According to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, eight-to-eighteen year-olds spend an average of more than 71/2 hours a day, seven days a week with media. The aim (of this study), says Kaiser, is to provide a more solid base from which to examine media's effects on children, and to help guide those who are proactively using media to inform and educate America's youth. Five years ago, Kaiser reported that young people spent an average of nearly 61/2 hours a day with media, and managed to pack more than 81/2 hours worth of media content into that time by multitasking. At that point it seemed that young people's lives were filled to the bursting point with media. As of today, says the report, those levels of use have been shattered. Over the past five years, young people have increased the amount of time they spend consuming media by an hour and seventeen minutes daily, from 6:21 to 7:38, almost the amount of time most adults spend at work each day, except that young people use media seven days a week instead of five. And, given the amount of time they spend using more than one medium at a time, today's youth pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those daily 71/2 hours, an increase of almost 21/4 hours of media exposure per day over the past five years. Media Use (8- to-18 year-olds; Average Amount Of Time Spent With Each Medium In A Typical Day) Time Spent (hrs:min)Medium200920041999 TV content 4:29 3:51 3:47 Music/audio 2:31 1:44 1:48 Computer 1:29 1:02 :27 Video games 1:13 :49 :26 Print :38 :43 :43 Movies :25 :25 :18 Total media exposure 10:45 8:33 7:29 Multitasking proportion 29% 26% 16% Total media use 7:38 6:21 6:19 Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 Use of every type of media has increased over the past 10 years, with the exception of reading. But breaking out different types of print does uncover some statistically significant trends. For example, time spent reading magazines dropped from 14 to 9 minutes a day over the past five years, and time spent reading newspapers went down from 6 minutes a day to 3; but time spent reading books remained steady, and actually increased slightly over the past 10 years (from 21 to 25 minutes a day). Changes in Media Use, 2004-2009 (8- to-18 year-olds) MediumChange In Average Amount Of Time Spent With Each Medium In A Typical Day (minutes) TV content + :38 Music/audio + :47 Computers + :27 Videogames + :24 Movies n/c Print - :05† Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 Today, 20% of media consumption (2:07) occurs on mobile devices, cell phones, iPods or handheld video game players. Almost another hour consists of "old" content, TV or music, delivered through "new" pathways on a computer. The development of mobile media has allowed young people to find even more opportunities throughout the day for using media, actually expanding the number of hours when they can consume media, often while on the go. Over the past five years, the proportion of 8- to 18-yearolds who own their own cell phone has grown from about four in ten, to about two-thirds. The proportion with iPods or other MP3 players increased even more dramatically, jumping from 18% to 76% among all 8- to 18-year-olds. Mobile Media Ownership (8-to-18 year-olds) Mobile DevicePercent Owning Each Platform 2004 2009 iPod/MP3 player 18% 76% Cell phone 39% 66% Laptop 12% 29% Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 Eight- to eighteen-year-olds today spend an average of a half-hour a day talking on their cell phones, and an average of 49 minutes a day listening to, playing or watching other media on their phones, while 7th- to 12th-graders spend 1 ½ hours a day text messaging (time spent texting is not included in the count of media use, nor is time spent talking on a cell phone in the study). For the first time since this research began in 1999, the amount of time young people spend watching regularly scheduled programming on a television set, at the time it is originally broadcast, has declined by :25 a day but the proliferation of new ways to consume TV content has actually led to an increase of 38 minutes of daily TV consumption. The increase includes: