I was reading an article in the paper (yes I still read those) and this caught my eye. It was an article on the amount of time that kids spend using electronic media and compared it to kids 10 years ago. Lets break the numbers down:

7 hours, 38 minutes a day. That’s the amount of free time that kids 8-18 spend using electronic media. By electronic media we mean TV, music, computers, video games, and using cell phones for music and video. In 2000 (shocking that 2000 is 10 years ago!) the number was about 6 hours a day. So while in 2000 this meant about 42 hours a week, today kids are using media about 54 hours a week!

38 minutes a day. This number is the amount of free time spent reading. Reading meaning books, magazines, newspapers, basically anything that is a printed publication. In 2000 this number was 43 minutes a day.

So why do I care? For that matter why should anyone care? After all, it’s impossible that eliminate media. The fact that kids are using it more really doesn’t effect me in any way does it? While it doesn’t effect me, the fact is that the more time that kids spend using media, the worse they do in school. In fact 50% of heavy media users have grades of C or lower! Not only that but those who use more electronic media are in trouble more and are less happy than those who don’t. So while this fact is disturbing enough(if you aren’t disturbed than you might have a problem) the fact remains that these kids won’t be able to pass school. This means that there will be fewer jobs that they are qualified for, more of them will become unemployed, and in the end we’ll have more people living off of welfare meaning that the taxes for everyone will have to be increased to support this. Now am I extrapolating and making some huge assumptions? OF COURSE!!! At the same time it is a very realistic possibility that needs some thought.

Now for the juicy questions: who do we blame and what can they do? (Cause lets face it, unless you know or are a kid like this, there’s not a lot you can do.) While you can definitely ask schools or the government to act, the real people who need to be blamed for not acting are…Parents! Does the parent have total control over the kids choices? OF COURSE NOT! At the same time parents who put restrictions on the amount of media that a child consumes have kids who consume less media. (Duh!) Even if it means not putting TV’s in the bedroom, not having them on during meals, or only turning one on when people are watching, these efforts still lead to improvements.