ParentTech Roundup | 26 February
A weekly collection of the most interesting news about child development and new products for tech-savvy parents. Missed last week’s roundup? Read it here.
📚 Parenting in the Digital Age: A Review of The Art of Screen Time (Connected Parenting)
If you are a new parent, there is high chance that you’ve heard about the “screen time” debate. With research studies that confirm TV exposure negatively impacts a child’s language development and decreases the frequency of parent-child interactions, many mums and dads ask — how should I use audio-visual devices around my little one?
It’s also important to remember that not all screen time is created equal. These luminescent windows connect kids to faraway family, provide support groups for new mothers, allow us to share family videos and pictures, teach us about the world, and let kids rehearse for a technological reality that will only become a bigger part of their lives in the years to come.
Anya Kamenetz is a mother and an author who attempts to provide guidance. Her newly published book “The Art of Screen Time” includes a summary of scientific facts together with personal parenting experiences and pros and cons of various parenting technologies — providing you with the information you need to reach an objective conclusion.
🔒 How to know if your child’s smart toy has been hacked? (IB Times)
Just as with any data-tracking technology, smart baby devices come with their own threats. The concern that we hear most commonly in our interviews with parents is privacy.
International Business Times decided to investigate how popular KidTech companies treat privacy issues and what measures do they take to keep your family’s data safe. Find out more about their responses in the full article, while here are the 3 quick signs to look out for, recommended by Peter Bassill from Hedgehog Security:
1. Has the toy said something that doesn’t seem quite right?
2. Are the lights flashing in a different way from when you first got it?
3. Has it performed an action or done something while it wasn’t being played with?
🎧 A child development expert reveals how listening to podcasts could affect your kid (Business Insider)
Popularity of podcasts is on the rise — according to market research, podcast listeners spend an average of 5 hours 7 minutes per week listening to them and subscribe to around 6 podcasts.
As this number grows, researchers started to ask — can podcasts have negative impact on parent’s attention?
Opinions are now divided. Jenny Radesky (author at Media and Young Minds policy) thinks “it’s possible that when a parent’s attention is really absorbed in a podcast, they’re trying to listen to a story or learn about science, it’s going to be hard for them to respond to children’s cues.” On the other hand, by educating themselves, parents exercise self-care and continue pre-baby routines which can help, especially mothers to overcome post-partum depression.
Research indicates that recorded voices don’t mean much to very young children, since they process language best when it comes from a person who is reacting to cues the baby is giving. — Jenny Radesky
What do you think? Do you have experience engaging with podcasts while around your baby? Let’s start a discussion in comments!
🚀 ParentTech of the week: Playfully
As the creators of Playfully say: “Let’s face it. We all have that little voice in the back of our heads asking if we are doing enough.”
Created by mothers and educators, this new app claims to make parenting easier and bring busy, working parents ideas for easy playtime activities they can do with their little ones.
Playfully is currently available on iOS — give it a try and feel free to share your feedback in the comments to help Playfully’s founders get feedback!
Note: This is not a sponsored mention. We love KidTech with impact and are personally picking projects we love every week :)
ABOUT US
ParentTech Roundup is preapred by the creators of Oto (previously called Wordle)— the first device and a platform that enables parents to monitor and improve their child’s brain development right from home!
Find our more on our website and join our Early Bird mailing list: www.oyalabs.com
