Nickelodeon disputed the study, saying the cartoon is geared towards 6 to 11 year old viewers.  The researchers did not test the children prior to the study, although they claim none of the children were diagnosed with attention problems. 

The message they are trying to make parents aware of is that viewing of content matters.  Watching television in the car on the way to school is probably not a good way to get them prepared for the day.

It seems logical that television viewing of any kind should be limited to small children.  The television has become a babysitter to a lot of parents, but as people become more aware of the adverse effects, this will change. 

Researchers should leave Spongebob alone.  Parents should limit all TV viewing, no matter what cartoon.

A bonus for this game is your young boys and girls will really enjoy it.  I’ve had a hard time finding games that are simple and straight to the point for my young son.  When we are on a road trip, he’s constantly asking if he can play “shooting games” or “boy games.”  Duck Carnage has been a life saver for those trips!  The game also helps develop motor skills as they have to follow the ducks on the screen and press quickly in order to shoot them.  The sound effects are easy on the ears, but if you are really in a quiet spot, there are options to disable sound effects.

The name of the game is a little misleading – no real carnage takes place.  No blood or excessive violence, just fun cartoony play time.  Check out Duck Carnage now in the Android market.

Among his findings were:

• Teens who use more technology (such as video games and the Internet) have a harder time sleeping, experience stomach problems and increased anxiety.
• Facebook users were generally more narcissistic as they are constantly given an arena for broadcasting their life.  He also attributes that more Facebook use is linked to antisocial personality disorder, paranoia, anxiety and alcohol use.
• Students are less attentive to studying for an exam.  When Rosen studied a group of college, high school and middle school students, most of them were only able to study for 15 minutes before turning to their mobile devices.

Rosen suggests parents maintain open conversations with their children on the amount of time spent on technology.  Parents need to keep a non-judgmental position when discussing their online lifestyle, so they will be comfortable discussing how they behave with other kids online.

See the Los Angeles times for more details on Rosen’s study.

************

What do you think?  Has social networking and the Internet harmed our children’s growth?  Speak your mind and comment below.

Parental Exercise Bikes

Why not get your work out in when the baby won’t sleep at night? You get fit and the motion of the bike puts the baby to sleep.  Awesome.

Why Cry Baby Monitor

This device analyzes a baby’s cry and displays the possible reason for the crying via an LCD screen.  It offers five possible categories:  hungry, bored, stressed, annoyed or tired.  Maybe in 50 years it will just spurt out exactly what the baby is thinking!

Temperature Controlled Baby Stroller

Just in case you are worried the bundles of blankets surrounding your baby isn’t enough. 

Humanized Temperature

This gadget takes the motion of a parent putting their hand on their child’s forehead to check their temperature.  But, instead of saying “well, you do feel warm” the parent can say, you are running at 101.1! 

Mommy I’m Here Kid Tracking Device

When the baby starts walking, they can get out of your reach very quickly!  You clip the teddy bear onto the child’s shoe, or belt, and if they get farther than 25 feet away from you it sounds an alert to the receiver on your keychain.   I could have used “Mommy I’m Here” in the early walking years!  I wonder if this would work on my teenager when we go to the mall.  (teehee)

BabySport Water Bottle Nipple Adapter

Talk about the ultimate gadget!  Inexpensive, low-tech, but ingenious!  Have you ever forgotten to bring a bottle with you to the store?  Did you leave the house for a trip up the road, only to have the baby screaming because you forgot their bottle?  If you keep one of these water bottle nipple adapters in your purse, you can grab a water bottle and throw it on the top.  Just don’t put it on a bottle of soda pop, your doctor will definitely not approve!

It’s amazing how many high tech baby gadgets are available in today’s world.  Leave a comment if you have a baby gadget that you couldn’t imagine living without.

Geeky Moms’ Top 5 Family Games to Come in 2011

1.  Diablo III – PC

The first question which comes to mind is, will Diablo III really come out in 2011?  The game has been in development for several years, and Blizzard has been releasing small teasers.  The anticipation is really building!  The second question which comes to mind, is this a family game?

Yes – for the geekiest gaming families!  Diablo II was so much fun for my family.  My son was around 8 when we introduced him to this game.  You can group together and complete levels as a team.  The game is different from an mmorpg as you have a more top-level view of your character.  The art, music and game concepts are amazing. 

2.  YooStar 2:  Movie Karaoke – Kinect Xbox 360

If you love movies and generally find yourself quoting movies, you will love this game.  You are featured as a character in a blockbuster of the past.  You are then edited into the scene.  The game is a lot like karaoke where it scores you based on your improvisation and how quick you were to respond to a line.  The game play looks hilarious, and will make a great family night!

