🌡 More Than Robots #68 August 2023

Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it ― Saint Augustine

📖 Research

Technology in education: a tool on whose terms?

Digital technology has dramatically increased access to teaching and learning resources. But it should focus on learning outcomes, not on digital inputs.  39 of 42 governments providing online education during the pandemic fostered uses that risked or infringed on children’s rights

Issues connected to school/education, family, loneliness and body image were among those rising the most sharply over the past four years

Safety-Net

People with experience of mental health problems are twice as likely to feel under pressure to spend whenever they go online (22% versus 11% of those without a mental health problem)

How users make sense of misinformation warnings on personal messaging

Simply indicating that a feature such as forwarding has been used is not enough. Misinformation warnings should clearly indicate the potential for misinformation

Can the Metaverse Be Good for Youth Mental Health?

We see a pressing need to prioritize and support mental health in the design, build, function, regulation, and oversight of these spaces. See also: Securing the Metaverse: Addressing Harms in Extended Reality

Data poverty, care experienced young people, and creative opportunities

Data poverty puts young people in danger of missing out on new creative offers by arts and cultural organisations. If we are serious about addressing inequity, we need to address this urgently

🧰 Resources

Talk:Tech

Visual and spoken resources to support conversations about digital with children and young people who have speech, language and communication needs

Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms

A guide to describe how key terms are used in the tech industry

What in the World

New podcast series from BBC News aiming to help children make sense of what’s happening in their world

🗳 Take part

POP: Protection through online Participation

The UN wants to hear from children and young people about how they look for help online when they feel scared or unsafe

💡Inspiration and opinion

Preservationists Are Saving Video Game History, One Upload at a Time

The history of games can tell us a lot about daily life, about technological and economic history, and about shifting ideas of childhood and productivity

Algorithm Literacy & Data Literacy - a response

AI Literacy is about more than just understanding the technical aspects of AI. It involves a set of competencies that enable individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies, communicate and collaborate effectively with AI, and use AI ethically as a tool in various contexts

The grifterverse

Reducing content creation into a circular process to sell courses, coaching or ads ends up with a lot of repetition, low creativity, and increasingly deceptive and manipulative tactics to motivate more people to join the grift

…and finally

There’s more than robots on Threads - but not that much more just yet…

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Jamie Larson
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