Being small and almost imperceptible is one of the many advances in modern hearing aids. They also work much better, typically come with a smartphone app and are able to stream sound, including music and spoken words, from your smartphone. And they are often a lot less expensive, thanks to a 2022 FDA rule change allowing people with mild to moderate hearing loss to purchase “over the counter” hearing aids.

When I had my hearing tested in 2021, the audiologist said I didn’t need hearing aids. But a re-test two years later showed mild to moderate loss, especially in the higher frequencies. My doctor told me that hearing aids were optional, but I decided to give them a try. Many OTC hearing aids come with a generous return policy, and I opted to go to Costco, which lets you return them for up to six months.

Get professional advice

As is probably obvious, I am not a hearing or medical expert so any advice I give is purely from my tech background. I highly recommend you consult a doctor, audiologist or a licensed hearing aid dispenser before making any decisions or purchases.

Costco is one of many places you can go for hearing aids. Many medical clinics and hearing doctor’s offices also sell them as do audiologists. You can also buy them from some drug stores, including Walgreens and CVS and online from places like Jabra.com, Hear.com, HearingDirect.com and many other sites. You can even get them from Amazon.com.

Costco hearing aids

My doctor recommended Costco and that’s where I went. Since I only tried Costco and the hearing aids I purchased from them, I am not in a position to give a comparative review. All I can report is my experience there and with the Jabra Enhance Pro 20 hearing aids I purchased there for $1,650. Costco also offers other brands, starting at $1,499. The licensed hearing aid dispenser at Costco told me that all of the brands were very similar, but I chose Jabra mainly because I knew the company offers good phone support, even though Costco offers free in-store support. Costco’s actual price varies by state and model so don’t just go by what you see on their website.

My first experience at the Costco hearing center was to take a free hearing test in a soundproof room. The test was very comprehensive, and the results were almost identical to tests taken at Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation. The test confirmed mild to moderate loss, which made me a candidate for hearing aids. They had to order the hearing aids and I returned in a few weeks to have them configured.

The configuration process involved further testing and, after connecting my hearing aids via Bluetooth to his desktop computer, the technician programmed them for my hearing and usage preferences. At that point I installed the Jabra app on my phone so that I could further customize them for different situations such as restaurants, when going for walks, watching TV or listening to music or spoken word through a Bluetooth connection to my phone.

Lost, replaced and reconfigured

One nice thing about Costco is that they offer loss protection — one replacement per ear. Unfortunately, I had to take them up on that after both hearing aids fell out when I removed a KN95 mask in a parking lot. Because the hearing aids are comfortable and my hearing loss isn’t severe, I didn’t notice they fell out until 2 hours later. I returned to that parking lot and used the Jabra app to locate the one hearing aid I was able to find on the ground. I never did find the other one, but Costco did replace the one I lost at no charge. I have since learned this is a common problem, so I purchased a 10-pack of Okupan Mask Extenders/Ear Savers for $12.99 that go around the neck instead of the ear lobes.

When the replacement hearing aid arrived I they both had to be re-configured, but this time the technician did a better job by configuring the buttons on the hearing aids to give me more control over the volume and making other adjustments that improve how they work with speech and other sounds along with audio streaming from my phone.

Service matters

One of the things that I have learned from my three months of on and off hearing aid usage is that it’s not just about the hardware, but the service and the app that comes with the product. Depending on which technician you get to work with, I found Costco to be extremely helpful. I’m sure that’s also the case if you buy them from a reputable audiologist.

Some online companies, including Jabra.com, offer not just phone or video support but remote configuration support with the ability of their audiologists and technicians to remotely adjust your hearing aids. Although I’ve had questions answered by Java phone support, I haven’t had the need for remote configuration because Costco does that in-person but, wherever you get your hearing aids, do look for a vendor that offers this type of support.

Comes with an App

The Jabra Enhance Pro app, like many other heading aid apps, allows me to adjust the volume level and the left-right balance and select different programs such as noise filter, speech clarity, “all-around” for typical usage scenarios and a “hear in noise” setting for restaurants and other noisy locations. There is also a Sound Enhancer setting which allows you to adjust noise reduction and wind noise reduction as well as an equalizer that lets you adjust the bass, midrange and treble. You can also set favorites. I’ve created settings for extra bass and what I call “mild noise” for different situations.

When you stream music or voice, it automatically switches to an audio streaming mode with the option to focus primarily on streaming or “hear all” which reduces external noise reduction. The music quality is not as good as most decent earbuds or headphones but it’s very convenient to be able to privately listen to streaming audio whenever you want.  For those who are almost always wearing hearing aids during waking hours, it means you never have to worry about bringing earbuds or headphones with you. I have put my headphones over the hearring aids, which greatly enhances the audio quality for music. For podcasts, audio books and radio newscasts, streaming directly to the hearing aids are more than adequate.

Not quite “groovy“

I’m not claiming that these hearing aids make me any cooler or, as my generation used to say, “groovy”, but they are definitely not my grandfather’s hearing aids. If you hear what I’m saying.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Losing a device that can cost $200 or more is no joke so, despite the portability and convenience of these small earbuds, there is a good reason to consider an alternative, including much less expensive earbuds (you can find some on Amazon for under $20) or other technologies such as traditional style headphones, open ear headphones with an ear loop that keeps them in place and bone conduction headphones with a band that goes behind your neck.

There are other reasons why you might consider avoiding earbuds. For some, they are uncomfortable, and they are incompatible with hearing aids because they, like hearing aids, go inside the ear. And, unlike some over the ear headphones, they can only be used with Bluetooth – there isn’t a cord to connect to airplane entertainment systems TVs and other devices with a traditional headphone plug, though there are inexpensive dongles that connect Bluetooth headsets to a standard headphone jack. The Beeitzie Bluetooth Transmitter Receiver I bought from Amazon for $32 (on sale) does the job nicely.

Over the Ear traditional headphones

Almost any type of headphone will come at a wide range of price points. The ones I tested tended to be in the middle or towards the lower end. You can, for example, spend more than $400 for a great pair of Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, but you can find decent ones for a 10th of that price. It all depends on your personal standards and your budget. I like great sounding music, but I mostly listen to podcasts and audiobooks and, when I do listen to music, it’s usually on a walk where I’m not doing what you might call critical listening. If you’re an audiophile or just like using headphones to sit quietly and enjoy music, it’s worth investing in highly rated headphones.

I own a pair of really good headphones, but they’re big and bulky and a bit uncomfortable, which are issues when I travel. So, I decided to try out the Soundcore Q30, currently available on Amazon for $55 after the limited time 30% discount.

Those headphones sound good for the price and the noise canceling feature does a great job of reducing background noise. I haven’t yet tried them on a plane but I have used them with a vacuum cleaner and they did a great job filtering out most of the noise. Like many (but not all) Bluetooth over-the-ear headphones, they have a headphone jack but you have to provide your own cord and unlike some headphones, you can’t use the noise canceling feature when they’re plugged in on an airplane. If you do a lot of flying and plan to plug into the airline’s audio system, consider a different model or get a headphone jack to Bluetooth adapter. But some airlines no longer have screens and require you to watch on your own mobile device so this may not even be an issue. Like most high-end earbuds, it also has a transparency mode that lets in the sound around you which is sometimes important and cleverly switches to transparency mode if you hold your hands up to the right ear cup. It comes with an app that includes an equalizer with multiple presets for different types of music and spoken words. The headphones are light, very comfortable and foldable. Admittedly they don’t sound as good as some more expensive headphones but, for my purposes, they’re good enough.

Even headphones without active noise canceling filter out some of the noise simply because they cover your ears. They’re less portable than earbuds but much less likely to be lost. Because they have larger speakers, they tend to have better sound than similarly priced earbuds and, as long as they’re not too heavy or too tight, I find them more comfortable than earbuds.

Bone conduction

I also tried a couple of models pair of Shokz open-ear bone conduction wireless earphones. They were very comfortable, hearing aid compatible and stayed in place during walks, bike rides and runs. The sound quality of the $79 was pretty good, but not as good as comparably priced headphones I tested. I also tried out the $179 Shokz Openrun Pro which, admittedly, sounds a lot better but – aside from their much higher price point – they use a proprietary charging cable which, for me, is a disqualifier because I have a tendency to lose cables. The less expensive model has a built-in USB C port which I strongly prefer. You can also get open-ear headphones with traditional speakers such as the Soundcore by Anker Life Note C Earbuds True Wireless Headphones that I tested. The sound was surprisingly good, especially for its sub-$50 price. They were comfortable and that ear hook made them unlikely to be lost. But they did come with a required charging case which is yet another thing to pack on a trip and potentially lose or misplace.

Ironies and Aging

For many years, most smartphones would come with earbuds which, frankly, weren’t all that great. I found it a bit ironic that, despite amazing advancements in technology, most people were listening to music through inferior earbuds. Now that most phones don’t come with earbuds, people have to buy them which, despite costing more money, means they can get higher quality listening devices. But there is one more irony. As we age, many people experience at least some hearing loss. When I was younger, I bought the best audio equipment I could afford but my budget was quite limited. Now that I’m older, I can afford better equipment, but with some hearing loss – especially at higher frequencies – I don’t appreciate it quite as much as I did in my teens 20s and 30s.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Battery chemistry matters

In almost all cases, the batteries are Lithium-Ion (Li-ion), but there are different chemical configurations that impact how they operate and how you manage them.

Most of the EVs currently on the road are equipped with nickel, manganese, and cobalt (NMC) batteries, but an increasing number now come with a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery. Newer Standard Range Tesla Model 3s, for example, use LFP, while the long-range use NMC, because NMC has greater density, which provides about 30% more energy from the same size battery. But LFP batteries have some advantages, including lower cost and longer life, because they can be charged more often with slower degradation than NMC. They are also less likely to cause a fire, though EV vehicle fires are extremely rare, especially compared with gasoline cars. LFP batteries are also said to be more environmentally responsible, because the materials they use are more abundant, safer to mine and safer to dispose of or recycle. And, unlike NMC batteries, they can be safely charged to 100% on a daily basis.

Tesla and some other EV carmakers recommend you charge cars with an NMC battery to 80% for daily driving, although Tesla recommends charging cars with LFP batteries to 100% at least once a week. It’s OK to charge any battery to 100% if you’re about to leave on a road trip, but don’t make it a regular habit and don’t leave it at 100% for a prolonged period because that can have a detrimental impact on battery health.

EPA estimates are not real-world

EPA range estimates are theoretical and not real world. The vast majority of drivers will get less than the estimated range. Just as with gasoline cars, how much depends on many factors,  including speed, temperature (EVs are less efficient in cold weather), weight of passengers and luggage and terrain. In 2023, Consumer Reports did a real-world range test on several luxury EVs, and of the 22 EVs tested, nearly half fell short of their EPA-estimated range.

“When driven at a constant highway speed of 70 mph, some vehicles we tested fell up to 50 miles short of their advertised ranges, while others exceeded their advertised ranges—one by more than 70 miles,” Consumer Reports said.

If you’re in the market for a new car, LFP is probably a better (and less expensive) option if you plan to use your car mostly for local driving. For example, you can easily make a round trip to anywhere in the Bay Area on just about any late-model EV.  But if you like to take road trips, especially to places where you might have trouble finding a charging station, a long-range vehicle gives you greater peace of mind.