Check out the video here:  http://123kinect.com/kinect-gameplay-yoostar-2-movie-karaoke/

3.  Mario Sports Mix – Wii

Yea for the Wii!  The Kinect is really outshining the Wii as far as new game development goes.  Nintendo still has the Mario card in its back pocket.  Mario Sports Mix allows up to four players to play locally or up to two people per console to play online.  The game consists of your favorite Mario characters, in addition to a few new ones.  In this edition of Mario game play, the gang is going to be suiting up for basketball, dodgeball, volleyball and hockey. 

4.  Super Hero Squad – PC

This MMORPG allows you to play as one of the fabulous Marvel Super Hero Squad characters.  It was developed with the 8 year old in mind.  Rather than free text chatting, it gives the player built in scripts that you can chat to others.  This is great for kids, as you don’t have to type and you don’t have crazy people on the game saying whatever they want.  The game is so much fun.  I demo’d the game at PAX with my 4 year old son in mind.  I can see us all getting online in the future and playing for an hour together.  In addition to the MMORPG side, there is also a set of mini-games built in, that is related to the actual card game you can purchase.  Basically, you can either go out and fight with your character or roam about the world, or you can play the card game. 

5.  Kinectalloons

Scheduled to release in May 2011, Kinectalloons is an adventure family game.  The game is similar to Kinectimals, but you interact with balloons and do tricks to get through the levels.  Your kids of all ages will enjoy jumping, reaching and stretching into ridiculous situations in order to complete a level. 

Happy gaming everyone!  Schedule a family game night and enjoy the benefits of connecting with your kids.

Children under age 6 should not use a forthcoming portable 3D video game player because it could permanently damage their eyesight, its manufacturer warned.

The Japanese company Nintendo plans to introduce its 3DS player in Japan in late February, with launches in the U.S. and other markets soon after.

Nintendo has posted a warning against use of the device in 3D mode by children younger than 6,  stating "a potential impact on the growth of children’s eyes."

Nintendo indicated that the danger lies in the fact that the neural processing that underlies eyesight is still developing in young children.

As a result, the company suggested, the delivery of different artificial images to the left and right eye — as all 3D video systems do — could be harmful to proper eyesight development.

Nintendo states the device can be switched to a 2D mode that should be safe for children.

The game company also recommended that adult 3DS users take breaks every 30 minutes when playing 3D games.

Users of current 3D systems that play on home television screens have reported nausea as well as eyestrain after prolonged usage.

Nintendo and other manufacturers currently recommend that users take regular breaks from these games, although the new warning is the first to suggest a 30-minute playtime limit.

See here for the full release.

The time management game presents a nice introduction, with a simple story line for youngsters to follow.  My 6 year old daughter jumped in right next to me to explore the secrets this game has to offer.

As the story unfolds, my daughter desperately tried to ‘skip’ the intro movie.  I stopped her from doing so in the hopes that she would get more into the story of the game.  She still wasn’t convinced, but I was impressed with the introduction movie.  Flo is approached by Mr. Big to take over his theme park restaurants because he is having an awful time running them.  Of course, Flo accepts the challenge.  The intro scene has character audio and text that you can read, and for those impatient 6 year olds, a skip button!

After the intro scene, you dive right into serving customers, bringing them their food, taking the bill, cleaning up, and even cooking!  Flo does her share of cooking on the deep-fryer with Fries & Fish as her specialty.  The game is very fast paced.  I especially appreciate the coordination and color matching it has to offer for children.  Customers are different colors, such as red, yellow, or green, and can only be seated at a matching color table.  You have to multi-task a great deal to make sure all the customers are satisfied.  If you keep a customer waiting too long, they will get upset and leave, thus draining your points and keeping you from the next achievement.

The game also offers a really nice Help section.  I was really impressed to see this, as most casual games of this type just throw you in with a small tutorial and don’t spend a lot of time on documentation.

Your kids will enjoy this game, and it offers a great way to expand their mouse and multi-tasking skills.  It also includes some really fun mini-games.  Secretly, you will end up playing the game for hours.  Cooking Dash offers a nice stress relieving activity, after a long day at work or being a mom!

As I explore this game more, I will give you a sneak peak of some game play footage!

For now, give it a try.  You can download the game at Big Fish Games.  Enjoy!

Atari from WomenGamers.com talks about these challenges in her article “Gaming with a Newborn.”

