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New Study Shows Youth Plugged In Most of the Day
An anonymous reader writes "The amount of time youngsters are spending on the web has ballooned to exceed the average adult's full working week, according to a new study. A few years ago, the same researchers thought that teens and tweens were consuming about as much media as possible in the hours available. But now they've have found a way to pack in even more. Young people now devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use, or about 53 hours a week according to Kaiser Family Foundation findings released today."
To click through and download the PDF :38 :25
TV 4:29
Music/Audio 2:31
Computer 1:29
Video Games 1:13
Print
Movies
With a 29% multitasking cut, so from 10:45 total it comes down to 7:38
Not really sure this is all that surprising to me, it's hard for me to feel alarmed over the print and music portions of the time.
The survey taker's school "doesn't use grades" for 0% of heavy users, 3% of medium users, and 10% of light users. This statistic by itself makes me unconvinced about the overall findings...do you mean to tell me that 0% of heavy internet users attend schools that don't give grades? What the hell is the sample size, anyway???
It's good to know that the youth of today are taking advantage of the advances in technology as I always have. It also good to know that I've been keeping up!
I don't really see how anyone could be surprised by this. As more media options become available and more convenient to access, it seems like a logical progression. Also, you're media consumption devices are more flexible, you can consume from more sources of media concurrently. Your cell phone can likely provide you with verbal communication, music, social networks, even movies and radio. And that's probably the simplest device at your disposal these days.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Amateurs.
Researchers have recently discovered gamblers like money, scholars spend lots of time reading and fishermen are often on boats.
What concerns me most is that the next generation might spend more time reading about something and not have the time to actually DO them. I find the information overload very annoying already at work. Mostly emails. And I feel myself slowly being trained into ASKING for the info rather than experimenting and have your own observation in things.
Don't know how to put it in better words.
IBF WE ARE BORG
/. readers already know this. For 10 years i have almost always laughed at the fact we see it here before they, (The uninformed public) do.
Look at the network news and see the slide.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
No wonder they can't find time to spell properly.
Your typical teenager probably doesn't even use a pen, and the majority of their communication would be on a device with a built-in spell checker. IT is as though they go out of their way to spell like an idiot. Is it really that much more efficient to type "Im going 2 da park"?
As technology gets smarter, we as a society will be getting dumber. We are setting ourselves up to be completely pwnd by Skynet.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
I think this clip from WALL-E is sadly a very real possibility.
Don't blame the children.
They are not the ones that decide to pay less on education and that ebonics or it's more recent equivalent is good enough.
It's not just Texas and California now with cheap schools that produce students equipt to do little more than say "do you want fries with that?".
TV (pay channels): about 1 hour
Playstation: 1-2 hours
Computer (mostly web): 1-2 hours
MP3 & suchlike: less than 1 hour
Reading (overlaps with MP3, and includes homework): 2-4 hours
The Playstation games are nonviolent or relatively low violence (Afrika, LittleBigPlanet, a few Ratchet&Clank). Reading time does not include PC time. They also get 2-4 hours of outside playing or at various hobby activities. This is the routine that we have right now, based largely on the kids' preferences.
It seems that the kids in the survey don't have much time left over for hobbies or being outside, or even for reading books...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
American media cover daily struggle in life 24/24, and Americans tune in.
Daily struggle at 4.
An individual spends a certain amount of time asleep, a certain amount at school or working (or housekeeping, or whatever), a certain amount eating, washing(!), travelling and all the other miscelleanea of living. Then they have some time spare - is that such a surprise?
All this study does is tell those people who believe studies what those individuals spend their time doing. Would you prefer they spend that time drinking, instead?
Oh yes, that thing about multi-tasking media. All that tells us is how unfulfilling sources like TV are - people don't actually *watch* it, they just have it on in the background (while doing something more interesting) just in case something worthy of their attention does happen. That's all TV is today - whatever age you are.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
damn kids, get off my lawn
My girlfriend is 12 years younger than me and it is true. She is getting plugged most of the day. Hey, can you blame me?
Better the internet than the TV. The internet is interactive and encourages critical thinking and problem solving. I think it will produce a much more informed and engaged public than the TV generations of old. The internet has an ever increasing influence on political and philosophical thought. We have yet to see the full potential of an entire population raised by the internet. I'm optimistic.
whatever it is, it's a problem, not the "way of the future," not something that could be leveraged for a good result
it's a problem with the internet and the cure will be in destroying something that people enjoy
that's the way it always goes
Now they'll be too busy to get on my lawn!
Christ, son, I have that much streaming in NOW. When one goal is to archive the internets useful shit, you come across this problem often. Hell, I burned five roboboards just trying to handle so many incoming 56K streams.
