A new, widely reported study on kids and media from the Kaiser Family Foundation says they’re spending over 6 hours a day engaged with some type of media and that for more than a quarter of that time they are using more than one medium at a time. Sheesh. TV, unfortunately, is still the king of all media (nearly four hours a day including videos and dvds) with just over an hour a day spent on the computer. Also, 86% of kids live in a home with a computer. Good, but still not good enough. (Only 31% have a computer in their bedrooms.)
Other findings in brief: socio-economic divides continue to exist, the Internet is becoming a “universal presence” in kids’ lives, and home Internet access is up from 47% to 74% in the last five years.
But so here is the “Don’t That Beat All” part of the survey: young people who spend the most time with media also report spending more time with their parents, being physically active, and pursuing other hobbies.
Go figure.