More TV for toddlers equals school trouble later

Toddlers who watch too much TV may struggle in school later, with measurably lower scores in math, and they may get bullied more than other children, Canadian and U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

Less surprisingly, children who watched more TV at age 2 weighed more by the time they were 10 and ate more snacks and soft drinks, the researchers reported in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

"The results support previous suggestions that early childhood television exposure undermines attention," wrote Linda Pagani of the University of Montreal and colleagues at Bowling Green University in Kentucky and the University of Michigan.

They said children who spend more time watching TV and less time playing with other kids may lose valuable chances to learn social skills.

The researchers started with more than 2,000 children taking part in a larger study. Their parents reported how much TV the children watched at 2-1/2 and later at 4-1/2 year old.

The checked with the children's teachers and doctors when the subjects were 10.

Every additional weekly hour of television at 29 months corresponded to a 7 percent drop in classroom attention and a 6 percent drop in math skills, the researchers found.

An hour more TV a week as a toddler meant a child was 10 percent more likely to be bullied, exercised 13 percent less, weighed 5 percent more and ate 10 percent more snacks, they found.

"Despite clear, age-specific recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics that discourage any screen media exposure during infancy and less than two hours per day beyond 2 years of age, parents show poor factual knowledge and awareness of such existing guidelines," the researchers wrote.

U. S. Homeland Security CERT Warns Cyber
Risks from Social Networking

The popularity of social networking sites continues to increase, especially among teenagers and young adults.

The nature of these sites introduces security risks, so you should take certain precautions.

Social networking sites rely on connections and communication, so they encourage you to provide a certain amount of personal information. When deciding how much information to reveal, people may not exercise the same amount of caution as they would when meeting someone in person because

    * the internet provides a sense of anonymity
    * the lack of physical interaction provides a false sense of security
    * they tailor the information for their friends to read, forgetting that others may see it
    * they want to offer insights to impress potential friends or associates

While the majority of people using these sites do not pose a threat, malicious people may be drawn to them because of the accessibility and amount of personal information that's available. The more information malicious people have about you, the easier it is for them to take advantage of you. Predators may form relationships online and then convince unsuspecting individuals to meet them in person. That could lead to a dangerous situation. The personal information can also be used to conduct a social engineering attack . Using information that you provide about your location, hobbies, interests, and friends, a malicious person could impersonate a trusted friend or convince you that they have the authority to access other personal or financial data.

Additionally, because of the popularity of these sites, attackers may use them to distribute malicious code. Sites that offer applications developed by third parties are particularly susceptible. Attackers may be able to create customized applications that appear to be innocent while infecting your computer without your knowledge.

THE “WHAT’S YOUR STORY” INTERNET
SAFETY FOR KIDS AND FAMILIES
ONLINE VIDEO CONTEST

Thanks to everyone for submitting, sharing and rating these amazing Internet safety stories and helping others learn how to stay sate and secure online. Our panel of judges is currently reviewing submissions, and will announce the winners right here on whatsyourstory.trendmicro.com on June 1, 2010.

Oprah's No Phone Zone

Think you have the texting and driving thing down? You do not. Save a life—maybe even your own—and sign Oprah's No Phone Zone pledge.

Woman loses privacy case over Bebo
pictures published in magazine

A magazine did not intrude into a young woman's privacy when it published photos that she had uploaded to social networking site Bebo when she was 15 because the images had already been widely circulated online.

The woman complained to press self-regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). She said that an article and photographs which focused on her body intruded on her privacy and were published without her permission.

The PCC said that Loaded magazine did not invade the woman's privacy because though the original source of the pictures was her social networking profile they had appeared widely on the internet outside of that context and the magazine had not taken them directly from the Bebo page.

"The magazine had not taken the material from the complainant's Bebo site; rather it had published a piece commenting on something that had widespread circulation online (having been taken from the Bebo page sometime ago by others) and was easily accessed by Google searches," said the PCC's ruling.

"It was not a matter of dispute that images of the complainant had been freely available for some time (having been originally posted in 2006) or that she had been identified online as the person in the pictures," it said.

"The Commission could quite understand that the complainant objected strongly to the context in which they appeared online: what were images of her and her friends in a social context had become proclaimed as 'pin-up' material, the subject of innuendo and bawdy jokes," said the ruling. "The magazine had not accessed material from a personal site and then been responsible for an especially salacious means of presenting it; instead it had published a piece discussing the fact that this material was already being widely used in this way by others."

The PCC said that it felt it could not order the magazine not to use material that had been so widely circulated.