It doesn’t surprise me that Neopets is built on immersive advertising. Although children are more vulnerable to being exploited by commercial interests, this is not limited to the online media world. Product placement surrounds them in all aspects of their lives- everything around them at home, at school, through interactions with family, teachers, friends- both adults and peers. Media exposure appears to be a new force that is just competing with the existing forces. Willis (2001) did propose that children have the ability to extract individual use value from commodities–using them as tools for self-expression, for articulating social relationships, and for understanding the world around them. At the end of the day, Neopets do allow children to “adopt participatory roles in the creation of online content and contribute in meaningful ways to online environments, including games and communities.” It is a platform in which they can grow socially and cognitively. There are clear benefits and harms from engaging in the Neopets community. Even though Neopets exploit the best interests of young users—we do live in a world where our interests are exploited by the media. What incentives do Neopets have for creating something that is less profitable?

Additionally, I was hoping there would be greater discussion on the initial motivation to write in the first place. Albeit Curwood et al. recognized the study’s limitation in selecting three exceptional subjects- all three had some inclination to write already; the virtual affinity space allowed them more avenues and motivation to pursue writing. How effective is using these virtual spaces in children whose personal interests and interests in writing do not intersect?

It was refreshing to read Granic et al.’s paper that highlighted how the benefits of video games are so under-emphasized in comparison to the harms. Though there is clear potential for cognitive development with shooting games- I wonder how feasible it would be to leverage the components of attention allocation, spatial resolution in visual processing, and mental rotation abilities in shooting games to create a non-violent, yet attractive and successful game?

Migraine is the most common headache diagnosis in children. The prevalence of migraines increase from 3% in children age 3 to 7 years to 4-11% in children age 7 to 11 and 8-23% in adolescence. Children with migraine average twice as many days lost from school as those without migraine.

A migraine is a severe, pulsatile headache that can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours and is often associated with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light/sound, and/or several other neurological disturbances (changes in vision, smell, etc.). A family history is common and the episode is often aggravated by activity and alleviated by rest/sleep.

Although migraines can be debilitating and interfere with a child’s learning through missed school days, they can also be well managed if precipitating factors can be identified and reduced, if not eliminated. Once a migraine headache is suspected and diagnosed, one of the most important tasks for a child and his/her family is to characterize the episodes in a journal to be brought back at the next clinic visit. This often becomes difficult for children and their parents, as it is difficult to recall all the details that may contribute to and characterize an episode, including intensity, location, triggers, symptoms and other salient details.

Singapore-based healthcare startup Healint has released Migraine Buddy, an app that migraine sufferers can use to keep a comprehensive record of their symptoms, and dashboard with data that doctors can reference during checkups. When a migraine occurs, users can open the app and record what they were doing before the onset, symptoms, treatments, location of pain, and medications. Reports can be generated and emailed to doctors to them a better understanding of what triggers the migraines, as well as the most effective treatments for them.

Although this app is designed for the general adult population, the platform is simple enough for adolescence to use as a tool to empower self-care. Although parents are often held responsible for promoting, protecting and managing their child’s health, it is a challenging reality with other competing responsibilities and barriers that may include limited health literacy. Health literacy refers to the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

As children grow and develop their identities and personal agency, the app can be a tool that gives a child with disabling migraines some control and ownership over their own health. These skills contribute to the development of their health literacy, a skill that is difficult for nearly half of American adults.

In terms of areas for improvement, I would like to see a more educational component built into this app. Users and their parents are often counseled in clinic about migraines, but not all that is discussed during a visit will be retained. Hence, having an educational tab that may explain migraines in simple language and how certain triggers may contribute to exacerbating episodes will motivate users to adhere to app usage. Additionally, migraines can be isolating, especially for children who find them disabling. Hence, having a support group in which they can connect with peers suffering from migraines may help them socially and psychologically. A third component I would have liked to see in this app is the ability to synchronize the data with a parent’s iPhone so parents can also work with their children in shared management.

Additionally, no matter how advanced these robots are, they are only able to engage and respond to children to a limited extent. The human brain is incredibly complex, and if we have not yet understood completely how it works, how are we able to create artificial intelligence that can emulate and replace living creatures?

“Bonawitz and Schultz presented 4-year-olds with a toy that had four hidden functions. In one condition, children were told what the toy could do, shown one of its functions, and then left to explore the toy. In the other condition, an experimenter accidentally “tripped” on one of the functions (the same function demonstrated in the other condition) before the children were left to explore the toy. Children in the exploration condition were much more likely to discover all of the toy’s remaining functions, whereas those in the directed condition seemed restricted to the function that had been shown to them.”

I was initially sparked by how social interactions prior to their evaluation in this experiment may have shaped their responses to the activity, especially given the early learning mechanisms developed during infancy. The original article does address that it is entirely possible that “by the time children reach preschool, they have learned that pedagogical contexts apply beyond situations with ostensive cueing…By preschool, children seem actively to evaluate their teachers both for the knowledge they have and their ability to demonstrate it. Thus, well before children are immersed in formal education, they are sensitive to some conditions that promote effective instruction.”

I found this particularly interesting because I personally found that people often discount the capacity very young children have for processing complex information, especially in cultures who lack the educational foundation to understand childhood development, and that the platform on which they will learn formal education begins much earlier than the classroom.

If the industry is profiting from capitalizing on children’s non-educational interests, what incentives do they have for pursuing these recommendations?