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.
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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) |
Medium | 2009 | 2004 | 1999 |
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) |
Medium | Change 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 Device | Percent 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:
- 24 minutes a day watching TV or movies on the Internet
- 15
minutes each watching on cell phones and iPods
- 59% of young people's TV watching occurs on a TV set at the time the programming is originally broadcast
- 41% is either time-shifted, or occurs on a platform other than a TV set
In the last five years, home Internet access has expanded to 84% among young people; the
proportion with a laptop has grown from 29%; and Internet access in the bedroom has jumped to 33%. The quality of Internet access has improved as well, with high-speed access
increasing from 31% to 59%.
Home Internet Access (8- to-18 year-olds) |
| % With Access |
Access | 1999 | 2004 | 2009 |
Home Internet access | 47% | 74% | 84% |
High-speed/wireless home access | - | 31% | 59% |
Internet access in their bedroom | 10% | 20% | 33% |
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 |
For purposes of comparison, young people were grouped into categories of heavy, moderate and light media users:
- Heavy users are those who consume more
than 16 hours of media content in a typical day (21% of all 8- to 18?year?olds);
- Moderate users are those who consume from 3-16 hours of content (63%)
- Light
users are those who consume less than three hours of media in a typical day (17%)
Nearly half of all heavy media users say they usually get fair or poor grades (mostly
C's or lower), compared to 1/4 of light media users. Heavy media users are also more likely to say they get into trouble a lot, are often sad or unhappy, and are often bored.
Media, Grades and Personal Contentment (8-to-18 year-olds) |
| Type of User |
Percent Who Say They Get Mostly: | HeavyUser | ModerateUser | LightUser |
Good grades (A's & B's)
| 51% | 65% | 66% |
Fair/poor grades (C's or below) | 47% | 31% | 23% |
Percent Who Say They: | | | |
Have a lot of friends | 93% | 91% | 91% |
Get along well with their parents | 84% | 90% | 90% |
Have been happy at school this year | 72% | 81% | 82% |
Are often bored | 60% | 53% | 48% |
Get into trouble a lot | 33% | 21% | 16% |
Are
often sad or unhappy | 32% | 23% | 22% |
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 |
Children who live in homes that impose some type
of media-related rules, spend substantially less time with media than do children with more media-lenient parents.
Media Exposure by TV Environment and Rules (8-to-18 year-olds) |
TV Media exposure with:
| Hours:Minutes Used |
TV in bedroom | 11:56 |
No TV in bedroom | 7:55 |
TV left
on most of the time | 12:14 |
TV left on only a little/never | 9:05 |
No media rules | 12:43 |
Have
media rules | 9:51 |
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2009 |
When young people hit the 11- to 14-year-old age group there is an increase of more than three hours a day in time spent with media and an increase of
four hours a day in total media exposure. Just as children begin to make the transition into adolescence, their media use explodes, notes the report.
- Eleven- to
fourteen-year-olds average just under nine hours of media use a day, and, with multitasking. have nearly 12 hours of media exposure
- The biggest increases are in TV and
video game use, with11- to 14-year-olds consuming an average of five hours a day of TV and movie content, and spend nearly an hour and a half a day (1:25) playing video games.
The report concludes that understanding the role of media in young people's lives is essential for those concerned about promoting the healthy development of children and
adolescents, including parents, pediatricians, policymakers, children's advocates, educators, and public health groups. The purpose of this study, say the authors, is to foster that
understanding by providing data about young people's media use.
Please access the full report, in PDF format, for more details
here.