On its earnings call at the end of April, Newell Brands, which owns the 70-year-old Elmer's Glue business, reported historically positive numbers for the first quarter of 2024. It was Elmer’s first cash-flow-positive Q1 in four years, and only its second positive quarter since 2016. This growth is mostly thanks …
Read More »AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children
Over 170 images and personal details of children from Brazil have been repurposed by an open-source dataset without their knowledge or consent, and used to train AI, claims a new report from Human Rights Watch released Monday. The images have been scraped from content posted as recently as 2023 and …
Read More »There's No Undoing Tech's Great Rewiring of Childhood
The book currently topping the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list is The Anxious Generation, a jeremiad against social media and its impact on young people. Its thesis is that apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have unleashed an epidemic of mental illness among children, preteens, and teenagers. Immediate and …
Read More »This Furry, Robotic Puppet Comforts Your Crying Baby While You Drive
About two years ago, I was in a car with my best friend and her toddler. She was driving, and I was sitting in the back next to her 10-month-old, who was tucked into his car seat. For a while, the ride was smooth—then the baby burst into tears. We …
Read More »Kids’ Cartoons Get a Free Pass From YouTube’s Deepfake Disclosure Rules
YouTube has updated its rulebook for the era of deepfakes. Starting today, anyone uploading video to the platform must disclose certain uses of synthetic media, including generative AI, so viewers know what they’re seeing isn’t real. YouTube says it applies to “realistic” altered media such as “making it appear as …
Read More »Your Kid May Already Be Watching AI-Generated Videos on YouTube
There’s a whole new way to get rich on the internet—at least according to a rush of YouTube tutorials touting the money to be made using AI to generate videos for kids. Searching for how to create kids content or channels on YouTube now pulls up tutorials offering roadmaps for …
Read More »How to Build the Lego Collection of Your Dreams
I don’t remember when my family first acquired our first Lego bricks. Like awakening from a fever dream, I regained consciousness in the past few years and realized we now have a whole room dedicated to Lego, with thousands of bricks organized by color in a chest-high shelving unit (and …
Read More »Serious Brain Trauma Starts Well Before Young Athletes Go Pro
Content warning: This story includes references to death by suicide. Evan Hansen was born to play football. A strong, rambunctious kid, he started playing sports year-round as early as he could. “He was very selfless, always willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team,” says his father, Chuck …
Read More »Roblox Builds Out Its Metaverse Vision With Video Chat
If you want to see what the future of the internet looks like, peek over your kid’s shoulder while they’re using Roblox. The online platform is filled with free games, experiences, and social hangouts that are designed and built by its users. And those users are often children; Roblox has …
Read More »How to Talk to Your Kids About Social Media and Mental Health
If you give a kid a smartphone, they’re going to want a social media account. That’s not the start of a storybook. The average age for a kid getting their first smartphone is 10.3. Within a year, a child has likely made four or five social media accounts; by the …
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