James Steyer, founder and chief executive of Common Sense Media, offers advice on how to address some of the pitfalls of kids’ use of media and technology: relationship issues, attention/addiction problems, and the lack of privacy. His book Talking Back to Facebook is a guide to raising kids in the digital age that gives parents essential tools to help filter content and make good judgments.

One listener from Brooklyn commented online that digital habits travel clearly from parent to child.

"Look out your window anytime in Park Slope or anywhere and you can watch parents pushing their strollers on the phone, oblivious of their children (and often dogs), and you can see the next evolutionary step down," he said.

"Video games are the future," another listener said. "Books are 19th-century artifacts, movies 20th-century. But the virtual reality of video games will define the 21st."