Report: Kids Spend 8 Hours on Media Daily

At 26, I’m not what I’d consider old, but as I was growing up, I remember my mom limiting the amount of time I could spend sitting in front of a screen, whether it be a TV or a computer. Which sucked, because you have no idea how addicted I was to Blockout on our 286! Looking back though, I think it was a good move to limit that time spent in front of a TV, because it forced me to to something else, possibly educational, which obviously can lead to greater rewards than finding out the plot to a TV show.

I’m not entirely sure just how unique my mom was in limiting daily TV/computer use, but after taking a look at a newly-published report, I’m starting to wonder if gone are the days when kids are really being limited to anything at all. Believe it or not, the average kid spends near 8 hours (7h 38m) per day taking in some form of media, and with multi-tasking, that number is bumped up to just under 11 hours (10h 45m). Note that these numbers don’t include media use for things like homework or studying.

Think about that for a second… 8 hours (not counting the multi-tasking) is 1/3 of the day. Another 1/3 is dedicated to sleeping, or maybe 1/6 given how many kids today like to stay up half of the night text messaging! That’s quite a bit of time, to say the least. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad thing, but 1/3 of everyday being spent on media… it seems quite stark.

Of the total, music seems to top the list for most time spent on something, and I can’t see much wrong with this. Going to school, sitting on a bus, waiting around… why not listen to music? In second place is TV, with computers and video games in a close third. Time spent reading (you know, books and stuff) has, not surprisingly, gone down, but just a wee bit.

Social networking was the most popular computer use accounting for an average of 22 minutes a day. The average was 29 minutes among 11- to 14-year-olds and 26 minutes for teens 15 to 18. “In a typical day,” the study pointed out, “40% of young people will go to a social networking site, and those who do visit these sites will spend an average of almost an hour a day (:54) there.” Fifty-three percent of 15- to 18-year-olds use social-networking sites.