Category Archives: social media

Book reviews for A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media

I’ve enjoyed reading reviews of the new book posted to Amazon.

Here’s a sample of 5:

A Great Resource for Parents

This short book is crammed full of information on social media that every person should know! The chapter on Internet privacy was especially informative. It’s well worth the read!

I like it. A short book gets a short review.

Excellent Resource for all parents and teachers/youth workers

I am a parent of an 8yr old who very much wants to own an iPod touch so she can text me and play Words with Friends with her parents. And take pictures and videos that she can send to grandma, grandpa, and friends. My 5 yr old will be there soon enough, as well. This book gives me hope rather than fear and practical guidance for the conversations to come with my children about online responsibility. I appreciate that Adam and Marko refer to online gaming and cell phones as social media outlets, and they address national laws concerning age limits and such.

As a youth minister who daily connects with teens, parents, grandparents, and colleagues via Facebook, Twiiter, Instagram, and LinkedIn… This is a gold mine of information to have in my back pocket (or rather on my Kindle app!). I have already begun referring parents having teens & tech struggles.

This book is and was SO needed. Thank you for combining your wisdom and experiences in this easy to read book! Congrats on a job well done.

Thanks Leena. We were definitely hoping to alleviate fear by giving information and principles. Glad they work with all ages!

Great Guide for Lost Parents!

I would recommend this book to any parent. The younger your child is the better as we look at preparing for the world of Social Media. If your child is a preteen (4th-6th Grade) then you NEED to read it now. If your child is in Jr. High then you need to read it yesterday. Remember with all of this that prayer and God are your number one resource in raising children. Great book! Definitely 5 stars.

Bingo. The content of the book was guided by a parenting seminar I do. It’s not aimed at high-level professional social media types… we worked really hard to keep it approachable while pointing to the data, plus offering our best advice.

A Great Resource

I have to admit that I was not expecting to get too much from reading this book as I am already fairly in the know when it comes to technology. I was however pleasantly surprised and found myself recommending the book to a friend with a child in the pre-teen years shortly after finishing it. It is a quick read, but is actually a handy resource on what is happening on the internet and how to handle it with our kids. As a parent of kids just entering those years, I am sure I will refer back to this book as a resource from time to time.

Really humbled by this. I’m glad our experience is helping you and your friend.

A great guide for the experienced and the newbie

As a parent and a youth leader, I am very impressed with this book. It is short enough to not feel overwhelming; informative enough feel like I’m actually learning something; and practical enough for me to know I’m going to refer back to this book time and time again.

I feel like the intention of this book is to help parents who don’t know anything at all about social media. But I can say as an avid user of social media myself (very important in helping me connect with a lot of the teenagers I work with!), this was still a very helpful book! I can’t impose boundaries on kids that aren’t my own, but I can make suggestions, and help parents who need ideas. I can apply some of these very good guidelines to my own children when they become teenagers (which will be much sooner than I am ready for, I’m sure), knowing that by being involved in what they do, I am showing that I do care about them as a parent.

One of my favorite parts of the book seems to sum up the whole: “As parents of teenagers, we are trying to raise adults. We’re more interested in wisdom than compliance, more interested in responsibility than high walls of protection, and more interested in healthy parent/teen communication than maintaining a veneer of good appearances.” Amen and amen. Well done, Adam and Marko. I highly recommend to all parents of teenagers (and preteens).

That’s great feedback. I think I’ve learned that most adults, even avid users, are using social media… are even pretty savvy. But they haven’t taken the step back to think about their use… the UI of everything is so intuitive, it comes naturally. I’m glad the book helped frame some of that for you.

Wanna read it?

Available at Amazon in soft cover or Kindle. Also available at The Youth Cartel & Simply Youth Ministry. Or learn how to get it for free.

A secret deal on my book

7 Replies

My new book, co-authored with Marko, comes out next week.

I’m very excited about it for two specific reasons.

Parents of teenagers really need this book. The days of fighting or banning or trying to wall off kids from social media is over. Parents need to know how to help their child live a life that will increasingly be lived online. This book does that really well. It’s short, easy to understand, and very practical.
I’m proud of how this turned out. Marko and I worked really hard on making a book that’ll last a few years. We focused on helping parents understand social media while avoiding all of the pitfalls of your typical Christian book about media– there’s nothing here that is alarmist. We aren’t trying to scare parents, we are providing tested principles that have worked for years, work today, and will work for years to come. Trust me, that wasn’t easy.

Here’s the Official Description

With each passing day, teenagers’ lives become increasingly intertwined with social media. How can you as a parent stay informed and involved in healthy ways? How can you help your son or daughter make wise decisions and remain safe online?

A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media will equip you to have meaningful conversations with your teenager about the best, wisest ways to get connected while staying safe.

Your guides for this journey are Mark Oestreicher and Adam McLane, who draw from their own wells of experience as parents and youth workers. They’ll help you chart a course toward discovering and practicing wise family online activity.

