If you’re old enough to remember Highlights, then you’ve probably looked back with longing to the “simpler times,” when you could while away the afternoon with a good print magazine designed especially for you and your buds.
Well, get ready, because the good people from Stack have just turned us on to Eyeyah magazine, a new print title aimed at eight-year-olds and designed to teach kids about social media and the internet.
“Concerned with early education’s lack of flexibility, Eyeyah magazine is creating a platform that introduces children to cutting-edge creativity while exploring topical social issues,” writes Grace Wang in the Stack blog. “Published in Singapore, their first edition explores the fun and dark sides of the internet, touching on subjects like cookies, online strangers, technology addiction, social media behaviors and more, through popping illustrations and puzzles.”
And while it’s aimed for kids in the 5 to 8 age range, Wang couldn’t put it down, saying “as an adult, I found their mazes and cut-out games irresistible, so I got in touch with founder Tanya Wilson to find out about their attention grabbing image-making.”
According to Wang, Wilson started the magazine to foster more creativity in young people and help them be safer online.
“The world is changing and we believe it’s a skill people need to survive and solve the problems of today,” Wilson explains.
“We are concerned that many children are simply not equipped with the knowledge to make their own decisions about how long they should spend online,” Wilson continues. “So we’ve covered topics like addiction, online strangers, social media, cookies and viruses to encourage children to decipher the images and come to their own conclusion.”
Of course, our good old friend Highlights is still doing well and seeing their young fan base grow internationally. Last fall, Samir Husni interviewed CEO Kent Johnson, the great-grandson of founders Garry Cleveland and Caroline Clark Myers, about finding relevance in the digital age.
“Our belief is that as we look out into the world, many of us feel that we’re living in times that are filled with some contention, trouble and challenges in our society,” Johnson explained. “Our belief is that the conditions in the world today, the pace of change and the disruption, makes Highlights even more relevant than when we were founded.”
Whether it’s a legacy brand like Highlights or a spanking new title like Eyeyah, it’s great to see print magazines finding their way into young readers’ hands, especially titles like these that give them solid tools to navigate their way to adulthood.