Parent's Fears about Cell Phones and their Children are Exaggerated According to Duke Study, Yet both Parents and Children are Distracted by Devices

A study conducted by Duke University, found that the many fears parents have about their children losing face-to-face social abilities is unfounded.  They found that teenagers who have strong relationships face to face and spend a lot of time online, continue to build those strong social relationships online, in a positive manner.  At the same time, children who struggle with face-to-face relationships will most often struggle with relationships online.  Thus, teenagers continue to do what they have always done, they are just adding-in technology as a piece of their everyday social experiences.  As far as safety is concerned, most teenagers do not interact with strangers online, rather they are interacting with friends and family through their cell phones and mobile devices.  The one concern that was founded was teenagers sleeping with their phones and losing valuable sleep time to wake up and check their phone or stay up late texting.  Lack of sleep is a concern and with proper parenting structures around devices, such as "no devices in bedrooms" or "devices out of bedrooms by 9pm" could help to eliminate this issue.

Parent modeling is key.  In a recent report by CommonSenseMedia, parents were just as guilty as their children when it came to texting often and being distracted by their cell phones.  41% of teenagers feel their parents get distracted with their devices and don't pay attention to their children when they are with them.  While 77% of parents felt the same way about their children's device use.

New Research on Student's and Cell Phone Use

The annual Speak Up Report (Download Speak Up Press Release 2009) has emerged with some interesting data sourrounding mobile devices. The results are excellent news for teachers and schools considering mobile devices in learning! Below are a few of the findings from the report.

Among high school students

• 85 percent report having an iPod
• 70 percent have a laptop or netbook
• 30 percent have smart phones

For the first time since 2003, when asked to identify the major obstacle to prevent use of technology in school, students in grades 6–12 said “I cannot use my own cell phone, smart phone or Mp3 player in school.” Previously, the top response was “school filters and firewalls.”

11% of teachers and 16% of parents dismiss mobile devices as having no positive impact on learning. (This means that overwhelmingly parents and teachers agree that mobile devices can have a beneficial impact on learning!!!)

67% of teachers think students will be distracted and more than half are concerned that not all students will have access

In The Three Screen Report just released by Nielsen, it was found that...

"Active mobile video users grew by 57% from 2008 to 2009, from 11.2 million to 17.6 million. Much of this increase can be linked to the strong growth of smartphones in the marketplace."

The age bracket watching the most videos on mobile devices is 12-17!