Most young people have a cell phone and an iPod and nearly one third own a laptop computer. And a recent survey shows that the more media kids use, the less happy they tend to be.
An article in USA Today titled “Kids less happy as they’re more plugged into TV, music, Web?“ reports that heavy media users (more than 16 hours of media content in a typical day) are more likely to have bad grades, more likely to be “often sad or unhappy,” less likely to get along well with their parents, and twice as likely to “get into trouble a lot.”
A key question still unanswered is whether consuming a lot of media makes children’s lives more troubled, or whether troubled kids simply consume more media.
Consider the following facts:
- Heavy media users (more than 16 hours/day) actually have the same or slightly more friends than lighter media users. With all this easily-accessible media, kids can retreat to their own little media world. However, my guess is that today is not much different than a decade ago when kids could also retreat into their bedrooms to listen to music. Today, many report that Facebook and cell phones make it easier to make and stay connected with friends.
- Heavy media users get about 15 minutes more exercise a day than lighter media users.
Maybe the take-away is that media use in and of itself is not inherently bad or good. It’s all about balancing face-to-face communication with relationships with a computer screen or text messages.
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