Internet & Social Media

Video games have come a long way from their very humble beginnings in the mid-20th century. The first rudimentary computer game made its debut in 1951, but Atari made game consoles a household name when they launched in 1972. These original home game systems were a far cry from the online gaming of today, though. Think Pong compared to Grand Theft Auto, and you get an idea of the difference.

Your teenager has access to an astounding number of television shows today. And if the hundreds of channels on cable television weren’t enough already, the rise of streaming services over the last few years expanded their options to an almost unimaginable extent. You could spend your entire life watching TV shows and never scratch the surface of the millions of hours of content available. It was easier to monitor their

Video games today are not what they were 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. Parents used to insist they were a waste of time and that kids needed to get outside and quit spending afternoons in front of a screen. But today the video game industry is worth more than $138 billion and continues to grow every year.1 Top paid competitive video game players – knonw as eSports players

Chat platforms have been an online staple since the advent of the World Wide Web. America Online Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger, and Microsoft Chat were some of the first household instant messaging programs. They paved the way for the ubiquity of live chat today, from private messages with friends to receiving customer support on a brand website. Discord is the 21st century version of AIM. 20 years ago, you

When a former Facebook employee testified before Congress in 2021, their testimony led to an avalanche of news stories across media platforms about the dangers of social media to teen mental health. The employee testified that Facebook – more specifically Instagram – intentionally withheld internal data about the harm social media use causes teens. This confirmed fears that circulated for years about the dangers of social media to teen mental