KFF's latest report considers ten years of survey data
Tomorrow, the Kaiser Family Foundation will release Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (Rideout, Foehr & Roberts), an important report summarizing the media use patterns of 2,002 3rd–12th grade students and a subsample of 702 respondents who also volunteered to complete seven-day media use diaries. The study was conducted from October 20, 2008 through May 7, 2009. Past KFF surveys have provided an important reference point for new media scholars. Among the key findings:
• Over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in media use among young people. Today’s kids “pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those daily 7½ hours—an increase of almost 2¼ hours of media exposure per day over the past five years.”
• An explosion in mobile and online media has fueled this increase. From page 2: “Try waking a teenager in the morning, and the odds are good that you’ll find a cell phone tucked under their pillow—the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking.”
• Greater media exposure could mean lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment. The authors grouped children into categories of heavy, moderate and light media users. Nearly half (47%) of all heavy media users say they usually get fair or poor grades (mostly C’s or lower), compared to 23% of light media users. Heavy media users are also more likely to say they get into trouble a lot, are often sad or unhappy, and are often bored. But consider, “This study cannot establish whether there is a cause and effect relationship between media use and grades, or between media use and personal contentment. And if there are such relationships, they could well run in both directions simultaneously.”
• Parents can influence media use. Children whose parents make an effort to limit media use—through the media environment they create in the home and the rules they set—spend less time with media than their peers.
• Two groups of young people stand out for their high levels of media consumption: those in the tween and early teen years (11- to 14-year-olds), and Blacks and Hispanics. The disparities in media use in relation to both age and race are difficult to ignore. For example, Hispanic and Black youths average about 13 hours of media exposure daily (13:00 for Hispanics and 12:59 for Blacks), compared to just over 8½ hours (8:36) among Whites.
This is the third wave in a series of studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation about media use among 8- to 18-year-olds. The study has been conducted at five-year intervals: during the 1998–1999 school year, the 2003–2004 school year, and the 2008–2009 school year (the current report). Different respondents participated in the study during each time period. Throughout this report, the dates 1999, 2004 and 2009 are used as shorthand for those three time periods. Unless otherwise noted, findings in this report are from the 2009 study.
Media use is defined at “watching television and movies, playing video games, listening to music, using computers, and reading newspapers, magazines and books. Time spent talking on the phone or text messaging is not counted as “media use.”
The KFF study also does not consider children below age 8; a population that is also undoubtedly being shaped by new media in ways we have yet to understand. Make sure to bookmark this report; you’ll be seeing it referenced often.
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January 19th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fran Simon, Warren Buckleitner. Warren Buckleitner said: KFF Releases Media Use Study of Older Children – http://childrenstech.com/blog/2010/01/19/kff-releases-media-use-study-of-older-children/ [...]