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Conversations with Clinicians: Najat Fadlallah, MD
Visiting scholar and pediatric fellow, Najat Fadlallah, MD advocates that healthy digital habits are about creating realistic structures that encourage active and purposeful engagement, while still leaving room for offline…
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Is Your Child’s Screen Use Damaging Their Eyes?
The American Academy of Ophthalmology has proclaimed that August is Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month, which is dedicated to preventing eye injuries and vision loss. Healthy vision is essential…
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What’s a Pulse Survey?
One of the ongoing challenges of researching media and technology is that the digital landscape changes rapidly, often outpacing the research. Pulse Surveys help us keep up. Pulse Surveys allow…
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Zoey Yue, Ph.D is Bringing New Insight to the Digital Wellness Lab
We’re excited to welcome Zhiying (Zoey) Yue, Ph.D., to the Digital Wellness Lab this summer as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Digital Wellness. Within her role, Zoey will be working…
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Ask the Experts: How do I model good digital media and tech habits for my kids?
How do I model good digital media and tech habits for my kids? As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Drawing from what we know from research, this…
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Get the Family Outdoors with Digital Tech to Celebrate National Health and Fitness Day
Every day is a good day to get your family outside and moving but today is National Family Health and Fitness Day, which is a fantastic excuse to put a…
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What To Do When… Your teen seems to prefer spending time online than with their family or “real world” friends
If it seems like your teen would rather spend time on their phone than with their family or even their IRL friends, you’re not alone. It’s normal for adolescents to…
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What To Do When… It’s time to move your young child away from a screen
For parents of young children who struggle to take away tablets or phones or to turn off beloved TV shows without inciting tantrums, we offer strategies and conversation starters to…
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What To Do When… You want to teach your child how to play games with rules
Interactive games support your child’s development of reading, communication, and math skills. They also offer a great opportunity to build your child’s social emotional competencies. We offer strategies for conversations…
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What To Do When… You discover a caregiver is using more media with your child than you’re comfortable with
It’s not uncommon for daycares, babysitters, and other caregivers to use media and screens to entertain children during the day. We offer strategies for parents who want to address their…
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Ask the Experts: Toddlers and Background Noise
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a toddler guidance regarding the impacts of background media — TV, music, etc. — on their child’s development.
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Ask the Experts: Teens, Photos, and Online Privacy
The Mediatrician offers a parent of a teenager strategies to support her daughter’s healthy and safe use of photo sharing on social media.
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Ask the Experts: Gradeschoolers and Video Games
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we talk about strategies for supporting a school age child’s healthy use of video games.
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What To Do When… You’re not sure how to talk to your young child about media
It may feel awkward, but talking to babies and toddlers about media can help to build their communication and social emotional skills while developing their healthy engagement with technology and…
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What To Do When… You’re concerned your child is being cyberbullied
Studies indicate that 20-40% of children experience cyberbullying, with the prevalence higher for girls and LGBTQIA children. In this post, we provide suggestions for conversation starters to address your concerns…
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What To Do When… You see inappropriate content on your teen’s social media page
We offer strategies and conversation starters for parents who find inappropriate content — such as drug or alcohol use, hateful language, or sexually explicit photos — on their child’s social…
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Ask the Experts: Teens and Bingewatching and Doomscrolling
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a teenager strategies to help him break the mindless habit of staying up all night binge watching and…
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Ask the Experts: Middle Schoolers and R-Rated Movies
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent guidance for what to do when her middle-schooler is begging to see an R-rated movie all his friends have…
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Ask the Experts: E-books vs. Print Books for Toddlers
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a toddler guidance regarding the use of e-books for reading together.
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What to Do When… Your child’s friends have greater access online than they do
It’s not easy for a child when their friends get things they don’t. In this post, we offer some conversation starters for helping your child deal with their envy and…
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Social Media-lutions 2022
This year, social media continues to be popular among teenagers. As 2022 approaches, consider making a New Year’s social media-lution–a resolution around social media use–with your teen to help them…
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Digital Wellness Lab Applauds Surgeon General’s Youth Mental Health Advisory
In October 2021, when the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association released a statement declaring the “worsening crisis in…
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Building Social-Emotional Skills With Technology: How to Use SEL to Cultivate Digital Wellness
Throughout the past two decades, social-emotional learning has evolved into one of the most frequently talked about (and researched) topics within the field of education.
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Is Social Media the Tobacco of the 21st Century?
Social media, as former Facebook president Sean Parker famously acknowledged, is “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” by creating a “social validation feedback loop”. In a country where over 85%…
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Taking the pulse: Kids’ media use during the COVID-19 pandemic
The Digital Wellness Lab surveyed real parents to find out how they feel about their child’s media use and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic has made…
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Welcome to the Digital Wellness Lab!
Welcome to the Digital Wellness Lab! Over the past year, what we used to call the virtual world has become… the world. The global pandemic instantaneously shifted nearly every human…