Recent research by The Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 8-18 year-old Americans spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) using entertainment media daily. It is mainly linked to the increase in use of mobile devices among youth: from 39% to 66% for cell phones, and from 18% to 76% for iPods and other MP3 players over the past 5 years. In fact, today kids spend more time texting, listening to music, playing games and watching TV on their mobiles than actually talking on them. They use their cell phones constantly, from texting to tweeting to updating their social media profiles like facebook. American teens send as many as 100 texts per day. The Kaiser study also found that the more time kids spend with media, the poorer their grades and levels of personal satisfaction. Heavy media users spend more than 16 hours a day using some form of social media. An overuse of media has become a social concern, and some believe that it is becoming one of the biggest non-drug addictions of the 21st century.
The full report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, the large-scale survey about young people’s media use, can be found here.
Tags: Entertainment Media, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, Mobile Devices, Research, Study, The Kaiser Family Foundation
Written by: Kasia Nosal