But isn’t 11 hours of media consumption a day more than enough for most children?
The Kaiser Family Foundation has the results in from its latest media usage study, and it was enough to shock the authors.
The last time the Foundation looked at the media usage of 8- to 18-year-olds was five years ago, when they were at just shy of six and a half hours of media consumption per day. At that point, the study authors felt that they must have hit a ceiling on media usage.
Not so, according to the latest study, which puts the average up more than an hour to upwards of seven and a half hours per day. Plus, for the first time, time spent watching TV actually dropped in favor of other forms of media, including listening to music, using a computer, playing video games, reading print publications and watching movies.
Moreover, because so many of the kids are multitasking by consuming multiple forms of media at the same time, they actually end up consuming closer to 11 hours’ worth of media content within that seven and half-hour span. Nor does do those hours include the time kids are spending talking on their cell phones (half an hour) or sending text messages (an hour and a half).
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Andrea is confused: Since when is reading a form of media? “Plus, for the first time, time spent watching TV actually dropped in favor of other forms of media, including listening to music, using a computer, playing video games, reading print publications and watching movies.” Methinks their definitions are a bit too broad. Reading whether on Kindle or a good old-fashioned paper book shouldn’t count in this tally as time spent “with media.”
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Why the confusion? Books are media.
Media doesn’t mean modern flashy visuals. It just means a medium for mass communication. Books, and most printed works, qualify under that definition.
I can understand the confusion in context – the idea of “media consumption” being studied as the death of this generation’s intellect doesn’t usually include curling up with Pride and Prejudice (or far more likely, the Twilight book series!!).
It sounds like they were simply to trying to find numbers in order to shock people… which as a parent and a teacher I must admit they were successful until Andrea’s comment, so thank you! 🙂
‘Print publications’ is a rather broad field. It could be anything from studying their textbooks for revision to reading the Star.