I drove a Model 3 with an estimated 264-mile range (actual range after 5 years was closer to 200 miles) and never ran out of juice on several long road trips, but there were a couple of stressful situations where I worried. I eventually replaced it with one with a a long-range EPA rated at 341 miles, mostly to reduce my stress levels on long trips.

The 80-20 charging rule

With the exception of cars with LFP batteries that can safely be charged to 100%, the general “80-20 rule” is to charge to no more than 80% on a daily basis and keep the car charged to at least 20% on a regular basis. Again, that doesn’t mean all the time. It’s fine to charge to 100% right before a road trip, so long as you burn off some of those miles relatively soon. I haven’t been able to determine exactly how long it’s safe to leave a car at 100%, but my strategy is to charge my car to between 70% and 80% on a daily basis. I generally charge to about 90% to 95% just before I leave on a long trip. If I’m at a charger and know it will be a long time before the next one, I might charge to 100%. However, the fuller your battery, the longer it takes to charge. Getting a car from 80% to 100% might take as long as getting from 20% to 80%, so if I know there are chargers within range, I’ll generally stop at 80%, unless I’m enjoying lunch and want that extra time to fill my belly as well as my car’s battery.

It’s fine to arrive at your destination with less than 20%. When you plan a long trip on a Tesla, the navigation system recommends charging spots that typically estimate your battery on arrival as low as 10%, and they often recommend very short charging stops because you’ll spend less time charging if you keep the levels low even though it might mean more stops. But I’m more conservative, because I want to be safe in case there is a long detour or some other unforeseen event. For example, I was once driving from Los Angeles to the Bay Area and had to take a windy road over the mountains because Pacheco Pass, the usual route, was closed. Had I followed Tesla’s recommendation, I would have likely run out of power before reaching a Supercharger.

Getting there and back

Another thing to consider is getting from your destination to another charger. Tesla, for example, will navigate you to a destination with enough of a charge to get there but not necessary enough to get to another charger on the way home or your next destination. If your EV supports entering more than one stop, enter both your destination and either the location of a known charger or your home or next stop to see whether you can get a charge to continue your trip. If it doesn’t try plotting the trip using the A Better Route Planner app. It’s not uncommon for non-Tesla charging stations to be out of service so try to verify it’s working if you can. You may be able to find a hotel with a destination charger and, if so, give them a call to see if the charger is working and available to use.

Storing the EV in hot weather

If you’re parking your car for an extended period of time in what could be very hot weather, such as when you’re going to be away on a trip during the summer, it’s a good idea to reduce the charge level to about 50% or lower to avoid degradation from the heat.

Don’t trust the range estimator

EVs have range estimators similar to gas gauges on cars. In most cases, they will estimate both the percentage of remaining battery and the estimated number of miles left before you run out. These are good general guidelines, but you should not rely on them, especially the estimated remaining miles, which doesn’t necessarily account for terrain, your speed, temperature and other important factors. Teslas have a battery app that gives you a more accurate estimate, but even it’s not perfect. I just give myself some margin.

Relax, it’s going to be OK

Range anxiety is a common occurrence for EV drivers, but, especially if you have access to Tesla’s Supercharging network, it’s mostly misplaced. With some planning, you should be able to get almost anywhere on major highways, although you may need to do some extra planning if you go off the beaten path. If you do go to remote areas, consider finding hotels with overnight charging, which is often included in the room price. Use the app and website called A Better Route Planner, which does an amazing job helping you plan charging stops. I’ve driven more than 50,000 miles in an EV to all sorts of places, and despite some range anxiety, my EV has always gotten me there and back. Tesla is opening its extensive charging network to other EVs, so if you’re in the market for an EV, I highly recommend you pick one that will be able to charge at Tesla Superchargers. If you currently have a non-Tesla EV, check to see if there’s an adapter you can get for the Tesla network.

And try not to worry even if you occasionally fail to heed this advice. Modern EVs are equipped with battery management systems that do their best to mitigate battery degradation, regardless of what type of battery you have. If you’re looking for reassurance, search for “8 lessons about EV battery health from 6,300 electric cars” for some statistics about EV batteries.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

When I first started my career, the most popular PC on the market was the Apple II, which was exciting until it became commonplace. Then the IBM PC came along and added at least a little excitement, but not much. It had some improvements over the Apple II but still mostly displayed green text on a black screen, storing data on floppy disks and running many of the same programs.

In 1983, Compaq came out with a portable version of the IBM PC, which, for the most part, was a clone of IBM’s machine.  But it was portable, if you don’t mind carrying around a 28-pound machine that looked a bit like a sewing machine. That made it mildly interesting, because you could bring it on trips if you really wanted to, as I once did.

In 1984, Apple came out with the Macintosh, which made things very interesting. Even though it has less power and storage and a much smaller screen than the IBM PC, it was able to display graphics on its black and white screen and came with “what you see is what you get” software that, unlike what you got with PCs, made the onscreen view nearly identical to what came out of the printer. I was running a computer training company at the time, and the Mac, paired with a laser printer, revolutionized the way we created printed training materials, saving us a lot on typesetting and illustrations. It was also a lot more fun to use than a PC. I began my review of that first Mac with, “I rarely get excited over a new computer. But Apple’s Macintosh, officially introduced last Tuesday, has started a fever in Silicon Valley that’s hard not to catch.”

Despite its interesting initial design, the early Macs didn’t sell all that well, so, for years, the PC industry was dominated mostly by battles between IBM and the many companies that made what we called “IBM clones,” machines that ran MS-DOS that were almost indistinguishable from each other. The only major battles were around speeds – how fast the processor would run, which was mildly interesting because, back then, computers were pretty slow, and any significant increase in speed was noticeable. Eventually, computers became fast enough to the point where you probably didn’t even notice a speed improvement, rendering speed improvements mostly boring.

