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Marsh said her 6-year-old daughter loves to take video of herself and her friends doing goofy things.

Shes always asking, Did you get that on video?

According to the AAP, children are now spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices.

Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for child and family issues, studied the effects media and technology have on young users. It found 52 percent of children 8 and under have access to a smartphone, video iPod or tablet.

About 38 percent of children have used one of these devices, including 10 percent of children ages 1 year and younger, 39 percent of 2- to 4-year-olds and more than 50 percent of 5- to 8-year-olds.

But hard research on the long-term effects are still unclear, mostly because devices such as iPads are only a few years old.

The jury is still out, said Sarah Vaala, a post-doctoral fellow studying communications at the University of Pennsylvania.

A child knows when it pushes the screen it will light up. And when a child sees their parents using the device, it becomes important to them.

– Sarah Vaala, University of Pennsylvania post-doctoral fellow

She said the pace of technological growth is pushing researchers to conduct studies faster so their work can inform design.

What makes tablets different from other studies is the interactive component, Vaala added.

Many researchers find the ability of devices to respond to the child is what makes them so interesting for young children. Babies are also hard-wired to learn from their parents.

A child knows when it pushes the screen it will light up, noted Vaala. And when a child sees their parents using the device, it becomes important to them.

Researchers with the AAP say parents should become more aware of their childs media diet. The organization suggests the creation of screen-free zones at home, something Marsh supports. Her children do not have televisions, computers or video games in their bedrooms.

Every night at bedtime, we put everything on the charging mat in the media room, Marsh said. Their bedroom is for sleeping.

Ellen Malven, a doctoral candidate in Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden, said parents sometimes deny their children access to new technology because they themselves lack an emotional interaction with the device.

For them, growing up was going out riding bikes or playing imagination tea party with stuffed animals, explained Malven, who has conducted research on the effects of iPads on children and preteens.

They lack that connection with the device.

But parents like Heather Sponseller of Marlton embrace the technology, citing an educational benefit.

I feel like schools are going more and more toward electronic books, so it is important to have that basic knowledge, said Sponseller.

Apple has helped create thousands of educational opportunities for the iPad, iPod and iPhone. Sponseller said there are countless puzzles and vocabulary apps with which her children interact.

Moorestown Childrens School owner Sue Maloney said Apple devices help children learn new language, math and literacy skills.

We use them in conjunction with teaching opportunities; there is no gaming or television, added Maloney, who said kids also can use the devices as a reference tool.

If they dont know the answer to something, instead of the teacher telling them, they can look it up.

But researchers from the AAP argue if screen time is not monitored, a child can become isolated from the world around him or her. Malven warned parents not to let the devices become digital pacifiers.

Its not different from TV — the device is just portable, she insisted.

Sponseller believes in limiting her childrens time on electronic devices, but sees no problem with using them as entertainment.

Sometimes you just need a break.

At a glance, this is little more than a quirky tale of an opportunistic man taking advantage of the adventure — literally — of a lifetime. Chinas mainstream media, however, was not amused. In the past four days, state-run organs such as Xinhua and China Central Television (CCTV) have launched a torrent of negative publicity about Mars One, claiming that the mission is a hoax and an easy way to scam people into coughing up a non-refundable $75 application fee. The media has also dismissed Mars Ones executive, the wonderfully named Bas Lansdorp, as a small-time businessman who couldnt possibly pull off such an ambitious scheme. Mars One has denied the allegations, but the medias skepticism is apparently working: the pace of applications from China has slowed.

Pasadena technology company UberMedia has launched a mobile advertising platform that tracks publicly available information provided by smartphone users on their social media channels and then offers them ads based on their interests and habits.

UberAds scours sites such as Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for clues about mobile device users. For example, the platform can send movie trailers to users who have tweeted frequently from a movie theater, indicating theyre probably film buffs. People who pin lots of photos of food and tweet about dining out are more likely to receive restaurant-related ads.

PHOTOS: Top smartphones of 2013

Users will also be targeted by GPS location tracking: Those who were tracked as being at a car dealership, for example, could receive advertisements for new cars and accessories. Someone who is in an area where its heavily snowing could see ads for snow tires.

Time of day also becomes a factor: Brands that cater to a lunch crowd, for example, will see their ads displayed during the noon time frame.

Brands including BMW, Hamp;M, Macys, McDonalds and Pizza Hut have signed on. Many have already seen significant increases in click-through rates, said Bill Gross, founder and chief executive of UberMedia.

