

What if your life were just an example to be parodied? That’s how I felt when I watched this perfectly executed parody of an earnest mom explaining how she can keep tabs on her college kids. If you’ve ever been part of the Internet safety discussion you’ve got to see this clip from The Onion.

Now that school is back in session, kids will be spending inordinate amounts of time staring at their usual screens, but parents typically have no idea whether the kids are looking for homework help or looking for trouble. Some of the newest products available for kids give them a chance to do some really cool [...]

In the US alone there are dozens of well meaning organizations and companies that have made Internet Safety their bailiwick. Internet security companies like Symantec, Trend Micro, and McAfee for example, are but a few that have concentrated efforts on giving parents tools to monitor their kids’ Internet behaviors.
Organizations like WiredSafety, FOSI, getNetWise, NetSmartz, Pause, [...]

There are a number of high tech companies seeking to save consumers from themselves by helping them curb overspending. Some of the ideas are quite novel, and if you’re tempted by a big luscious ad or you’re someone with a gift list as long as War and Peace, check out these clever shopping restraints. (Just [...]

Their bodies may be gone, but their user names, passwords, and online personae linger on.
As our PCs and our emails hold more and more of our most intimate musings, and as boomers face mortality, the question of how to treat our online lives in the afterlife is a big one. I hear more and more [...]

Watch kids play long enough and you learn that there’s nothing new under the sun. Only the packaging changes. The same play types—from pirates to mystery sleuths, from hula hoops to board game favorites—reappear.
This notion of favorite play patterns wasn’t lost on Ted Barnett, the CEO, co-founder, and dad behind the new virtual world, SuperSecret. [...]

If you want to see which way the high tech winds are blowing, you need to be at DEMO, a conference that identifies new entrepreneurial ventures. It’s held every year in March.
But, this year, it’s not just the products that are bellwethers–it’s the entire scene. This year, there are half as many products being DEMO’ed [...]