Microsoft came out with Windows in 1985, which was only mildly interesting, because it wasn’t as good as the Mac. It took until 1995 before Windows was arguably competitive with Mac. These days, anyone who claims that the Mac or Windows is significantly better, let alone all that different from the other, is saying something that I consider boring. Now, nearly all Apple PCs and Windows PCs are excellent.

Aside from PCs, there were other developments that got my attention. I wasn’t all that impressed with the Apple Newton or early Palm Pilot personal digital assistants, but I was blown away, sometime in the late ’80s, when I got my first “brick phone” from Radio Shack. The idea of being able to make a call from anywhere fascinated me. I remember pulling up in front of a friend’s house and calling him to ask if I could visit. He said yes and was shocked when I knocked on the door a moment later. Nevermind that the phone weighed about 2 pounds and had a battery that lasted about 30 minutes and had to be replaced every few months. It was interesting.

Cell phones continued to be interesting as they got significantly smaller and better. The Motorola StarTAC was a particularly good phone because of its compact size.

But, as good as these phones were getting, they were still basically just for talking and maybe texting via the little letters printed on the numeric keys.

In 2000, Sharp introduced the first phone with a camera. I got one of those first camera phones and loved the fact that I always had a camera with me and could email my pictures on the spot. Those pictures weren’t nearly as good as the ones from my stand-alone digital camera, but I loved their convenience.

Other things that made tech interesting included the advent of broadband, which made it possible to be online without having to dial-in and without having to wait forever for graphics and even text to display. It also made it possible to stream video, which is yet another very interesting tech development. The Mosaic browser made the internet and the World Wide Web very interesting and, thanks to broadband, easily accessible. The browser became software for all of our online needs, instead of separate programs for AOL (remember all those free floppy disks?), CompuServe, Prodigy and other online services. But that was short-lived. Now we have separate apps for nearly everything we do on mobile devices.

Another interesting piece of technology was the Blackberry, a phone with a usable keyboard that could handle both texting and email.  I loved my Blackberry, especially in the early 2000s when the company started to introduce better form factors and new features. But, in 2007, Steve Jobs introduced a phone that would change everything. I was lucky enough to get my hands on that first iPhone the day it came out. Even though I had some difficulties typing on its glass screen, I loved it more than my Blackberry.  Since then, smartphones have evolved into pocket computers that not only replaced our landlines or early cell phones, but also our maps, cameras, calculators, car keys, radios, MP3 players, TVs and so much more. I know people who use a smartphone as their only computing device.

Those early smartphones, whether running Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, were very interesting, but these days, the new models are only incrementally better than the old ones. Smartphones just aren’t all that interesting anymore.

AI makes things interesting again

Fast forward to 2024, tech is starting to get interesting again, mostly because of generative AI, which is revolutionizing the way we obtain and create content. I’ve written about it a lot and will continue to write about it, because it’s evolving rapidly in very interesting ways. All the big players are diving into AI along with a lot of startups.

Even hardware is starting to get interesting again. Microsoft just introduced Copilot+ PC, which the company claims, “are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built,” adding “the most advanced AI models, Copilot+ PCs will enable you to do things you can’t on any other PC.”  I haven’t tested these new PCs, but I’m looking forward to finding out what their new Neural Processing Unit (NPU) will bring to the AI party.

I don’t know exactly where AI is taking us, but as a tech journalist, it’s rekindled my curiosity and excitement. Like any technology, it, too, will have its ebbs and flows and, of course, its flaws. But it will have an impact on our lives that’s at least as profound as the PC, the internet and smartphones.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Both OpenAI and Google announced major updates to their GAI products. OpenAI has released its new ChatGPT 4o (the o stands for “omni”) while Google has announced several updates to its AI products, including its Gemini chatbot that the company is integrating into the ubiquitous Google search engine.

ChatGPT 4o offers multiple modalities for text, vision and audio and is being upgraded to not only understand the human voice in multiple languages but engage in a conversation. You can even interrupt it while it’s speaking or displaying text with follow-up questions or comments.

In a demonstration video, OpenAI’s Mira Murati and colleagues showed how the new version not only speaks but understands and expresses emotions. The demo had a very natural sounding female voice that was expressive, emotive and even humorous at times. It would be easy to think you’re talking with a real person if you didn’t know it was a computer. It’s so lifelike that I worry that some people may forget it’s a machine and not a living person.

In addition to answering questions, ChatGPT is now able to analyze what it’s looking at. In the video, a person pointed his phone’s camera to a computer screen displaying computer code and got ChatGPT to describe the code and what it can do. In another example, the person asked ChatGPT to help him with math by giving him steps, not answers. Using its friendly voice, ChatGPT was amazingly patient and helpful, making me think it has a future as a teacher or tutor.  Of course, this was a demonstration not a hands-on review, so as impressive as it was, the real proof will come when people have a chance to try it in the real world.

In addition to new capabilities, ChatGPT 4o is much faster and is available for free, though there will continue to be a paid version for those who want more features or are heavy users. The company is also releasing an application interface (API) that will enable independent developers to incorporate ChatGPT 4o into other products. Those apps and service, in the long run, may be more powerful and widely used than whatever OpenAI offers directly to the public.

Google puts AI into search and other products

At its Google I/O developers conference, Google announced enhancements to its Gemini AI chatbot as well as further integration of generative AI into Google search. Search, which has historically been a way for Google to direct people toward helpful websites, is morphing into a tool that will provide answers directly rather than just links.

In her presentation at Google I/O, Google’s VP and head of Search, Liz Reid described what the company calls AI Overviews as “Whatever’s on your mind, whatever you need to get done, just ask, and Google will do the googling for you.”  The process will enable users to “ask your most complex questions, with all the nuances and caveats you have in mind, all in one go,” rather than having to break your question into multiple services, according to a Google blog post.