Gross, who also founded Pasadena business incubator Idealab, said the idea behind UberAds was to turn intrusive mobile ads into invited ones that users find more relevant and useful.

Universal Pictures recently used UberAds to run an ad campaign for the film Oblivion, targeted toward consumers who indicated on Twitter that they liked Tom Cruise. Doug Neil, senior vice president of digital marketing for Universal Pictures, said the company saw three to four times the typical level of user engagement from the campaign.

Its more efficient and cost-effective from a marketers standpoint, Neil said. It becomes 1:1 marketing when you can personalize it at that level.

The challenge of successful mobile advertisements has been plaguing marketers for years, Gross said. Banner ads and general spamming have proven ineffective for advertisers and annoying for mobile users.

You cant take what works in one medium and point it into a new medium, he said. Thats what always happens first, but thats not going to work.

The personalized approach, he said, should benefit all parties brands, consumers and ad publishers especially as mobile usage increases. Gross said he expected mobile to become a majority of Internet traffic this year but pointed out that mobile ad revenue is still just 10% of total Internet ad revenue.

For those who feel uncomfortable at the thought of advertisers learning more and more about mobile users, Gross noted that UberAds only gleans information from publicly available sources an unlocked Twitter feed, for instance, versus a private Facebook profile and that the information gathered is completely anonymous.

We dont have any private, personalized identifiable information, he said. People could be creeped out or they could say, lsquo;Well, this is better than seeing a stupid ad.

He also noted that users have to opt in to location tracking when they first open a downloaded app.

People will have to get trained, will have to get used to the fact that when they opt in to that, theyre doing it for the purpose of making the ads better, he said. I think itll take time for users to understand that.

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The rate of sexual assaults is alarmingly high among adolescents. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Justice finds that 30% to 35% of female sexual assault survivors were first raped between the ages of 11 to 17. Many of these assaults occur when victims are under the influence of alcohol, and a surprising number of adolescent rapes involve multiple perpetrators. A recent study found that 12.4% of sexual assaults committed against 13- to 17-year-old teens were gang rapes.

When evidence goes viral

Rape is a crime of power and dominance, and social media provide new ways of asserting that power to hurt victims over and over again. Gang rape takes on a whole new meaning when images and slurs are posted and forwarded and spread endlessly. Adolescent sexual assaults are particularly likely to go viral (more so than instances of adult rape) because of the everyone knows everything about everyone culture of middle and high school. The ubiquity of cell phones with cameras and the power of the Internet make for faster, farther-reaching gossip, name-calling, character assassination and ultimately despair for the victim.

TRENTON Gov. Chris Christies re-election campaign went live this morning with a revamped website and social media presence.

His online political headquarters, www.christiefornj.com, takes cues from his governmental communications strategy with a new Twitter account, @ChrisChristie, Facebook and Instagram pages and a channel on YouTube, a medium that has been instrumental in building his national brand.

The new website will be a hub of activity and just one part of a very technologically sophisticated campaign, said campaign strategist Mike DuHaime.

The first tweet, which appeared at 10 pm Tuesday, made a simple pitch for a second term: one just wasnt enough – 4 more years… Lets do this, NJ! #NJGov #strongleadership. The second went up at 5 am today and directs people to website.

Two of the three videos on the site are newly produced campaign materials touting the endorsements hes collected over the past few months and showing footage of him speaking to supporters.

Most small businesses feel like they are wasting their time on social media, according to a new survey.

About 61% of small businesses dont see any return on investment on their social-media activities, according to a survey released Tuesday from Manta, a social network for small businesses. Yet, almost 50% say theyve increased their time spent on social media, and only 7% have decreased their time.

What businesses are trying to get out of social media: 36% said their goal was to acquire and engage new customers, 19% said to gain leads and referrals, and 17% said to boost awareness. Facebook was most cited as the hardest to maintain social-media platform, according to the survey.

In an age where a company such as Netflix is so heavily integrated into social media that it plans to make disclosures to investors on Facebook and Twitter, and a tech giant such as Enterasys Networks makes headlines by hiring based on tweets rather than rÃsumÃs, many small businesses worry their customers will leave them behind if they dont interact with them on social media. Plus its been a smash hit for some. Of the businesses that saw a return on investment in social-media activities, 30% measure that amount as above $2,000.

Terry Benton, owner of Terrys Fabric Cottage in Sulphur, La., was surprised to hear that her quilting store wasnt in the minority of businesses disappointed in the way their social-media campaigns have panned out. She says she created accounts for her business on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter a little over a year ago, spending about five hours a week updating the platforms.

