Teen Tweeting Surges

By Kiwi Commons

If you Google the words ‘teens’ and ‘twitter’, you’ll probably find that a lot of the results are articles and blogs pointing out that teenagers tend to shun the micro-blogging site, as opposed to Facebook.

Many factors are given for the phenomenon. For one, teens apparently associate Twitter with self-promotion and generally don’t feel the need to self-promote until their college years, when they start planning in earnest for careers.

Nevertheless, teens have begun migrating over to Twitter in recent months. A Pew survey last July found that 16 percent of young people, ages 12 to 17, said they used Twitter. Two years earlier, that percentage was just 8 percent. “That doubling is definitely a significant increase,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at Pew.

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What Facebook’s IPO will mean for users

Facebook finally filed for its initial public offering (IPO) earlier this week and by now everyone is familiar with the astronomical valuations that are being attached to the company and how many gazillionaires will be produced as a result.

Perhaps less attention has been paid to what the proposed listing is likely to mean for the average Facebook user. Certainly there is no immediate financial advantage – other than our own ability to buy Facebook stock and hope to turn a profit – but there are likely to be other changes. Let’s take a quick look at how our Facebook experience might be different once the IPO takes place later this spring.

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PBS Kids Lab helps build critical math skills

Of all the subjects our children learn at school, math is probably the most important. Every career uses some kind of math skill, and studying math helps the mind to organize complex problems into clear and logical steps. By becoming proficient at math, students give themselves a competitive edge and the ability to take on everyday challenges with confidence.

Unfortunately, studies show that over 60 percent of elementary students are below grade level when it comes to math, a deficiency that is often hard to make up. To combat this shortcoming, it is generally recommended that children build their math skills from a very early age. However, many parents struggle to incorporate appropriate math exercises in a home setting, lacking the time or the expertise to create a suitable program.

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How to back up your files using Windows 7

We’ve all heard the horror stories: One day you are happily working away on your computer – and then crash! Whether it’s a file-destroying virus, a misguided attempt to free-up some disk space, or a hard drive that’s just given up and died, you can no longer access your data.

Dozens of files, hundreds of photos, and years of hard work – all replaced by a blue screen and a rising sense of panic!

Despite the problems that lost data can cause, surveys indicate that less than five percent of home computer users actually take the time to save and back up their files. But with automatic back up now built-in to Windows 7, there really is no excuse not to do it.

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Tech Report – Pinterest

One of the strengths of social networking has always been the instant connection that people make with visual images. If you want to generate interest in your blog or Facebook page, then add a picture. Better still, add lots of pictures. Even Twitter, with its limit on the amount of text you can use, goes out of its way to encourage the upload of images.

So perhaps it’s no surprise to see a relative newcomer to the social networking scene take that concept one step further and present individual profiles based entirely on visual images that can be found on the Web. The newcomer is Pinterest and it has quickly built a large and enthusiastic following.

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