Not everyone is happy about this. Danielle Coffey, the chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, told CNN, that it “will be catastrophic to our traffic.” Some publishers fear that Google and other generative AI companies will deliver summary information, perhaps from the news organizations themselves, that readers might otherwise require users to visit news sites which are compensated by advertisers and/or subscription fees.

Google is also integrating its Gemini AI into its other products, including Google Photos, which can now, for example, be used to tell your license plate number if it has a picture of your plate. It can also help evaluate how your kids are doing with their swimming lessons, based on photos and videos of your child in pools, lakes and ocean waters.

In one demonstration, a Google executive used her phone to video a record player arm skipping across a record, then asked Google “why will this not stay in place” to get results on what might be wrong with the device. In another demo, a Google employee scanned a room with her phone and said “tell me when you see something that makes sound” and heard “I see a speaker, which makes sound.” She then asked it to describe the parts of the speaker to learn about tweeters and woofers.

Where are my glasses?

My favorite demonstration is when that same Google employee asked “where did I put my glasses” and got an answer from the phone, which had recorded her movement in the room and told her where to find her spectacles. Although I worry a little about the privacy implications of that powerful tool, I fully appreciate how useful it can be, especially for those of us who have a habit of misplacing things.

As I’ve said before, in my four decades as a technology columnist, I put generative AI high on the list of major developments, akin to the launch of broadband, the World Wide Web and the iPhone. But what’s even more amazing is how quickly GAI is evolving and improving.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Although I don’t discount the potential damage from overuse of technology, I’m not a believer in applying the term “addiction.”  I agree with pediatrician and Boston Children’s Digital Wellness Lab director, Dr. Michael Rich, author of The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World who wrote, “The label of addiction isn’t helpful when it skews our response and fails to provide the young person with the means of righting a pattern of media use that has gone awry.  On ConnectSafely’s “Are We Doing Tech Right?” podcast, he said “The way you take care of addiction is abstinence. With the Internet, we can’t abstain. We need this. This is a necessary resource to life in the 21st century.”  A better term is “problematic media use behaviors” that, wrote Rich, “are immersive due to their interactivity—distracting and soothing children and adolescents with subclinical or undertreated emotional and behavioral issues.”

Of course, not all kids who spend too much time online or on their phones have serious emotional and behavioral issues.There are lots of good reasons to be online, and it’s not uncommon for people to spend a bit too much time doing good things, ranging from reading to exercise to spending time with friends. But if it’s becoming a problem, for any reason, it might be time for the adults in the child or teen’s life to provide them with some guidance.

It’s also important to remember that not all screen time is the same. Some uses, like schoolwork, interacting with teammates or looking up health information, might be necessary. But other activities might be problematic.

Start with a conversation

How you respond depends on many factors, including how much time they’re spending online, whether it’s interfering with school, chores, relationships or other activities and the personality of the child or teen. As Rich pointed out, abstinence is rarely the appropriate remedy, so don’t rip the phone from their hands. Talk with them about their use. It doesn’t have to be a battle. In fact, your teen or child might very well agree with you and welcome help putting down their phone. It’s not unheard of for teens to acknowledge that they are spending too much time with their tech

The talk you have with your teen should be a conversation, not a lecture. Start by asking them about how they’re using technology and what they like and don’t like about it. In a non-threatening and supportive way, ask them if they sometimes wish they were spending less time with their devices or doing other things instead. They might push back. If so, that’s OK. You can still have a conversation about how they are spending their time and suggest activities that don’t involve screens, including things that kids might very much look forward to.

The list of non-screen activities are endless, including reading, playing games, walking and hiking, swimming and other sports or things like going out to eat, family vacations or just hanging out with friends.

Setting limits

Sometimes you have to set clear limits, especially if your child or teen has impulse control issues or has gotten into bad habits that they’re having trouble letting go of. Ideally, your teen should be able to self-enforce whatever limits you agree on or impose, but sometimes they need a bit of help. That could include an in-person reminder from a family member or friend or the use of a technology tool to remind them to take a break.  Both iOS and Android have time management tools that your child can turn on to remind them to take a break or prevent them from using specific apps during certain times or after a specified amount of time. There are also tools that parents can use to enforce these breaks, although I recommend you only use those if they are necessary. It’s best if the young person buys into the notion of getting reminders rather than having them forced on them.

Sometimes it’s necessary to talk with them about the negative impact of too much screen time or the negative consequences of not getting enough exercise, sleep or time spent on other activities. For some kids offering a reward, such as a fun activity or outing, is an incentive to step away from their devices.

Adult behavior matters

Don’t overlook your own media use. If kids see you on your phone or computer or even watching TV, they’re getting a message that’s stronger than anything you can say to them. I’m not suggesting you abstain from all media use, but let them see that you are conscious about not overusing your device or using it during times when you should be interacting with others.

If your kids will be spending a lot of time around other adults, perhaps grandparents, care providers or the parents of their friends, it might be a good idea to set some expectations as to how they should behave around your kids and what rules you want them to enforce.

Some families have specific times or entire days when all devices are turned off. Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain has long promoted what she calls “Technology Shabbats” also known as “digital sabbaths.” Shlain, who is Jewish, wrote “Every Friday night, we all unplug from all of our technologies and don’t turn them on again until Saturday evening. Unplugging for a day makes time slow down and makes me feel more present with my family. I not only appreciate this quality time with them, but it has also made me appreciate technology in a whole new way. By Saturday night we can’t wait to plug back in.”  Of course, it doesn’t have to be on the Jewish sabbath. It can be all day Sunday or any other day and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an entire day or a weekly event. It could be for a single evening or a day when the family is on vacation.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

My biggest tip is to use generative AI to help plan. Services like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Meta AI and Microsoft Copilot can help you find things to do at your destination and along the way. They may even help you find local or regional transportation such as train or bus routes and companies between cities or places to stay.

