Study finds boom in media use among youth
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
CHARLOTTE -- The amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth, according to a study released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The study found that 8- to 18-year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day and more than 53 hours a week. The amount of time spent with media increased by 1 hour and 17 minutes a day over the past five years.
“It's like a full-time job and you wonder, ‘what are they really doing?’” said psychotherapist Kristen McClure.
About 66 percent of people in that age group now carry cell phones and 76 percent own iPods or other mp3 players, and according to the study, so many children and teens are able to “media multitask” that they actually cram three extra hours worth of use into those seven and a half hours.
“The majority of families have the television on when they're eating dinner and the kids are texting while they're doing their homework,” said McClure. “Those are things that are really going to impair their ability to connect with their family and their ability to do their academic work well.”
The study links heavy media users with poor grades. About half of the heavy users say they get mostly Cs or lower. But when parents do set limits, the study shows students spend less time wired up and more time programmed into their surroundings.
“Parents really need to be monitoring what their children are doing,” McClure said. “This is not going away, this is how kids connect socially
Only about three in 10 young people said they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV, playing video games or using the computer.
According to the study, black and Hispanic children consume nearly 4½ hours more media daily than white children and the racial disparity in media use has grown substantially over the past five years.