The technologically-challenged are sure to be overjoyed with the findings of a newly released report, entitled “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-year-olds,” published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to the report, young people from ages 8 to 18 devote an average of 7 hours, 38 minutes a day to sedentary pursuits such as TV, video games, and computer media. That totals up to a hefty 53 hours per week. Since bad news come in big helpings, you should know that this represents an increase of over an hour, in the last 5 years. For the sake of being merciful, we’ll spare you the depressing annual total.
Why the sharp increase in new-fangled gadget use? The study’s director, Vicky Rideout, cites the cell phone’s evolution into a “content delivery device”. Techies will obviously know this is a reference to data-enabled devices or as they are more insidiously known, smartphones. So, if one is looking for a solution, the obvious one is for parents to supervise and restrict their children’s time spent with anything electronic…just as they should do with all aspects of their children’s lives. Ultimately, it probably won’t be that hard…if the parents can free up the time to do it by actually detaching themselves from their own iPhones and BlackBerries. In the worst case scenario, though, Mom and Dad can just text, email, or DM their kids to arrange a video-conference.
Sources:
Kaiser Family Foundation Report
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=e1054d03-6678-4a78-a1a8-e659042c7c7f)
