Media Blitzed?

A national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that with technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth.  Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time 'media multitasking' (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Here's a list of other key findings from the Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Oldsreport:

• Among all 8-to 18-year-olds, total amount of media exposure in a typical day has increased by 3 hours 16 minutes since 1999.
• Most media is utilized in a multi-tasking format.  For example 43% of 7^th-12^th graders use other media while listening to music; 27% multi-task while reading.
• Among all 8-to 18-year-olds, ownership of iPods or MP3 players has shot up from 18% to 76% in the past 5 years; the percent of this age group owning cell phones has risen from 39% to 66% during the same period; ownership of laptop computers rose from 12% to 29%.
• 8-to 18-year-olds talk on a cell phone for an average of 33 minutes per day but use their cells to consume media such as music, games and TV another 49 minutes each day.
• Television content viewing still leads media consumption by 8-to 18-year-olds on a daily average of 4 hours 29 minutes, but only 59% of this time is spent watching shows at their scheduled time.  In contrast, they consume print content for only 38 minutes each day.
• Only 12% of music listening comes from actual CD's.  Most comes from iPods/MP3s (29%) and computers (23%).
• Among all 8-to 18-year-olds, the average amount of time spent using a computer in a typical day has risen from a mere 27 minutes in 1999 to 1 hour 29 minutes today.  At the same time, internet access has grown from 47% to 84% of homes with children in this age group (59% have high speed internet access and 33% have it in their bedrooms).
• Most recreational computer use by 8-to 18-year-olds is for social networking (25%), playing games (19%) and watching video (16%).  Only 6% use the computer for email.
• Video game playing by this age group has risen from an average of 26 minutes per day in 1999 to 1 hour 13 minutes today.  The biggest increase was by boys (from 17 to 56 minutes per day).
• Average daily print reading time has remained relatively flat since 1999 (from 43 to 38 minutes per day).  Only 3 minutes per day is spent reading print newspapers.
• 11-to 14-year-olds spend the most time exposed to media (average of 11 hours 53 minutes per day).  8-to 10-year-olds average 7 hours 51 minutes per day.
• Hispanic and Black 8-to 18-year-olds are exposed to 13 hours of media in a typical day compared to 8 hours 36 minutes for Whites.
• 64% of 8-to 18-year-olds reported the TV is always on during meals; 45% reported it is on most of the time even if no one is watching it; 71% have a TV in their bedrooms (on average this group watches twice as much TV per day than kids who don't have TV's in their bedrooms).