Kids, Teens and Media Consumption

     The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released the results from a national survey of children ages 8 to 18 years old about their media use. Here's their findings :

Five years ago, we reported that young people spent an average of nearly 6½ hours (6:21) a day with media—and managed to pack more than 8½ hours (8:33) worth of media content into that time by multitasking. At that point it seemed that young people’s lives were filled to the bursting point with media.

Today, however, those levels of use have been shattered. Over the past five years, young people have increased the amount of time they spend consuming media by an hour and seventeen minutes daily, from 6:21 to 7:38—almost the amount of time most adults spend at work each day, except that young people use media seven days a week instead of five.

Moreover, given the amount of time they spend using more than one medium at a time, today’s youth 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.

The story of media in young people’s lives today is primarily a story of technology facilitating increased consumption. The mobile and online media revolutions have arrived in the lives—and the pockets—of American youth. 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. Television content they once consumed only by sitting in front of a TV set at an appointed hour is now available whenever and wherever they want, not only on TV sets in their bedrooms, but also on their laptops, cell phones and iPods®.  

That is an astounding finding and yet not surprising. Here's how kids manage to do it today :



(Source : Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18 Year Olds)

   As parents, this is the challenge of our times. The world and its message is now at their fingertips. My response, as a father of two boys, is not to bar them from it but rather harness that technology to teach them about God.  I often ask myself how can these things bring God the glory and use that as the go/nogo test on whether to buy these things for them. Also, we keep a rule in the house that there is to be no Internet or TV during school days except for educational purposes (which is a rare occurence). On the weekends, they are given a block of time but I monitor what they watch or listen to throughout the day. I take advantage webpage histories and automated Windows Vista browsing history reports. Most importantly, I have regularly been teaching them that these must not be their idols. I am thankful to God that they have responded posivitely and understood  that they have freedom to use this technology but Daddy builds fences that protect their minds from  any bad influence.

   How about you? What are some of the protective fences that you have put on your children's use of media?

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.  -Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (NIV)