Gaming with a Newborn

By Ismini "Atari" Roby

"For months leading up to my son’s birth, I heard seasoned parent gamers who play on the upwards of 30+ hours a week say, "Be prepared for your entire life to change. You’ll be lucky if you get any time to game." Frankly, this scared me. Gaming has always been a great tool for me to wind down and de-stress. With a kid on the way, I couldn’t imagine getting rid of one of my most effective relaxation techniques. I knew had to figure out a way to balance out the baby’s needs with my own, but with little knowledge of what the days ahead would be like, I really didn’t know how difficult it was going to be.

I thought the childbirth was going to be the hard part. In fact, when I was in labor, I remember thinking, "My god that is the hardest physical thing I think I’ve ever endured." A couple of days later I changed my mind. The hardest part was, hands down, the week right after.

Just because something is natural and has been done since the dawn of time does not make it intuitive. With all of the sophisticated features of the human body that help facilitate motherhood, there is still a learning curve for both mom and baby. Breastfeeding is probably the most surprisingly difficult feat to overcome. Not only are you learning how to do it, but the baby is struggling to figure it out as well, and with new feelings of hunger you can bet he was getting frustrated too. Compound that with an inevitable lack of sleep and crazy high hormone levels that make you cry at the drop of a hat, and you easily have the most stressful week of your life.

I couldn’t even think about games or WomenGamers.Com. All I could think about was how I wanted him to hurry up and grow a couple more pounds so he would start sleeping through the night (technically a 4-hour stretch of sleep). I was miserable. I was tired. I was frustrated. I was stressed. And the baby blues were making me an emotional basketcase.

The only real consolation to the first week is that it can only get better. By the second week, things started to look up and as my wits came back to me, I began planning how to make us both happy. World of Warcraft was coming and I was determined to play. But how can you play an MMORPG when you have to get up every two hours to attend to your son?

The answer: make sure you have a good pillow and computer chair with armrests that lift and descend. I found this wonderful pillow that snaps around your waste and is made of a hard foam. By using the armrests of my computer chair, I was able to recline the baby in my lap and easily feed him while on the computer. By tilting the keyboard at a 45 degree angle and sliding part of it on the pillow for support, then positioning my chair so that my right arm is closer to the mouse, I was able to accomplish two-handed computer access. Prior to discovering I could do all this, I would wake up in the middle of the night, sit in a rocking chair and be completely bored to tears staring at the clock. By being able to sit at my computer and play games, the time it now takes to feed him seems to fly by. In fact, on a number of occasions since World of Warcraft came out, he’d fall asleep in my lap while I would keep on playing. As a plus, because I’m playing at 4am on weekdays, I get to play relatively lag-free and without fighting people for overly-camped spawns.

And since mom was happy, baby was happy. Not only can your baby sense your stress, but your milk production will suffer if you can’t relax. If gaming helps you achieve mental and physical wellness, then don’t deprive yourself and your child by giving up activities that can benefit you both. Yes, your life will change, but with a little creativity, gaming can still be a part of your life.

This article was republished with permission from WomenGamers.Com.

Email Safety

1. Never give out personal information via email.

2. Be extremely cautious when being asked to click on any links sent to you in email. Even if it is sent from someone you know.

3. Your bank will not send you an email asking for your bank account information or your social security number. They already have this information. If you get this type of email delete it. If you are unsure and think the email might be valid, double check by contacting your bank by phone.

4. If you get an email asking for money from someone you do not know—delete the email. No matter what the horrible story is that they are telling you, these predators use the sympathy card and try to pull at your heart strings.

5. Keep your computer antivirus software up to date. I can’t stress this one enough. It is not good enough in this day and age to only have the software on your pc. Hundreds of new viruses, if not thousands, come out weekly and even daily. Your antivirus software is continuously being updated to catch all of the new virus’s that are out there. If your software is behind, you are opening the door to trouble.

Social Networking Site Safety

1. If you are on social networking sites—be careful the “surveys” you take asking you to fill out harmless questions for fun. A lot of times these answers are used to gather information that could possibly be things you use for passwords or challenge questions on different websites. If you give this information out "they" can reset your password for online banking or various credit cards. One of the common surveys being sent around— 20 things you don’t know about me is a perfect example — a lot of the answers are—birthday, where you were born, favorite color, first car you’ve ever owned. All of these questions are used as security questions on a lot of sites in order to change your password or verify you are the "account" holder.

