How Much Media Is in Children’s Lives?

The Kaiser Family Foundation Report “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to  18-Year-Olds” offers data that was collected in the Foundation’s third survey on young people’s media use. The survey, conducted between October 2008 and May 2009, studied 2002 students in Grades 3-12 and also followed 702 students through their 7-day media use diaries. You can download the January 2010 full report from the Kaiser site. Among the key findings are: “Over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in media use among young people”, “An explosion in mobile and online media has fueled the increase in media use among young people”,  “Youth who spend more time with media report lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment”, “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”, and “Two groups of young people stand out for their high levels of media consumption: those in the tween and early teen years (11- to14-year-olds), and Blacks and Hispanics”. The study looked at use of television, computers, video games, cell phones, music and other audio, print media, and movies, and in addition, focused upon media environment and rules, and media multitasking, and demographic predictors.