Daly Focus Blog
Like it or not, our kids are growing up in a world of gadgets and gizmos. Before they can even walk, many little ones know how to turn the page on an iPad or even open up a favorite app on a smart phone.
Navigating technology can be challenging enough for adults, but many parents contact us wanting to know how much screen time is safe for their kids. Should Junior be allowed to use the iPad?
Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, kids, parenting, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
The following “Kid President” video is the creation of actor Rainn Wilson. It’s been making the rounds on the Internet and has become something of a sensation.
If you haven’t seen it, take three minutes and give it a look.
And then do something because, well, in the words of the Kid President, “The world needs you to stop being boring.”
Topics: Family and Home Tags: entertainment, kids, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
I appreciated the fun response to yesterday’s post about Valentine’s Day. But I’m also aware that February 14th can be a difficult day for many people.
Every Valentine’s Day the world fairly explodes with flowers, chocolate, and the color pink. If love is abundant in your life, those trappings can be a joyful reminder. But for the lonely it can make for a long, difficult day.
For many people, Valentine ’s Day isn’t a celebration of love and romance at all.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: intimacy, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
At the risk of alarming you, this is something you’ll want to know.
Whenever your youngster uses their phone or computer to access the Internet, there are businesses out there collecting, analyzing, dissecting and selling the details of their use to other businesses.
For example, if your daughter posts a photograph of friends on Facebook, it’s possible for certain technology to determine the exact location of the snapshot. Such finite details can be valuable to companies trying to market to teenage girls.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, kids, parenting, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
“The fascination we have with the newness of these things…can be so undoing to our affection for Christ and our devotion to prayer and His word.”
– John Piper
“Sit loose to this world’s joy,” cautioned Robert Murray McCheyne, a Scottish pastor who passed away in 1843 at the age of 29. “The time is short.”
Amen?
Topics: Current Events Tags: entertainment, faith, pop culture, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
Saturday’s New York Times featured a fascinating story on the power of the social media service, Twitter, when it comes to spreading the Gospel.
Created in 2006, Twitter allows users to distribute messages of up to 140 characters in length to a predetermined network of friends and followers.
According to the report, Christian “tweets” are forwarded, on average, 30 times more often than their secular-themed counterparts.
Why?
The author attributes part of the reason to the pithy nature of the Christian message:
On average, verses in the King James Version are about 100 characters long, leaving room to slip in a #bible hashtag and still come in under the 140-character limit.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: entertainment, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
When it comes to video games, Jean and I have a pretty simple and straightforward rule:
No guns, no blood, no bad language and, obviously, nothing that’s sexually suggestive.
So I know what some of you are probably thinking:
It’s still possible to purchase and play Pong?
Our boys actually play a very limited amount of games on Wii, usually sports-themed and always very innocuous in nature.
But we know parents who feel strongly that any type of video game is just a bad idea and a poor use of a child’s time.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: entertainment, kids, parenting, pop culture, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
In a recent article in The Atlantic, writer Stephen Marche serves up a provocative perspective on the impact of Facebook and other social network software on society:
We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are.
In the opening lines of the lengthy piece, Marche describes the defining moment of Social Network, the film that chronicled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s life and career.
The film’s most indelible scene, the one that may well have earned it an Oscar, was the final, silent shot of an anomic Zuckerberg sending out a friend request to his ex-girlfriend, then waiting and clicking and waiting and clicking—a moment of superconnected loneliness preserved in amber.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: friendship, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
According to a recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle there is a disturbing trend developing with teenage girls on the internet:
A growing number of tweens and teens, mainly girls, are posting videos on YouTube asking commenters if they’re ugly.
Type ‘Am I ugly?’ or ‘Am I pretty’ into the YouTube search box and dozens of videos pop up, including one of an 11-year-old girl who poses for the camera, twirling her shoulders, smiling big, and pulling her long hair out of a pony tail.
Topics: Family and Home Tags: kids, parenting, pop culture, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
Here is an email that’s been making the rounds. How does it strike you?
Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, technology by Jim Daly with Paul Batura
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.Home
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