How often have you tried talking to a youngster who was sitting in front of a television or a computer monitor spellbound and not received an iota of a response? It’s not just television and video games that’s got our children so preoccupied, cell phones and social networking play a major role in their appetites for all things media.
A new study compiled by Northwestern University was released June 8, focused on children who consume several types of media. Researchers say the study, titled “Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian American Children,” is the first national study focused specifically on media consumption by race and ethnicity.
Technologies such as DVDs, TiVo, and mobile and online viewing increased television consumption to 5 hours and 54 minutes for black children, 5 hours and 21 minutes for Hispanics, 4 hours and 41 minutes for Asians, and 3 hours and 36 minutes for whites.
Blacks under the age of 18 spend five times the amount of time talking on cell phones as whites. The study shows that for black children spent one hour and 28 minutes of media on cell phones compared with 26 minutes for whites.
In several parts of the study, Hispanic children trailed right behind black children in media consumption. Researchers say black and Latino youth consume an average of four hours of more media every day than white children do, especially television, music, and video games. In addition, that the differences in media consumption by race have dramatically grown in the past ten years.
The study will be presented today, Thursday June 9 at the Pew Charitable Trusts Conference Center in Washington, D.C.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
