Category: Gadgets

Gadgets use by children increases by 89 percent

| November 8, 2013

Research has shown that kids are using mobile devices far more than they were two years ago.

A recent report from Common Sense Media, entitled “Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America” has revealed that mobile gadgets are being used by kids at a much greater rate than they had been only two years ago.

The child advocacy group’s 2013 report has shown that small screen popularity is exploding in young age groups.

This research comes just at a time in which doctors are cautioning that too much time in front of digital screens might be quite unhealthy for kids. The biannual survey of American parents that was conducted by Common Sense Media showed that there has been an increase by 89 percent in the number of children between the ages of zero and eight years who have used mobile gadgets. This is a massive increase when compared to the 2011 data, when only 38 percent of kids in that age group were using those devices considering that 72 percent have done so, this year.

Even among children younger than two years, 38 percent have used mobile gadgets for media in 2013.

Gadgets - parents and childrenIn 2011, that figure had been only 10 percent. Furthermore, the amount of time that children are spending using those gadgets has tripled. It had been 5 minutes per day in 2011, but it has risen to 15 minutes, this year.

This report came at nearly the exact same time that the American Academy of Pediatrics underscored its previous cautions regarding the exposure of children to screens, including mobile gadgets and televisions. That organization advised parents to limit the “total entertainment screen time to less than one to two hours per day” and for children younger than two years, they should “discourage screen media exposure.”

The founder of Common Sense Media, Jim Steyer, has said that these gadgets are – to a growing degree – replacing everything from televisions to storybooks and even babysitters. Tablets have especially changed the way that devices play a role within families, as there has been a five-fold increase in the number of families who own them and of children who have access to them.

Gadgets lead to new form of dangerous driving

| November 6, 2013

The first traffic ticket has now been issued to an individual who was wearing Google Glass.

Someone has now become the first to be charged for distracted driving while wearing the augmented reality gadgets known as Google Glass.

This represents the first time that a California driver has been ticketed while distracted by wearable devices.

The driver received the ticket in San Diego County, and has now been cited for driving while distracted by wearable gadgets – in this case, Google Glass. The driver was Cecilia Abadie, who was 44 years old, at the time. She received the ticket after having been initially pulled over for speeding. That said, while the driver was pulled over, the officer noticed that she was wearing the device and upgraded the ticket for driving while distracted by a mobile computer.

This use of the gadgets is currently considered to be completely illegal, in California, while behind the wheel.

Gadgets - Traffic TicketAccording to the California Highway Patrol (CHP), it is not legal for a motorist to operate a motor vehicle while using a video monitor, TV, video screen, television receiver, or other means of displaying a television or video broadcast in a visual way, for a business or entertainment application, if it is visible to the driver, even if it is in the back seat, facing forward. This would imply that wearing these augmented reality gadgets could be defined as breaking the law as – depending on what is being displayed – it could be showing something of an entertainment or business purpose.

At the same time, according to Google, its gadgets are designed to assist their wearers to better communicate and experience the real world, not to distract them from important tasks – such as driver – in which full attention is required. There are a growing number of people who are hoping that Abadie will take her case to court and fight it, so that there will be a precedent in favor of future wearers of the augmented reality glasses.

Abadie has explained that if she does fight the ticket in court, the outcome may depend on whether the judge is a technophile, who understands the gadgets, or if he or she is someone who simply thinks that they are devices that look odd.