My Secret Deal

I would love for you to get this book in the hands of all the parents in your ministry. Like the other books in this series, this would be great to use as the content of a parent meeting. In fact, the book is based on a short seminar I’ve done for parents of teenagers in a bunch of churches.

You can pre-order it on our site right now for $6.99.

If you buy 10 or more copies, you’ll automatically get free shipping on your entire order. (media mail, US addresses only) Check this out. Add whatever else you want to that same order, as long as you order 10 or more copies of the book, you’re getting free shipping.

If you buy 20 or more copies, I’ll still pick up the tab for shipping on your order, and I’ll start tossing goodies in the box.

This secret deal expires on December 15th.

p.s. If you don’t automatically get free shipping, apply coupon code SECRET62

Notifications are of the Devil

5 Replies

The Internet Loop

Do you catch yourself in a compulsive loop sometimes? For me? Right now it starts with email. Then I go to Twitter, then Facebook, then Instagram, then ESPN.com. If things are particularly interesting I’ll go around the loop 2 or 3 times in a row.

This is what psychologist John Grohol calls FOMO Addiction. (Fear of missing out.)

Like the old-school Crackberry addict, we’re now all in the grip of “FOMO addiction” ^* — the fear of missing out on something or someone more interesting, exciting or better than what we’re currently doing.

Link

Web developers depend on exploiting this phenomenon. Since most social media sites are fueled by ad revenue– in turn depending upon millions and millions of pageviews where they can display millions and millions of ads per day, engineers use lots of psychology to get you to add their web application to your loop. Each time you go from site-to-site on your addictive loop you see new ads on your Gmail, Facebook timeline, sponsored tweets, etc.

For the engineers, getting into your loop is like offering free crack to a crackhead unlimited, all day and all night.

They have you.

But they want more.

Notifications Supersede the Loop

Texting gave rise to a disturbing trend for these same engineers. While desktop users have continued, even increasing their addictions; smartphones delivered a brand new way to fuel the loop even more.

At the same they noticed that texting guaranteed an interruption of the loop. Receiving a text, unlike receiving a phone call, would cause a person to almost immediately type a response. Various studies show that something like 98% of text messages are read by the recipient within 15 minutes and the response rate for texting, particularly amongst teenagers– the most influential demographic for spending, is nearly 100%. (related source)

Compare that to an email marketing message, where 20% open rate and 5% response rate are considered excellent, and you can see why web engineers knew they needed to build their own loop interrupters to supersede your loop with their content.

click to view full-sized version

That’s how the notification was born. If your phone beeps or buzzes in your pocket you are almost guaranteed to check it. Likewise, if something pops up on your screen or even if a number in your peripheral vision ticks up from 22 to 23, you will check it.

Your wife could be in labor. Your house could be on fire. You might be driving through white knuckling snow with your kids in the back seat. You might be having sex. If you get a notification the neurology of that moment is against you. You will check it.

Why? Dopamine. Recent studies show that the same neurotransmitter that fuels many other chemical addictions also is released when you get a notification from a text, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, etc.

A notification causes you a tiny bit of pleasure… and the drive for that impulsive pleasure will augment your loop and interrupt whatever you are doing.

In my new book, A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media, we explore the this more and its impact on teenagers.

But, for now, let’s talk about what you need to do.

Notifications are of the Devil

When I say that notifications are of the devil I’m only kidding a little bit. If you think about it, web engineers are exploiting a very similar neurological response to many other life-endangering addictions.

Doing drugs gives you a big hit of “dope.” Meanwhile checking hundreds of notifications per day is lots and lots of tiny hits of “dope.” You decide if that’s the devils handiwork. I tend to think it is.

Notifications may be ruining your quality of life (and perhaps your safety).

So turn them off. All of them. Notifications on your phone, your laptop, your tablet, your email… turn them all off. (Here’s a Google search to get you started) You don’t need any of them.

Next, make it so your phone never vibrates. Think about it, if you are having lunch with a co-worker or are in a meeting, or are watching a movie. Do you really need to check that text message? Nope. And if you turn off all visual, audio, and vibrating notifications you can simply ignore all of that.

Web developers, in an attempt to get you to view the next ad, are driving you crazy. Literally, they are fueling an addiction that is stressing the relationships in your life simply so they can make more money.

So make the choice.

Reclaim your life.

Turn off all notifications.

Do it now.

P.S. Like this post? Want to be a better parent of a teenager in a social media infused world? Pre-order my book, A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media.

Here’s a sample of 5:

Wanna read it?

Social Media Rule #1: Everything posted online is public

My new book, co-authored with Marko, comes out next week.

Here’s the Official Description

My Secret Deal

Here’s 12 ideas for the geek in your life

The Glif ($20)

The Internet Loop

Notifications Supersede the Loop

Notifications are of the Devil