By : Jacob Kastrenakes Source : The Verge Charli D’Amelio is the first TikTok creator to hit 100 million followers. She’s the first by some distance, too — only two other creators have cracked 50 million. On TikTok, that makes her more than twice as big as Will Smith, three times as big as The Rock, four times as big as Selena Gomez, and five times as big as Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande. It also means she reached 100 million subscribers in record time. On YouTube, it took 14 years before any channel hit 100 million....
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Source : Common Sense This report presents the findings from the fourth wave of Common Sense Media’s ongoing series of surveys about the media lives of young children in the United States. The series began nearly a decade ago, in 2011; over this period, more than 5,700 respondents have been surveyed. As far as we are aware, this is the only nationally representative, probability-based study tracking the use of media by children from birth through age 8 in the United States. We do this study because of our conviction that media and...
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Source : Barna The information revolution has transformed the way everyone lives—but especially the youngest generations. Recent Barna data show that the average American teen receives their first smartphone at around 12 to 13 years of age and their first tablet around age 11. The U.S. childhood and adolescent experience is mediated by screens, both in and outside the home. In light of this, how should teens and their families respond to the new force shaping their lives? ...read more  
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By : Timothy Bella Source : Chron As Dolly Parton tells it, her first-ever car accident in October 2013 was minor, but left her bruised and sore enough to seek medical advice at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. That's where she met Naji Abumrad, a physician and professor of surgery. Abumrad knew next to nothing about the beloved megastar with big, blond hair, but he soon befriended her because he deeply enjoyed their talks about current events and science. Their bond of nearly seven years received worldwide attention Tuesday after...
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By : Tim Ingham Source : Music Business Worldwide What’s the biggest music streaming platform on the planet? If you guessed YouTube, you’re right. Mega right. The platform’s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, has today (November 17) confirmed via a blog post that more than 2 billion logged-in YouTube users are now playing music on the platform each month. To put that into context, it’s more than six times the 320m Monthly Active Users (MAUs) who pressed play on a track on Spotify in Q3. What’s more,...
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By : Christine Carter Source : Greater Good Magazine This is a good time for all of us parents to shore up our understanding of the pros and cons of cannabis, given this week’s wave of legalization votes. Four new states eased restrictions on marijuana. (In addition, Oregon passed two measures that legalize hallucinogenic mushrooms for medical purposes and decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs like heroin—but we’ll leave information about those drugs for another column.) Your son is not alone. Just...
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By : Louise Dixon Source : AP  LONDON (AP) — Imagine a world where you move around in your own personal sound bubble. You listen to your favorite tunes, play loud computer games, watch a movie or get navigation directions in your car — all without disturbing those around you. That’s the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new futuristic audio technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company. On Friday it will debut a desktop device that beams sound directly to a listener without the need for...
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Source : eMarketer By : Mark Dolliver The screen-time wars are over in many households, with parents having surrendered en masse. In a period when large numbers of parents and school kids are stuck at home with one another, this is one battle many parents choose to forego, at least for now. Many parents feel incapable of doing otherwise. That came across in August–September polling fielded by OnePoll for Smith Micro Software. About seven in 10 parents of school-age kids declared themselves “helpless” to keep screen...
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Source : Study Finds By : Chris Melore BESANCON, France — At some point or another, we all have experienced that joyful sensation when our favorite song comes on the radio. It can change your whole mood, especially when “that moment” in every song hits and sends chills down your spine. So what causes this hair-raising jolt to the system? French researchers say studies on the brain reveal many people go into pleasure overload when their favorite tunes start playing. Researcher Thibault Chabin and a team at the...
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