Road trips

And they may not tell you about all the things you might want to see, so get into a conversation with them by asking follow-up questions such as “what about quaint general stores” or “fun things for kids under 14” or “short hikes no more than 5 miles out of the way.” Another caveat is their definition of “along the way.” At one point, a service suggested I visit Highway 1 along the California coast as part of my trip, which would be nice if it weren’t completely out of the way. It also suggested a visit to Yosemite, which is also nice, but not on the way. I was able to rectify that by saying “only show detours that are less than 20 miles out of the way.”

You can also ask these services to recommend places to stay and places to eat. You’ll have to use another service like Expedia or the hotel itself to make a reservation, although Google Gemini makes this very easy with links to Google Travel, where Google gets a commission.

I also used these services to help me find EV chargers along my route, but there are specialized apps like A Better Route Planner and ChargeHub that are optimized for that. And, yes, generative AI services can help you find gas stations, but if you’re looking for the best price, I recommend GasBuddy.

Don’t overlook generative AI if you’re traveling by air. You can find lots of things to do and places to stay in nearly every part of the world, including day trips and excursions. Just tell it where you’re going, ask for suggestions and don’t hesitate to ask follow up questions, especially if you have specific interests that it might not have been addressed at first. The trick to getting the most out of generative AI is knowing what questions to ask or experimenting with lots of follow-up questions.

AAA TripTiks

When I was a kid, my family would visit the local AAA office to get a customized TripTik for our road trips. It was a handy little booklet with all sorts of useful information for our particular route.  Now you can get an online TripTik at triptik.aaa.com along with tour guides, recommended road trips and other information. I have to admit, it’s not as much fun as it was for me sitting in the back seat of my parents’ Buick studying the printed TripTik, but it’s today’s equivalent.

Making travel arrangements

There are numerous apps you can use to reserve flights, hotels and attractions. I generally use Expedia, but I sometimes consult with Kayak or Trivago to look for lower fares or hotel rates. With hotels, it’s common to find lower rates on a third-party app than from the hotel’s own website but not always, so it’s worth checking both. With airlines, I find it rare to get a lower price from a third party, but sometimes the third party might tell me about a fare that I wouldn’t know about if I had just used my favorite airline sites. Sometimes you can even save money by taking what seems to be a usual route, such as via Istanbul or Iceland to get a lower fare to Europe.  I generally prefer to book air travel directly from the airline in case I need to ask for some type of exception or upgrade. I’ve had the experience of trying to resolve an issue with an airline only to be told to call my travel agent, which, in the case of an app or web service, may or may not be a major extra hassle.

Getting your phone ready

By this time, I’m sure you know that your smartphone is an amazing tool for when you’re on the go. If you think you may be driving or navigating in areas without cell service, use Google Maps download feature to download the maps for that area before you go.  Make sure you have the apps on your phone that you think you’ll need before you leave. You may not get as fast a connection on the road as you can at home.

If you’re traveling by air, be sure you have the airline app and that you’ve logged in with your account. Some airlines require their apps to watch entertainment or even to purchase food on board.

If you’re traveling outside the U.S., be sure to check with your carrier about roaming rates and international travel plans. All the major carriers have deals that can greatly reduce the cost of data, texts and calls. It’s really important to check this out in advance, because roaming rates might otherwise be extremely expensive. If you don’t have an international plan, turn off data before you leave or you might get a very large bill for data if your phone does any automatic updates. You can get free data, text or even calls overseas if you connect to Wi-Fi, and you might want to make sure you have an account with WhatsApp, Google Voice, Skype or other other service that lets you make free or low cost calls or video calls back home from anywhere there’s an internet connection.

Bon Voyage. And, in the unlikely event you don’t know what that means, Google Translate and other apps can easily help you translate between English and French or just about any other language.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

I have stayed out of this debate for two reasons. One is because I have a conflict of interest. TikTok is one of several companies that provide financial support to ConnectSafely, the nonprofit internet safety organization that I co-founded. Another is because I am not an expert on U.S.-China relations and all of its complexities. What I can say is that about 170 million Americans, more than half the U.S. population, use TikTok and will be affected if the app is banned. I suspect that most of the 170 million users are primarily consumers of TikTok’s short videos, but a substantial number are creators, including many who make all or part of their living through the service either through revenue shares from advertising on the service, tips from other users, affiliate marketing or by using the service to promote their business.

Although I don’t have the expertise to comment on the issue of whether their Chinese ownership may have a detrimental impact on Americans, I do know quite a bit about the company’s safety policies and can attest that they, at the very least, are keeping up with their competitors when it comes to protecting teenage users.

We read a lot about the negatives when it comes to TikTok and other social media companies, but TikTok, like most of their competitors, has policies in place to protect younger users. There are risks associated with almost everything we do, but there are safeguards in place.

Age-based protections

TikTok requires a minimum age of 13 in the U.S., but there are undoubtedly younger children either signing in with their parent’s account or misrepresenting their age (often with their parent’s knowledge and permission) to set up their own accounts, which is a practice that ConnectSafely strongly discourages.

The service has age-based protections. As I mentioned, children under 13 are not allowed on TikTok, although TIkTok does have an “under 13 experience” that is highly restrictive. Teens under 15 are not allowed to use direct messaging, which can be a vector for abuse, and their accounts are private by default. Their videos and information are not eligible to be included in the “For You” feed, which is how TikTok recommends videos for others to watch. Younger teens are not allowed to download videos, and only friends can comment on the videos they post. TikTok users of any age are not allowed to “duet” or “stitch” videos from younger teens. Duet allows users to create a side-by-side video with another user’s video. Stitch lets users include clips of videos from other users as part of their videos.

