Teens and Tweens and Media
By Mayor
Albert Kelly
A couple of weeks ago a
report, “Media Use by Tweens and Teens”, from the group Common Sense Media hit
the streets. The report is a fairly detailed survey of American kids between
the ages of 8 and 18 on their media habits, preferences, and the overall role
media plays in their lives.
It is hefty at upwards of
90 pages and assuming you care about such things, it is certainly worth
checking out. In one sense, the report told us something we already knew; that
8-18 year-olds, “Generation Z, are totally plugged in and fully wired for
sound.
On the other hand, if
parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, educators, and policy makers never
really stopped to think about exactly what this means for kids then perhaps like
me, you might be surprised or even concerned about some of the results in the
survey.
One finding is that tweens
(8-12 year-olds) are spending about 6 hours out of their waking day locked onto
a screen of some sort and for teens (13-18 year-olds) that number is 9 hours.
This screen time does not include using media for homework or school assignments.
One of the findings from
the survey has the majority of tweens and teens being plugged into some type of
media while studying and doing homework. Of these, 50% said they used social
media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, snapchat, etc.), 51% said they watched TV while
doing homework, 60% were texting, and 76% listen to music. I wonder what part all
of this played in our recent PARCC scores.
My older sister seemed a
pro at watching TV, with the radio on, holding conversations while doing
homework. Like her, the majority of these kids believe that social media, TV,
texting, and listening to music while studying had absolutely no effect on
their work. I know we try to “multi-task”, but we can’t really focus and
concentrate on 2 tasks at once- something is going to suffer and it’s usually
school work.
Interestingly, 53% of
tweens have their own tablets while 24% have their own smart phone. We’re
talking about 8-12 year-olds which makes me wonder if parents actually know how
their children study or what they’re viewing. For teens, 37% have their own
tablets and 67% have their own smartphones.
As for accountability, 53%
of teens and 72% of tweens say a parent has talked with them about the amount
of time they spend on media, while 66% of teens and 84% of tweens say a parent
has spoken with them about the content of the media their engaged with. But
25%-30% of teens say their parents don’t have a clue as to what’s going on.
For what it’s worth, kids
from lower income homes (especially black and Hispanic kids) spend 2 hours and
25 minutes more a day parked in front of some type of screen media than kids
from upper income homes (primarily white kids). Does this play any role in
terms of academic success?
There are several other
findings in the survey, but the overall theme is that media of all types
saturates our kid’s lives for good or for ill. That’s not going to change and
my take away from the survey is twofold.
First, while this was a
national survey, these scenarios get played out right here in our own
community, in our own neighborhoods with our children on a daily basis. And
while any given day spent plugged in to some form of media for 6 or 9 hours
won’t make or break a kid, when you stack them all together, it forms an
academic career- so it matters what happens day to day.
Which brings me to my
second thing; parents need to know how much media kids are consuming and when.
There’s a need to make sure that kids learn how to give their full attention to
a task, in his case school work, because there’s simply no way that they can
learn and retain information if it’s competing with music, social media, or TV.
Finally, it’s about
proportionality. Like so much in this life, too much of something, even a good
thing, can be harmful, have unintended consequences, and we have a
responsibility to teach children how to find the right balance in their own lives.
It is part of learning how to exercise restraint and practice moderation…lessons
that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.