She built it, but no one came. Shes backed off in the past three months after scoring only 60 Likes on her Facebook page at its peak, she says. I love reading things on the internet, so I thought the social-media stuff would be great for me, but it really has not turned out well at all.

Pam Springer, CEO of Manta, says small businesses get returns from social media â?? they just dont know what they are when they see them, and she says its good news that companies are spending more time on social media. If theyre really getting no returns, she says, its probably because they dont know how to launch a successful social-media campaign, and they give up too fast if the campaign falls flat. Businesses, she recommends, should use online resources like forums, and yes, social media, to connect with each other for advice. According to the survey, only 36% of businesses do this.

They have a high propensity to become maybe not as patient as they should be, Springer says. The attitude becomes I dont want to deal with it. I dont have enough time. Its intimidating to me.

Many small business though, just dont have a place in social media, says Stephanie Schwab, CEO of Crackerjack Marketing. They join because of peer pressure and media pressure even though they dont understand what theyre trying to get out of a social-media campaign. Some businesses make the mistake of prioritizing social-media activities over marketing techniques already proved to work, such as having a website.

Just thinking that Facebook alone will send droves of customers to your doorstep is a mistake a lot of people make, she says.

Regina Hartt, owner of Hartts Pool Plastering in Turlock, Calif., says social media hasnt helped her business because there are too many disreputable companies in the construction business, and no amount of Likes on Facebook is going to sway a prospective customer to spend $5,000 to $40,000 on a pool-plastering job. Hartt created a Facebook page for her business over a year ago, but she says out of the 200 to 300 jobs she does a year only three or four come from people who have found the business online.

They want someone whos going to do a good job, and seeing someones comment on a Facebook page isnt going to be enough, says Hartt, who gets most of her customers through referrals.

The National Association of Attorneys General, headed by Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, has announced a partnership with Facebook to make kids aware of and safety and privacy issues concerning social media.

I wish them the best of luck. I recently had a peek into the sordid world of tween social media and it is not a pretty sight. I saw the messages my son and his friends were sending to each other and have now taken away all his electronic devices cell phone, iPad and unsupervised computer privileges.

Let me give you some context. I teach online journalism to college kids. I require my students to sign up to Facebook and Twitter. Social media are essential tools for businesses to get their messages across to an audience.

But it is social medias ability to reach vast audiences and leave a lasting impression that also makes these programs dangerous. I was shocked at the inappropriate language, the sexual banter and the bullying I saw in my sons messages. If you havent checked out your kids social media posts, do it. Tweens have no right to privacy on social media.

And while Facebook might get all the attention, my son and his friends are using other programs such as Oovoo and Instagram and plain phone texts.

I dont know when Ill give my son back his devices, but I have told him it will be a long time before I will let him use social media to talk to his friends.

Every day we see adults making fools of themselves over Twitter messages, so its not surprising children lack judgment. But as parents, we can control the devices and read what our kids are writing. I know one mother who makes spot checks on her teen-age daughters cell phone, making her stop in mid text to hand over the phone for inspection.

You think its harsh or unfair? Take a look for yourself.

[Scroll down to leave a comment.]

Who are the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers for 2013?

You could answer that question by saying, of course, they are the people who most influence the biggest brands or have the best selling book or who have been around the business a long time.

But social media is a very democratizing form of communications and to assess influence you really need to know who is first among equals.

That means assessing who has a real following – real in the sense of real people and not just bots, real also in the sense that the following is active in social media and not just a passive consumer.

Being able to get to that essence, of people whose peers are actively involved with them, is why I chose Peek Analytics as the tool to measure influence.

There are also some basic criteria for involvement – experts must be creating their own content, and it has to be about social media. See more on the criteria here.

On the scoring, Peek Analytics gives people a score called Pull. If an individual has a Pull of 10x, that means that the audience the individual can reach is at least ten times greater than what the average social media user can reach.

If you want to measure your own Pull, you can do that by following this link.

Some observations on the upper part of the list….

The Top 10 Considered

In the top ten this year all the influencers have a pull of between 2,000 and 3,000. This represents influence among a group of peers, whether those peers are in Washington, Palo Alto or Peterborough.

#1. Leaders are more motivational. We are seeing a lot more inspirational messaging via Twitter from this group than we did last year – almost as if social media is relegated (or elevated depending on your taste) to motivational relationships. This is becoming an essential part of being a social media leader.