Even 16- and 17-year-olds have some restrictions, such as not being allowed to live broadcast or accept virtual gifts, which are sometimes used by sexual predators as part of the grooming process. Direct messaging and video downloads are off by default (but can be turned on) for 16- and 17-year-olds, and all minors have a 60-minute daily time limit as well as disabled late-night notifications.

Family Pairing

TikTok also offers a “Family Pairing” option that allows parents of teenage users to place additional restrictions on their teen’s account, such as further limiting their screen time on the app, muting their teen’s push notifications during specific times, filtering hashtags and keywords associated with videos they don’t want their teens to view and restricting their teen’s ability to search for content. Parents whose teens are enrolled in Family Pairing can also set their teen’s account to private, restrict who, if anyone, can send direct messages for teens over 16, decide who can see their teen’s liked videos and restrict who can comment on their teen’s videos.

Family Pairing is voluntary. Teens and parents must agree to turn it on. I strongly recommend it for younger teens, especially when they first start using the service and think it’s very reasonable for parents to insist on it when their younger teens first start using the service. As teens mature and show signs of responsible online use, it might make sense for parents to loosen the reins and give their teens more responsibility over their own safety, just as parents often do with other aspects of life, such as driving or being out with friends at night.

Regardless of which services your child uses, parents need to regularly speak with their teens and children about the safe and responsible use of these technologies and ensure that their children are being honest about their age so that they benefit from age-based protections.

Age assurance

Age-based protections only work if the user is honest about their age. Right now, none of the popular social media services have iron-clad ways to verify the age of their users. There are ways to achieve that, but many of them present privacy challenges, such as the use of birth records, social security information or school data. Age assurance is a major topic of conversation within the online safety community and was even the theme of the 2022 Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) annual conference, where FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam pointed out that “Age assurance has long been a challenging area for the technology industry, as certain methods may also require the collection of more user data.”

In 2008, I served on the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, run out of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center to, among other things, study whether there was a practical way for social media companies to determine the age of its users and at the time, our expert panel wasn’t able to find age verification methods that also protect children’s privacy and security. Since then there have been some promising technologies, including biometric-based age estimation tools, but it remains a controversial and difficult problem to solve.

I’m not taking a position on whether ByteDance should be forced to sell TikTok, but I feel very strongly that TikTok should be allowed to continue to operate in the U.S. not for the sake of its owners or investors but for the millions of Americans who enjoy using it, learn from it and make all or part of their living from it. If it is sold, I worry whether the new owners will be as proactive and careful as TikTok’s current management when it comes to protecting teenage users. No social media service is perfect. They can all use some additional safeguards, but TikTok has reasonable safeguards that should remain in place regardless of who owns the company.

ConnectSafely has a Parents Guide to TikTok as well as a Senior’s Guide (yes, there are plenty of older users on the service) at ConnectSafely.org/TikTok.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

So, I commenced a series of tests and attempted fixes, most of which didn’t work. But I’m going to go through all of them because it represents a reasonable way to diagnose and fix a problem with your home network. You don’t necessarily have to go through each step in this order, but it’s how I generally approach a slow down or an outage.

Start with the device

The first thing I did was to determine if the problem was with my device, in this case, a Roku box attached to the TV. I used Roku’s Check connection tool and noticed it was extremely slow – far too slow to stream video. Then I used Roku’s “Set up connection” option to reconnect my Wi-Fi network but, again, the same result. Like many problems with digital devices, sometimes this can be fixed with a reboot, so I removed the power cable from the Roku, waited 30 seconds and plugged it back in.  Unfortunately, this didn’t help.

My next step was to figure out what was going on with my Wi-Fi network. I put my smartphone into airplane mode to disconnect the cellular connection and made sure Wi-Fi was turned on. Then I ran a speed test, using the Speedtest by Ookla app on my phone, which showed that my internet speed was extremely slow. I even walked over to my router with my phone to see if that would help, but it was still far slower than it should be. That confirmed that the problem was with the internet connection and not my Roku device.

Checking gateway and router

I have AT&T fiber, which comes with an AT&T gateway or, “modem” as we said in the old days. It’s the device that’s connected to the AT&T fiber cable. Many people only have a gateway because it can serve as a Wi-Fi device and a way to plug in computers and other wired devices, but mine happens to be connected to an Eero router, which is part of a mesh network of four Eero routers around my house to ensure connectivity in every room. Often unplugging and reconnecting (called “power cycling”) both the gateway and the router will solve internet problems. So, I unplugged both devices, waited 30 seconds and then plugged them back in. The same process works regardless of whether you have a fiber, cable or DSL connection. If you don’t have an external router, you would simply power cycle your gateway or whatever your internet service provider calls the device between its wire and your devices.

It takes several minutes for both the gateway and router to reconnect to the internet and my home devices, and in my experience, power cycling often solves problems ranging from slow internet to no internet.  But not this time. When it was back online, I was still experiencing very slow Wi-Fi and even my desktop PC, which is connected by wire to the router, was slower than usual.

Calling internet service provider

In most cases, when there’s a problem with my internet connection, it’s with the internet service provider, which might be experiencing an outage or a slowdown, so my next step was to call AT&T.

Whenever you’re dealing with any company that can access your network, it’s important to be sure you’re calling them directly and not a third party, so verify that the number you’re calling is really their number, especially if you find it via search. The best way to do that is to get it from their website or from a bill or other document from the company.

