The Smarter Screen

A leading behavioral economist reveals the tools that will improve our decision making on screens Office workers spend the majority of their waking hours staring at screens. Unfortunately, few of us are aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence our thinking when we’re on our laptops, iPads, smartphones, or smartwatches. The sheer volume of information and choices available online, combined with the ease of tapping "buy," often make for poor decision making on screens. In The Smarter Screen, behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi reveals a tool kit of interventions for the digital age. Using engaging reader exercises and provocative case studies, Benartzi shows how digital designs can influence our decision making on screens in all sorts of surprising ways. For example: • You’re more likely to add bacon to your pizza if you order online. • If you read this book on a screen, you’re less likely to remember its content. • You might buy an item just because it’s located in a screen hot spot, even if better options are available. • If you shop using a touch screen, you’ll probably overvalue the product you’re considering. • You’re more likely to remember a factoid like this one if it’s displayed in an ugly, difficult-to-read font. Drawing on the latest research on digital nudging, Benartzi reveals how we can create an online world that helps us think better, not worse.

As a practicing child psychiatrist and mother of three, Jodi Gold has a unique understanding of both the mind-boggling benefits and the serious downsides of technology. Dr. Gold weaves together scientific knowledge and everyday practical advice to help you foster your child's healthy relationship to technology, from birth to the teen years. You'll learn: *How much screen time is too much at different ages. *What your kids and teens are actually doing in all those hours online. *How technology affects social, emotional, and cognitive development. *Which apps and games build smarts and let creativity shine. *How your own media habits influence your children. *What you need to know about privacy concerns, cyberbullying, and other dangers. *Ways to set limits that the whole family can live with. Winner (Second Place)—American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Child Health Category

For parents who didn't grow up with smartphones but can't let go of them now, expert advice on raising kids in our constantly connected world Most kids get their first smartphone at the same time that they're experiencing major developmental changes. Making mistakes has always been a part of growing up, but how do parents help their kids navigate childhood and adolescence at a time when social media has the potential to magnify the consequences of those mistakes? Rather than spend all their time worrying about the worst-case scenario, readers get a bigger-picture understanding of their kids' digital landscape. Drawing on research and interviews with educators, psychologists, and kids themselves, Raising a Screen-Smart Kid offers practical advice on how parents can help their kids avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits of the digital age by: using social media to enhance connection with friends and family, instead of following strangers and celebrities, which is a predictor of loneliness and depression finding online support and community for conditions such as depression and eating disorders, while avoiding potential triggers such as #Thinspiration Pinterest boards learning and developing life skills through technology--for example, by problem-solving in online games--while avoiding inappropriate content Written by a public health expert and the creator of the popular blog Rants from Mommyland, this book shows parents how to help their kids navigate friendships, bullying, dating, self-esteem, and more online.

Trying to police and protect a child from screen time is unquestionably one of the most confusing and frustrating responsibilities of good parenting. It's a tough job being a 'media monitor' all the time. Technology is at the center of everything we do--TVs, smart phones, computers, and tablets are no longer luxuries, they are necessities for navigating life today. But technology can also be detrimental to growing minds, and parents must master the necessary skills to help their children not only survive in this digital world, but to actually thrive. Kids love smart phones, tablets, computers, TVs, anything that gives them screen time. They come by their dependence honestly--they learn it from us, the 'adults.' We've become a culture of screen addicts, and that's especially challenging for parents. But the solution is not found in constantly policing the time kids are glued to a screen or in protecting what they are being exposed to; it's found in how they are engaging and interacting with that screen. Nicole Dreiske, founder and director of the International Children's Media Center, is one of the most respected pioneers in the understanding and cultivation of new techniques for transforming the way kids view, use and engage in electronic screens. In The Upside of Digital Devices, recipient of The National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval, she provides parents with simple, practical instructions as well as a variety of effective tools for creating meaningful moments and critical thinking skills that can mark a turning point in their children's lives and futures.

One of the world’s top experts in behavioral finance offers innovative strategies for improving 401(k) plans. Half of Americans do not have access to a retirement saving plan at their workplace. Of those who do about a third fail to join. And those who do join tend to save too little and often make unwise investment decisions. In short, the 401(k) world is in crisis, and workers need help. Save More Tomorrow provides that help by focusing on the behavioral challenges that led to this crisis inertia, limited self-control, loss aversion, and myopia—and transforms them into behavioral solutions. These solutions, or tools, are based on cutting edge behavioral finance research and they can dramatically improve outcomes by, for example, helping employees: -Save, even if they aren’t ready to do so now, by using future enrollment. -Save more by showing them images of their future selves. -Save smarter by reshuffling the order of funds on the investment menu. Save More Tomorrow is the first comprehensive application of behavioral finance to improve retirement outcomes. It also makes it easy for plan sponsors and their advisers to apply these behavioral tools using its innovative Behavioral Audit process.

Our love affair with the digital interface is out of control. We’ve embraced it in the boardroom, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Screens have taken over our lives. Most people spend over eight hours a day staring at a screen, and some “technological innovators” are hoping to grab even more of your eyeball time. You have screens in your pocket, in your car, on your appliances, and maybe even on your face. Average smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, responding to the addictive buzz of Facebook or emails or Twitter. Are you sick? There’s an app for that! Need to pray? There’s an app for that! Dead? Well, there’s an app for that, too! And most apps are intentionally addictive distractions that end up taking our attention away from things like family, friends, sleep, and oncoming traffic. There’s a better way. In this book, innovator Golden Krishna challenges our world of nagging, screen-based bondage, and shows how we can build a technologically advanced world without digital interfaces. In his insightful, raw, and often hilarious criticism, Golden reveals fascinating ways to think beyond screens using three principles that lead to more meaningful innovation. Whether you’re working in technology, or just wary of a gadget-filled future, you’ll be enlighted and entertained while discovering that the best interface is no interface.

"On May 1, 1990 Gregg Smart was gunned down in his home in Derry, New Hampshire. On March 4, 1991 his wife Pamela Smart was placed on trial for accomplice to murder. ... Now for the first time, Gregg's brother Dean reveals the personal side of the tragedy - about growing up with a brother he idolized, and the true story of the events that led up to that tragic night." --From publisher's description.

While women have long been featured in leading roles in film and television, the intellectual depictions of female characters in these mediums are out of line with reality. Women continue to be marginalized for their choices, overshadowed by men, and judged by their bodies. In fact, the intelligence of women is rarely the focus of television or film narratives, and on the rare occasion when smart women are showcased, their portrayals are undermined by socially awkward behavior or their intimate relationships are doomed to perpetual failure. While Hollywood claims to offer a different, more evolved look at women, these movies and shows often just repackage old character types that still downplay the intelligence and savvy of women. In Smart Chicks on Screen: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film and Television, Laura Mattoon D’Amore brings together an impressive array of scholarship that interrogates the portrayal of females on television and in movies. Among the questions that the volume seeks to answer are: In what ways are women in film and television limited, or ostracized, by their intelligence? How do female roles reinforce standards of beauty, submissiveness, and silence over intellect, problem solving, and leadership? Are there women in film and television who are intelligent without also being objectified? The thirteen essays by international, interdisciplinary scholars offer a wide range of perspectives, examining the connections—and disconnections—between beauty and brains in film and television. Smart Chicks on Screen will be of interest to scholars not only of film and television but of women’s studies, reception studies, and cultural history, as well.