Websites
Growing Up Online: Information on digital technology, social media, gaming, online gambling, and online pornography for youth and families. Additional resources are also available.
Common Sense Media: Since 2003, Common Sense has been the leading independent source for media recommendations and advice for families.
Wait Until 8th: The Wait Until 8th pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least 8th grade. By banding together, this will decrease the pressure felt by kids and parents alike over the kids having a smartphone.
Get Cyber Safe: Get Cyber Safe is a national public awareness campaign created to inform Canadians about cyber security and the simple steps they can take to protect themselves online.
Protect Young Eyes: We Help Families, Schools, And Churches Create Safer Digital Environments.
TELUS Wise: TELUS Wise® is a free digital literacy education program that offers informative workshops and resources to help Canadians of all ages have a positive experience as digital citizens. For teachers, a digital literacy resource can be found here.
National Online Safety: (Subscription required for full access) This UK-based resource has a wealth of resources to help parents navigate the online world, as well as information on how to set up protections within the apps & websites.
Away for the Day: tools for you to approach your school in order to help institute policies where phones are put away.
Media Smarts: Canada's centre for digital and media literacy. Great resources for parents & educators, from a Canadian perspective.
Feelings Over Phones: An Alberta Blue Cross initiative, Feelings Over Phones encourages young adults to spend less time on their phones when with family and friends to be more present in the moment, have meaningful interactions and make memories that’ll last.
Common Sense Media: Since 2003, Common Sense has been the leading independent source for media recommendations and advice for families.
Wait Until 8th: The Wait Until 8th pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least 8th grade. By banding together, this will decrease the pressure felt by kids and parents alike over the kids having a smartphone.
Get Cyber Safe: Get Cyber Safe is a national public awareness campaign created to inform Canadians about cyber security and the simple steps they can take to protect themselves online.
Protect Young Eyes: We Help Families, Schools, And Churches Create Safer Digital Environments.
TELUS Wise: TELUS Wise® is a free digital literacy education program that offers informative workshops and resources to help Canadians of all ages have a positive experience as digital citizens. For teachers, a digital literacy resource can be found here.
National Online Safety: (Subscription required for full access) This UK-based resource has a wealth of resources to help parents navigate the online world, as well as information on how to set up protections within the apps & websites.
Away for the Day: tools for you to approach your school in order to help institute policies where phones are put away.
Media Smarts: Canada's centre for digital and media literacy. Great resources for parents & educators, from a Canadian perspective.
Feelings Over Phones: An Alberta Blue Cross initiative, Feelings Over Phones encourages young adults to spend less time on their phones when with family and friends to be more present in the moment, have meaningful interactions and make memories that’ll last.
Videos
Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? Scrolling through our social media feeds feels like a harmless part of our daily lives. But is it actually as harmless at seems? According to social media expert Bailey Parnell, our growing and unchecked obsession with social media has unintended long term consequences on our mental health.
Podcasts
The Collin Kartchner Podcast - This is Your (Kid's) Brain on Video Games: This episode is an interview with a pediatric neurologist, Dr. John Condie, who provides some serious information on what these videos games are doing to kids, why they're doing what they do to kids, and why it's way past time to break your kids free from the merciless clutches of their devices.
Books
IGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us (Jean M. Twenge PhD): Born after 1995, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person – perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
Glow Kids: (Nicholas Kardaras PhD): In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology—more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity—has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation.
Reset Your Child’s Brain: (Victoria Dunkley MD): Increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, Tourette’s, autism, depression and bipolar disorder. Other children have no formal diagnosis, yet seem out of control or stuck in terms of development. At the same time, more and more children are being prescribed “psych meds,” requiring special education, or receiving speech or occupational therapy. Disability benefits for mental and neurological disorders now dwarf every other disability category. What’s going on?
Glow Kids: (Nicholas Kardaras PhD): In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology—more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity—has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation.
Reset Your Child’s Brain: (Victoria Dunkley MD): Increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, Tourette’s, autism, depression and bipolar disorder. Other children have no formal diagnosis, yet seem out of control or stuck in terms of development. At the same time, more and more children are being prescribed “psych meds,” requiring special education, or receiving speech or occupational therapy. Disability benefits for mental and neurological disorders now dwarf every other disability category. What’s going on?