Subscribe to the RSS feed.Kaiser Family Foundation Study: Media Use Way Up by Children and Teens
With technology allowing continuous media access for kids, the amount of time youth spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minorities. According to a study just released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to entertainment media across a typical day.
That’s more than 53 hours a week — longer than the average full-time job.
The study also found that heavy media users reported getting lower grades (47% of heavy media users say they usually get fair or poor grades, compared to 23% of light users.
Finally, there are substantial differences in children’s media use between members of various ethnic and racial groups. Black and Hispanic children consume nearly 4.5 hours more media daily than White children. Black children spend nearly 6 hours and Hispanics just under 5.5 hours, compared to roughly 3.5 hours a day for White youth.
3.5 hours per day? That seems bad enough as it is. But 6 hours per day?
What’s the way out of all this? Or is that just a luddite response?
By the way, the photo included here is entitled “Are You My Mother?” by Banlin Garcia, and earned second place in the 2009 public health photo contest sponsored by Community Health Priorities.
