Media Daze

A new report says young people spend nearly eight hours each day on one media platform or another, up one hour from five years ago, which is more time than they go to school or even sleep. “The amount of time young people spend consuming media has ballooned with around-the-clock access and mobile devices that function practically as appendages, according to a new report. Young people now devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use, or about 53 hours a week — more than a full-time job — according to Kaiser Family Foundation findings released today. A few years ago, the same researchers thought that teens and tweens were consuming about as much media as humanly possible in the hours available. But somehow, young people have found a way to pack in even more. But in the last five years, the time that America’s 8- to 18-year-olds spend watching TV, playing video games and using a computer for entertainment has risen by one hour, 17 minutes a day, the Kaiser study found.”