Archive for Computers and Internet

Smartphones & Social Media Helps Teens Grow Up

As parents, your digital dependency is visible to your children. From Google mapping a destination and texting to Facebook posting and Instagramming, your smartphone has practically mutated onto your body as an appendage that keeps you socially connected. Through observation, kids and ‘tweens are aware that smartphones are essential for surviving and navigating the day— and they learned it from you.

Can you expect your children to not want a smartphone of their own as well? Your parental instincts may tell you that you want to preserve your kids’ youthful innocence and protect them from the perils of mobile technology, such as cyber bullying and sexting. Smartphones are handheld gateways to an unprotected world that includes social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Giving our kids social-digital freedom can actually improve their safety and help them grow and learn about themselves as well as strengthen parent-child relationships. 

Social Media

To deny our kids Facebook is similar to denying our kids television or from getting their drivers license. Social media is engrained in our culture and the connections your child makes can help them grow, build good character and play with self-expression. Not only can kids connect with friends, they can develop relationships with public figures just like adults. For example, following senior pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church can be a good influence. Pastor Young’s posts and photos can inspire teens seeking identities, direction and a space to fit in. From sports stars to singers and musicians, following and interacting with Facebook pages can serve as a role model for impressionable kids and have positive effects. 

Smartphones

According to HLN, 56 percent of children between the ages of 8 and 12 have cell phones and “most kids get their first phone at age 12.” Although seventh grade is a good standard to use while gauging when your kid should get a smartphone, rely on your own judgment as a parent because you know your child’s maturity and family needs best. By equipping your child with a smartphone, you’re first establishing trust and respect. Explain that having a smartphone is a privilege and once a privilege is abused, not only is the phone taken away but trust in general will be as well. Both will have to be earned back. The phone serves as a learning tool for providing your child with responsibility and accountability. Agree to give your child a cell phone, and you’ll prevent them from feeling deprived, which can lead to feelings of rebellion elsewhere.

The pros of a smartphone may also outweigh the cons for increased communication and safety. Establish rules that require your tween to respond to a text that you sent regarding their whereabouts. By installing monitoring and blocking features, you can set parameters— giving your child a sense of freedom that won’t compromise the potential for inappropriate behavior. Make sure to explain legal consequences for using a phone inappropriately too. For example, teens sending naked pictures can be charged with child pornography and young cyber bullies can be charged with harassment. 

How to perform emergency restart in Windows

When you restart your computer, the hardware first shuts down and then starts again. This can take some time depending on the number of software applications installed on your computer and also depending on the specifications. If your computer has a reset button, you can use it to restart your computer faster. The button also comes pretty handy then some application on your computer has hanged and is not responding.

Most new computers and laptops do not have the reset button. For example, my laptop a Lenovo G570 comes with only the power on button. There is no way to restart the laptop directly. This is also the same case with most new desktops.

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If your computer didn’t come with a dedicated recent button, you can still perform an emergency restart without wasting a lot of time. This will work only on Windows-based computers. Here are instructions…

How to restart your computer fast using emergency restart:

1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

2. When the options screen appears, press and hold Ctrl and click on the switch off menu at the bottom right corner.

3. You will see a warning message which will ask you to click OK to immediately restart your computer.

4. Click on the OK button to perform the emergency restart. This is restart your computer instantly.

Note that this will not give you any time to save any unsaved changes. Use this only when an emergency restart is needed.