Rank amateurs, I tell you. Are these kids just learning how to utilize a computer in this study?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Try watching a 30 hour Monty Python marathon sometime(the only breaks are commercial breaks), that's real dedication to your media.
I suppose you could just watch the DVDs straight through and only take breaks to pee, but no sleeping, that would be cheating.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Most adults also spend their entire working week on teh intarwebs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"... the headings are enough most of the time ..."
Sheesh!
America, Home of the Brave.
If you don't plug them in, how are you going to charge them?
When you see kids insisting on incorrect spelling/grammar online, it's not necessarily because the medium encourages bastardizing the language in every instance. It's a desire to cool by being anti-intellectual. In their minds, only a nerd and an adult takes out the times to make everything they type in informal settings 'perfect.' We even do it here in sophisticated places like Slashdot. When someone brings up or wants to enforce the subtle differences between affect and effect, we just hand-wave it, call them grammar Nazis, and move on. It's the same thing. So next time you feel like blindly criticizing the next generation, why not try holding that critical lens to yourself as well?
I am not surprised either. In fact, it is preparing them for the world outside of high-school. I am an adult in my mid 20s and I spend practically the whole day in front of media. I spend about 8 hours at work on a computer, i listen to music in my car when I go to and from work, and in the evening I watch tv. I spend probably 11 or 12 hours in front of media as an adult. The weekends are the only times where I spend very little of my time on media. According to that study, kids who spend a lot of time on media are generally stressed and depressed. I wonder if that is an cause for the media time consumption and not an affect. At least they will know how to use those things. It is practically required in the working class these days.
A person consumes a hamburger, it no longer exists as a hamburger. People watch videos or listen to music. The video and music still exist after they have finished. The items can be viewed or listened to again and again. It is not consumption. Unless of course you are talking about people actually eating 16 mm film for example or chewing on CDs, in which case I agree that this would be consumption.
News at 11.
Really, what’s the point of turning the computer off when at home?
That would mean no music, no movies, no quick search on wikipedia or something, no way of seeing if friends are at home.
If you do not prefer to be alone and bored, but don’t want or can’t to drive to your friends, then the choice is obvious.
Doesn’t mean one also is alone and actually sits in front of the thing.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Do these figures include the time that they are at school etc.? As 1:29 using computers is pretty low, do they not study any IT at all?
Including work time I usually spend about 14-15 hours at a computer each week day.
My usage would look something like this:
TV 0:20
Music/Audio 5:00
Computer 15:00
Games 1:30
Print 0:05
Movies 0:30
But a lot of that overlaps as I watch TV/Movies, listen to music and play games all on my computer.
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.
Nothing a kid does will be praised by adults. Every single generation was supposed to be the downfall of mankind, with their swinging hips, their rock and roll music, their spirographs and their sagging pants.
In my opinion, this has a direct impact on education of young people.
I think that, for education to be successful, it's required a period of assimilation of knowledge which depends on the amount of time spent in thinking (thinking requires ourselves to be unplugged, of course).
I've observed that less time is spent on watching around us and wondering how things work, in opposition to dozens of years ago. This issue has direct incidence on the way we act in our lives.
It's interesting to see how, in general, middle education has experienced a significant downgrade while we're proud of "progress". In my opinion, technology and consumerism have to be taken with care. Nowadays we're experiencing an excess of technology; why? mainly due to consumerism, I believe. We are overwhelmed by so many things we tend to forget about simple/important things.
I'm not saying technology is bad!! I'm saying technology must be used with measure.
On the other hand, I think the problem of "youth plugged in most of the day" is intimately related to education received by each young man at home.
In summary and in general, I think there's an excessive use of technology.
Your sig tells me you're semiliterate, therefore I'm less likely to be influenced by anything you post. Learning how to use punctuation will not make you less cool.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
The Media is a system... built to keep us under control... in order to turn a human being... into this
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Besides the teens, the researchers looked at motion and shape tweens from the upcoming Flash CS5 software package. We are unsure about how exactly this is related to how much time teens spend "on the web" but the researchers must know better.
Including the 7.5 hours:
7.5 + 5 + 1.75 + 7 + 1 + 1.5 + .3 = 24.05 hours a day you spend consuming various types of media.
How many hours a day are there in your world?
When do you eat?
When do you sleep?
How long does it take for you to get ready for work in the morning?
How long is your commute?
Do you ever spend any time actually just talking with family members, or is social interaction impossible for you?
Is this really a valuable use of their time?
Maybe they should go ahead and check if Pluto is a planet again.