#2. It is more gender balanced. The Top 10 this year is equally divided between men and women. Last year it was skewed towards men.

#3. It is easier to access. There is a bigger spread of scores here in the top 10 that in the remainder of the top 50 (1000 – 2000). Those scores are interesting for two reasons.

The first is that it still looks as though once you hit the top flight either you automatically get more (and more active) followers or your position reflects an ability to cultivate that type of group.

But secondly the data also shows that the 40 people from 11 – 50 are very tightly grouped and any of them could rise quickly.

#4. There are more self-starters. And finally the top ten last year was skewed towards people who had a strong institutional base – an employer who allowed them time to do social media. The group below are much more skewed towards self-starters who have made social media their business, or who are advising on how to make social media your business.

The Top 10….

# 1. Sean Gardner. Sean, who also writes at Huffington Post, comes in at number 1. Sean blends social media insight with inspirational messaging, a trend we’re seeing across social. @2morrowknight.

#2. Ann Tran. Number 1 on the women’s list, Ann writes primarily about social media in the travel and hospitality vertical @anntran_

#3. Jessica Northey. It’s a trend this year, leading influencers whose base is in a specific vertical. For Jessica it is music. She also says she’s moving away from blogging towards Google +. @jessicanorthey.

#4. Mari Smith. Mari is a leading Facebook marketing expert and one of the top 10, overall, from last year. She’s also the author of The New Relationship Marketing. @marismith.

# 5. Aaron Lee. Aaron has been strong on Twitter for a long time now, and has a useful website with professional-grade advice but which can also inform people at the beginning of their social media careers. @askaaronlee.

#6. John Paul Aguiar. An eclectic mix of blog advice, Twitter and other social tools, John is in business to help people make money from social. @johnaguiar.

#7. Liz Strauss. Liz runs successful-blog.com. She’s currently taking on the challenge of cancer. Best wishes. @lizstrauss.

#8. Warren Whitlock. Host of Blog Talk Radio’s Social Media Profit Show, like John, Warren’s focus in on social media for profit. @warrenwhitlock.

#9. Ted Coine. Along with Shawn Murphy, Ted runs the Switch and Shift blog. @tedcoine

#10. Pam Moore. Covering Facebook, Google + and the business of social. @pammktgnut.

Just this month, a faculty member with expertise in social media was called upon by the news media to comment on a story about Instagram Beauty Contests. It has become exceedingly clear that social media is and will continue to be an integral part of our lives for decades to come. Who could argue that helping people to connect and communicate with each other regularly is not a good thing, especially in times of crisis and tragedy, when it allows each of us to quickly share life-saving information or respond to a national tragedy? Communication brings us together as a human and global family.

In the latest issue of INSIGHT, the magazine for alumni and friends of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, we explore the virtual self, and how social media is altering not only how we perceive others but how we are subsequently defining relationships with others. We also hear from several TCSPP experts on how the excessive use of social media can affect interpersonal interactions and relationships and our personal sense of well-being. Also discussed herein is an introduction to the emerging darker side of social media, especially among the youth of our nation. We have all read the tragic and heartbreaking stories about cyber bullying, increased depression and suicide, and the growing concerns over quick and sometimes brutal reputational damage. While many of us are enjoying the benefits of social media, we are also grappling with how best to understand and even prevent the related unintended consequences.

At the professional level and organizational level, many are increasingly engaged in how to leverage social media for constructive and business enhancing purposes. At the same time, many of us are surprised by how individual and organizational reputations can be damaged in a tweeting second. This new highly public rating system for everything we do — personally and professionally — has so quickly become part of our everyday reality.

Like all disruptive innovations and shifts in cultural norms, we will wait to determine the eventual outcome. For now, we must remember that even though we can publicly express our various opinions on almost any and every issue at any given time, this new freedom brings substantial responsibility. It seems reasonable to suggest that a society take an active role in shaping how an action can or cannot adversely affect the lives of individuals. As a psychologist whose practice was once dedicated to the well-being of children and adolescents, I am especially alert to how social media is impacting our adolescents and young adults. As a parent myself, I — like many other parents — take an active role in the use of social media with my own children. As an individual with great access to social media, I find myself reflecting more and more on its role in my own life. As a professional school president, I am curious to watch how social media and web applications will shape the profession of mental and behavioral health.

There are interesting days ahead.

A screen grab of a photograph on the homepage of a Sina Weibo account, identified by Chinese media and netizens as being of Lu Lingzi.