2. Never post when you will be leaving town or will be gone from your house for any extended period. There are people who take advantage of the Social sites looking for vacant homes so they can break into the house. Even posting that your husband or wife is gone for the night is a safety risk.

3. Try not to list your entire birthdate on the site with the month, day, and year. You want to cherish your personal information. Specific information such as your entire birthdate, address, full name, spouses name, etc … are all things that can be used to steal your identity.

4. Do not accept people you do not know at all or even those you do not know very well. My rule of thumb is if I don’t know the person well enough to communicated often with them, then I don’t add them to my friends list.

5. Protect your childrens information. I am guilty of this one. You are a proud parent and you want to post a list of your children on the site. Their ages, birthdates, activities etc … This is especially dangerous if you do not carefully watch which friends you accept to your account. Kid Identity Theft is out there now as well as adult identity theft. As parents we need to protect their identities as we would our own.

There are many more ways to protect yourself and still enjoy the technology at hand, the items above will give you a good foundation and the most important way I have found is to use common sense and keep your eyes open.

WomenGamers.com

Atari from WomenGamers.com talks about these challenges in her article “Gamer Mom to Be.”

Gamer Mom to Be

By Ismini "Atari" Roby

"So can you guess what it is?"

I squinted at the ultrasound dumbfounded. I had no idea what I was looking out. "Ok, you got me. I give up."

"It’s a boy. See this right here?" I didn’t see it. I still don’t see it even after she drew an arrow to it and printed it out for me. All I see is a white blob next to a bunch of other white blobs. But the nurse seemed quite certain.

I really didn’t have a preference on sex. Having grown up mainly around girls, I knew a girl would be at least easier to understand (although not necessarily easier to raise). On the other hand, a boy would be quite an adventure for the very same reason. As a kid, I barely understood boys. As an adult, I now have a chance to see that same timeframe from a different perspective.

As we left the doctor’s office, something unexpected happened as I was thinking about the sex of my baby. I started thinking of all the crap that can happen between now and… well lets see I’m up to when this kid gets married and has kids of his own. I prepared my "talks" in advance from day 1, knowing full well that what I am going to say will completely depend on the personality of the kid and will likely change dramatically. I started thinking of things like:

• Fighting off the monsters under the bed
• Finding porn on his computer
• His first girlfriend
• His first black eye
• Teaching him about strangers
• Teaching him about drugs
• Instilling good eating habits on him
• Dealing with depression
• Dealing with loss
• Breaking down stereotypes
• Respecting women while not getting his heart torn up
• Showing him good strategies for playing FPS games

And the list goes on. You also start to worry about stuff like whether you should go to a flat screen monitor so your kid doesn’t become ADHD (new studies have shown that the refresh rate in TVs and monitors effects a child’s brain increasing their chance of getting ADHD during the first couple of years), and whether I should be writing this article right now knowing that the radiation from this 21" monitor might be affecting my kid. Hm, good reason to get that flat screen now… I wonder if my husband will go for that…

Of course, the worrying didn’t end there. Does it ever end I wonder? As I was going maternity clothes shopping today (staring through the cheesy racks of pastel pink clothes that were about ready to make me gag), I started thinking about the kid’s clothing section and how I found both the boy and girl sections to be nearly as frustrating. The girl’s section is riddled with flowery designs in pastels and hot pink, and the boy’s clothes look drab and washed out with images of sports and cars on just about everything you see. Looking at the clothes reminded me of those idiotic Barbie and Hot Wheels computers for kids. It’s so difficult to find things that aren’t stereotyped to a certain sex when you are shopping for a child. Especially when shopping for boys. Girls have far more options as they can cross over with little reprecussions. For example, a girl playing with Hot Wheels is far more acceptable in today’s society than a boy playing with a Barbie. How does one broaden a kid’s choices when so many of the toys and images available are so narrow in vision? All I gotta say is, thank god for Legos.

Speaking of toys, I’ve also come to the conclusion that my kid will probably hate video games since his parents play them rather religiously. It’s Murphy’s Law after all. Besides, my hobbies are somewhat different from my parent’s hobbies. I wonder what he’s going to find interesting and fun? Hrm, there goes my aspirations to make him my crafting mule when he gets old enough to use a computer. Ok, I’m not that mean. And according to one of my Dark Age of Camelot friends up in Montreal, it’s more likely that my kid will put me to work by making me powerlevel him.

Well that’s the beauty about individuality. You never quite know what you’re going to get. For now, maybe I should just stick to figuring out how to change a diaper and leave the ulcers for another day.

This article was republished with permission from WomenGamers.Com.