All the Hours in a day

all the Hours in a day 

ZONING OUT IN FRONT OF THE TV JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT MORE PROBLEMATIC

JAMSHED AVARI, Assistant Editor – Technical

Do children spend so much time consuming media that they won’t grow up knowing any way to live without it? That’s the future painted by a Kaiser Family Foundation report that’s been in the news over the past few days (http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh012010pkg.cfm). I used to think I was part of the cutting edge, tech-enabled generation of childhood Internet users who now live and die by their Google searches, but this makes me feel positively ancient! For example, 8-18 year-olds are apparently spending seven and a half hours per day on entertainment media, which includes their TVs, game consoles, cellphones and of course online activities—but because they multitask so much, actual consumption is more than 10 worth of media exposure in that much time per day! I can’t remember the last time I had seven hours free in a single day! But I do spend at least that much time processing and manipulating information delivered via all these sources through a typical working day spent sitting with my computer and phone.

Sure, one can dig through the study and point out that these findings are only relevant to Americans and find holes in the research methodology such as that people passively listen to music while doing any number of other things anyway, but the numbers are high nonetheless and these patterns will only trickle down. Remember these are averages, which means that for every child found to be online for two hours per day, there’s another online for 12 hours balancing out that figure.

I’D LOVE TO SEE A STUDY THAT PROBES WHETHER CHILDREN ARE ALSO BECOMING LESS CREATIVE

Print is declining, according to the study, with 38 minutes out of the total, as opposed to an hour and a half on a computer, and over an hour on video games. That shouldn’t be too surprising, but it does lead to questions about how well future generations will be prepared to fall back if and when technology ever fails, and these media go offline. I personally don’t start nervously twitching when away from my phone, social networks and instant messengers for even a week at a stretch… though honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been away from them for longer than that in the past five years. I flip channels on TV when I’m bored, but haven’t needed to rush to it at a particular time for a particular show in ages. Yet I do spend an inordinate amount of time online, and tend to drift from screen to screen (desktop, phone, TV, laptop) when completely bored.

Don’t parents yank their kids away from the TV and computer anymore? I have clear memories of extreme indignation at being forced to “go play outside” or “get some fresh air” and of course “STOP RUINING YOUR EYES!” There were musical instruments, board games, books, comics and plenty of aunts and uncles to visit. With those seven hours of consumption and presumably as many hours of sleep, do children have any time for creative activities at all? The opposite of consumption is creation: painting, learning music, building craft projects, or pursuing hobbies. I’d love to see a study that probes whether children are also becoming less and less creative, with fewer hobbies and extracurricular skills.