Have an iPhone and Kids? Then You’re Probably An iParent!

I’ve written here in the past about helicopter parents who are in almost constant contact with their older children using mobile devices but iParents seem to be taking things to a whole new level.

Retrevo.com, the consumer electronics shopping and review site, is running an ongoing study of people and electronics and then using this information to publish the something called the Retrevo Gadgetology Report. The most recent study,  involved over 1,000 online individuals in June 2011 and takes a close look at the use of social media by parents. Here’s some of the study highlights:

• 18% of parents say they feel like they couldn't stop using Facebook/Twitter even if they wanted to.
• 47% of parents of kids under 19 say they've used Facebook to learn more about their kid's friends.
• iPhone owning parents (iParents) are twice as likely (28%)  to get anxious when they don't check Facebook/Twitter as most parents (14%).
• Dads are more likely (13%) to use Facebook to learn about their kid's dates than moms (10%).
• iParents are twice as likely to use Facebook to learn about their kid's dates than Droid owning parents.
• Phone owning parents are four times LESS likely to have under 50 Facebook friends.
• 32% of iParents have over 250 friends (compared with 23% of other parents).
• Up to 34% of parents admit to using Facebook to check on their kid's friend's parents, by the time their children are between ages 13 and 19 years old.
• 12% of all parents feel they could not stop using Facebook and Twitter. This number more than doubles when looking at iPhone owning parents (19%).
• 11% of parents said they've given up activities they used to enjoy because they spend time on Facebook or Twitter. 18% of iPhone owning parents feel the same way (compared to only 12% of Droid owning parents).
• iPhone owning parents are twice as likely to get nervous or anxious if they don't check Facebook/Twitter (28%).

Pretty interesting stuff. Check out the June 2011 Gadgetology Report along with earlier reports linked here.

Words are worse than Sticks and Stones

We're still dealing with the aftermath of Phoebe Prince's suicide in South Hadley, Massachusetts. From my perspective as a resident of the town, sadly it's turned into a legal back and now with the memory of what Phoebe experienced slowly fading.

Something has brought some of those memories back though. Not too far from us in Westport, Conn on March 14 Alye Pollack, an eighth-grader at Bedford Middle School, uploaded a video to YouTube titled Words are worse than Sticks and Stones. Here's her 2 minute and 58 second video.

According to SchoolDigger.com, Bedford Middle school ranks 7th of 258 Connecticut public middle schools. Some of the comments posted on YouTube are even more disturbing than the video.

I’m Gabby and I’m a PC

[I know, I know the iPhone SDK will only run on a Mac but.... bear with me! And anyways.... any savvy Mac user is also running Windows using bootcamp or a virtual machine!]

I started writing this up on a flight back home from Tampa. I’ve been vacationing on the beach in Clearwater Beach, Florida for the past three weeks with my family, perhaps trying to catch one more little bit of childhood with our oldest daughter Gabby who is heading off to study computer science at Mount Holyoke College next week.

The past three weeks Gabby, Eva, Diane and I basically beach-bummed around. We swam, beachcombed, fished, snorkeled, scalloped….. I slacked off on my work these last three weeks like never before. I’m behind on just about everything – email, reports, proposals and Twitter follow-backs. I haven’t posted a blog since the end of July and the people I work with probably don’t remember what I look like! If I owe you something – I’ll catch up – it is coming!

It was worth it though - the best part of these three weeks by far has been the chance to take some time to watch, reflect and look back. It’s been an interesting and fun summer with Gabby, her sister Eva and Diane.

Like any parent will tell you, watching your kids grow up is pretty special. One event from this summer that will remain etched in my mind forever was watching Gabby presenting to a room full of college faculty at an iPhone SDK workshop with Mike Q (thank you Mike!) at the HI-TEC Conference. It was amazing to watch her and Mike teach, demonstrate, help people out and answer questions. The only way I can describe it – it was like watching her go from a teenager to an adult in about three hours. I got to relive that experience again watching her do a MATEC Networks Webinar on the same topic a couple weeks later. That pic up on the left is her during the webinar session.

A whole bunch of emotions for me pretty much boiled down to a huge amount of pride and just about as much sadness at the same time. She’s grown up.

It’s been a wonderful 18 years since Gabby was born, almost four weeks premature and so tiny. She’s always had a passion for computers, science, technology and math. Here’s an old video of her when she was 3 years old showing Dad how to use Windows 95. She’ll probably be upset that I posted it but I’ll take that chance. I call the video “I’m Gabby and I’m a PC”.

That little rascal in that video is off to college! Wow – where did the years go? And…… look out big sis – your younger sister is Eva moving up just as fast!