News for the Week of January 22, 2006

"Convergence" – of media and devices – is the top story this week. The tech media make it a business story, but it's huge on the home front too…

The buzzword. What it means is TV, film, music, talking heads, and good 'ol text on everything – radios, TV, cellphones, music players, game players, laptops, and desktops – and therefore wherever we (and our kids) are. (See, for example, "Convergence in our homes" and "Everywhere TV".)

Tech reporters, or the editors who assign stories, haven't yet put on their parent hats and written about the impact of this new reality on kids. Still, the New York Times's Saul Hansell spells out the business perspective today - describing media executives' "business model anxiety," "creative anxiety," and "control anxiety" – so well that there are hints about the interface between media companies and parents, as "gatekeepers" to young media consumers. You might call this a fourth item for Saul's list, "consumer anxiety," which also will have a lot of impact on business: e.g., on corporate p.r. and marketing.

Old-style ratings. One example of that interface between parents and media companies (now including Internet companies like Yahoo Music and Google Video) is ratings. With convergence now a reality, we all know that music videos, for example, are on MP3 players, in Web sites, and on iTunes. Yet, all music ratings (from audio-only songs to music videos) are rated for their lyrics, not visuals – if there's no profanity in a song but its video is sexually suggestive, the rating serves no one.

Ratings don't talk to each other. There is no central technical or software-code standard that lines music ratings up with the MPAA's film ratings or the ESRB's game ratings with TV ratings. Cellphone companies are working on ratings, too, but just for the Web on cellphones. Some game players, such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable have parental controls, but they are only for those devices, and – I need to check – do they incorporate any rating system but the gaming industry's (at ESRB.org). There is no "convergence" where ratings are concerned – each set really only applies to a single medium, like film - and that's a tool parents have come to rely on. It's also just one inadequate, old-paradigm (pre-convergence) tool.

Filtering's issues. Another such tool, filtering software, is really all about text – text in Web sites or in "descriptors" (the labels that song or video files are tagged with) on computers – not video or audio. There is some operating-system-level filtering on Mac OS X computers and reportedly coming with Microsoft's next Windows version (called "Vista"), but the Mac version is barely adequate, if that (one colleague who tested it told me it's "useless"). There is router-based filtering with products like Netopia (see my 4/9/04 feature), but that's just for computers on a home network – not phones, Net-connected game players, video iPods. And, more recently, an innovative security consultant and mom, ELI, Inc. CEO Susan Lutz, recently unveiled a turnkey PC- and child-security product for the home (see my 9/905 issue), but again just for computers and more about PC security than kids' online safety (though ELI's working on it).

Convergence & parents. This new reality is every bit as scary for parents as it is for businesses. Let's hope executives, technologists, and reporters will start being a little over-dressed at work and wear their parent hats too. There's no total security solution for kids besides their parents. Maybe that will always be the case – it's certainly more true now than ever. It works just fine when parents are engaged in kids' use of all forms of technology and media-delivery, but it's not easy for parents to keep up with their young early adopters!

In other news...

  • The real story on filtering. Filtering software for desktops and laptops is still flawed but improving, according to CNET, in an update that doesn't break much new ground but does a great job of pulling together all we currently know on filters and their use by US families. The article is a followup to last week's news that the US Justice Department is seeking search-engine data as it gathers evidence for its next defense of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 in federal court next fall (see last week's "COPA revisited"). The most interesting part is the info on p. 2 about how kids find work-arounds for filters: e.g., proxy servers and proxy sites.
  • More on earbuds & hearing loss. In an in-depth "reality check" on all the recent coverage on this, the Washington Post found that hearing loss is definitely on the increase in the US and it certainly predates earbuds, but researchers found "increased risk of hearing loss among people who listen to loud music through headphones for extended periods of time." The Post talked to a key source in all the coverage, Brian J. Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Boston Children's Hospital, who suggests, as a guideline, that people keep earbud-style listening time to an hour a day and volume below 85 decibels, or about 60% of maximum volume, where the risk of hearing damage begins, according to OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration).
  • Young hacker pleads guilty. Twenty-year-old "Jeanson James Ancheta, of Downey, Calif., pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles federal court to four felony charges" of hijacking hundreds of thousands of computers," the Associated Press reports. He faces six years in prison and a fine and will have to turn over his profits and a 1993 BMW he apparently bought with is earnings. Working with an even younger malicious hacker in Florida (ID'd by his screenname "SoBe" because he's a minor), Ancheta advertised their botnets on Internet relay chat (IRC) channels. They reportedly made $58,000 during their "14-month hacking spree."
  • Videogame pluses, minuses. One psychologist says gaming can be very effective for stress-reduction in both kids and adults. They're not chemically altering anything, and the sustained focus of attention can be good, Boston College psychology professor Joseph Tecce told the New Bedford [Mass.] Standard-Times (he recommends videogame play for kids with ADD). Indeed, one 30-year-old dad and avid gamer said he doesn't relax by going out drinking or driving drunk, he chooses to stay home with his family (but see "Cellphones disconnect us?" about "absent presence"). Professor Tecce stresses moderation, saying the different between stress relief and obsession is the amount of time spent. And of course it falls on parents to set the time limits where young gamers are concerned. For a psychiatrist's perspective, see "A Virtual World of Their Own", by Jerald Block, MD.

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