My first question to the person who answered was whether there’s an issue in my neighborhood. Sometimes they are aware of an outage or crews working in the area. She said there was no evidence of problems on their end, so she began to troubleshoot my gateway.  The customer service people at Comcast, AT&T and most other internet service providers have tools that allow them to diagnose problems with their equipment, and in some cases, to restart their devices or change configurations. With my permission, she did a series of tests and restarted my gateway but wasn’t able to solve the problem. My Wi-Fi was still quite slow.

The next step was to see if the problem was with the internet signal itself or just the Wi-Fi network, so at her suggestion, I unplugged the Eero router from the gateway and plugged my PC directly into one of the gateway’s ethernet ports. I waited a couple of minutes for the PC to get a stable connection and did another speed test, this time getting a download speed of about 950 megabits per second (Mbps), which is very close to the highest possible speed of 1,000 Mbps. This test confirmed that the problem was related to Wi-Fi and not the internet connection itself, which meant that there was nothing more AT&T could do to help. The problem had to be somewhere on my network.

Checking the router

My next step was to look at Eero’s app to see if I could find any problems with my Eero routers. I could see they were connected, and I could also see the name of every device on my network, but it didn’t give me other helpful information, so I called Eero’s support department. To my pleasant surprise, I got through quickly and reached a very helpful support person who, again with my permission, had the necessary tools to evaluate the network and make changes to my configuration.

It was a very long call with lots of steps, including unplugging all of my Eero routers and reconnecting them one at a time. That temporarily took all Wi-Fi devices off the network, which ensured that the problem wasn’t related to another device. Things were still slow, so she suggested I press the reset button on the bottom of each Eero router for 7 seconds to do a “soft reset.”  As I reconnected the various Eero devices around the house, I used my tablet to do speed checks from each room and eventually things started looking up. Be careful before pressing reset buttons. In this case, a 7 second press was fine, but if I held it down too long, it would have done a factory reset.

You’ll almost never get your connection’s full speed via a Wi-Fi connection, but I started seeing about 75 MBPS in rooms several feet from the nearest Wi-Fi connector, which is more than enough for any typical application, including streaming video. The problem was solved.

The technician wasn’t completely sure what caused things to improve, but she speculated that it was that soft reset.

My final test was to turn on the TV to see if I could stream my afternoon news program. It worked and all was good. Until, that is, I started listening to the news itself, which was not so great.

I’m glad I was able to solve my connection problems. Solving the world’s problems that I was hearing about on my TV will take a lot more effort.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Most of the time, the things I can’t find are somewhere in my house. If it’s my phone, I can call it, but I might not hear it if the ringer is turned down. Fortunately, both Apple and Google have services that will ring the phone at full volume even if the ringer is turned off. But there is a catch. The phone must be turned on and in range. It won’t ring the device if the battery is dead but will tell you where the phone was when it last had contact with it. That might be a way to figure out if you left your phone at a restaurant or other location even after the battery died, but it might not help if it’s in a drawer or under the couch. Google says that Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead, but I haven’t yet figured out how that is going to work.

Apple calls its App “Find My,” while Google calls its app “Find My Device. If you don’t have these on your phone or tablet, you can download them from the Apple or Android app store.

In addition to accessing these apps on your phone, you can also access them from the web, which is handy if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone. For Apple, it’s iCloud.com. For Google, it’s google.com/android/find.

Devices find devices

You can use devices to find devices. An Apple Watch can be used to find an Apple phone or tablet or vice versa. The same is true with Android. I can use my Google Pixel Watch to find my phone or have my phone cause my watch to make a sound, which I use frequently at home. I have a Google nest smart speaker that allows me to use my voice to say, “Find my phone” and have the phone ring, regardless of whether the ringer is turned on.

You can also do this with other Apple or Android products like earbuds and tablets. This is one of the ways that both Apple and Google encourage people to stick with products from their offerings. If you’re an iPhone user, it’s one of the advantages of buying an Apple tablet or watch or AirPods rather than a competitor’s device. The same is true on the Android side though unlike Apple, which has the monopoly on iOS and Mac OS hardware, there are Android devices from companies other than Google.

Tags for other items

For all other items, including wallets, keys and backpacks, there are tags or cards you can attach or insert that will beep and tell you where they were last seen. These include Apple AirTags, Tile tags and, starting in May, tags from Pebblebee and Chipolo that will use Google’s recently launched Find My Device network to locate your belongings whether they’re in your house or anywhere in the world, so long as they’ve come into contact with an Android device. If this sounds familiar, it’s very much like the way Apple’s Find My app works with Apple AirTags.

Like other trackers, the new Android compatible tags will use Bluetooth to find devices that are nearby, such as when you can’t find your wallet at home. Not only will they play a sound, but there will be a way to determine their proximity while you’re looking. I currently have some Tile tags, and often the beep isn’t loud enough for me to hear from across the house. Being able to navigate to an approximate location should make it easier to hear the sound coming from the tag.

Networks of strangers helping find your objects

Whether it’s Apple, Tile, or soon, Android, one beauty of these systems is the ability to tap into networks of other devices that can help you locate your device.  Today, hundreds of millions of iPhones and other Apple devices work like search tools to help strangers find their lost Apple devices.  If you lose your Apple device and someone with a compatible Apple device comes near it (which is likely in public places), that device sends the location of your device to Apple’s iCloud service so that you can find it in your Apple Find My app.

The Android Network, which is currently rolling out to Android devices in the U.S. and Canada, will work very similar to the way Apple’s does, enabling what Google calls “a new, crowdsourced network of over a billion Android devices to help you find your misplaced Android devices and everyday items quickly and securely.”

Whether it’s Apple, Android or Tile, these tags can be pricey, typically $20 or more, depending on the brand and quantity you buy. But, if they can help you find something that’s very valuable to you, like your wallet, backpack, purse or keys, they are worth the investment.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.