[ti:For Youths in US, a Jump in Media Use ]
[ar:Mario Ritter]
[al:Economics Report]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English 
[00:03.22]Economics Report.
[00:05.36]American children and teenagers 
[00:08.46]have increased their use of 
[00:10.70]entertainment media by 
[00:13.04]more than one hour a day 
[00:14.93]in the last five years. 
[00:17.32]On an average day 
[00:20.04]they now spend seven and 
[00:22.08]a half hours using media.
[00:24.67]These are the findings 
[00:26.86]of a new survey. 
[00:27.91]It included devices like TVs, 
[00:30.69]computers, mobile phones 
[00:33.90]and MP3 players, 
[00:36.49]but also media like 
[00:38.68]books and magazines. 
[00:40.43]It did not count media 
[00:43.11]use for school.
[00:44.63]Vicky Rideout at the 
[00:47.41]Kaiser Family Foundation, 
[00:49.30]a health research group, 
[00:51.35]wrote the report. 
[00:52.81]She was surprised that 
[00:55.05]kids could fit even more 
[00:56.85]media time into their day.
[00:59.05]She found that they spent 
[01:01.84]ten hours and forty-five minutes 
[01:04.24]if you counted 
[01:06.01]each device individually. 
[01:07.71]But children multi-task a lot, 
[01:10.86]and Vicky Rideout says 
[01:13.41]this is not necessarily a good thing.
[01:16.45]"People who study the brain 
[01:18.10]will tell you that you can't 
[01:20.20]actually multi-task in that way. 
[01:22.68]You're really switching back 
[01:24.52]and forth sequentially 
[01:26.41]from different tasks, 
[01:27.62]just doing it rapidly, 
[01:28.80]and that you don't really do 
[01:30.89]either task as well as you 
[01:33.33]would do them if you 
[01:34.72]did them one at a time."
[01:35.93]The study suggests a link 
[01:38.21]between heavy media use 
[01:40.30]and lower performance in school. 
[01:42.89]About one-fourth of those 
[01:45.50]who used media the least 
[01:47.37]reported that their grades 
[01:49.51]were mostly average or below. 
[01:52.35]But that was true of 
[01:54.69]half the heavy media users.
[01:56.88]So where are the parents? 
[01:59.91]Children who had any rule 
[02:02.45]limiting the use of any kind 
[02:05.49]of media were exposed 
[02:07.03]to an average of about 
[02:08.93]three hours less media a day. 
[02:11.95]But only one-third of 
[02:14.83]children had to follow any rules.
[02:17.24]Girls spent more time than boys 
[02:20.98]on social networking sites, 
[02:23.27]listening to music and reading. 
[02:25.66]Boys spent more time on video games 
[02:29.65]-- an average of forty-eight 
[02:32.34]minutes more a day than girls.
[02:34.44]"It looks like the girls 
[02:36.19]just sort of lose interest 
[02:37.78]in the games and they drop off 
[02:39.59]and start doing other things, 
[02:40.94]whereas the boys' 
[02:42.08]interest remains strong."
[02:43.63]Some other findings: 
[02:45.52]Time spent reading books 
[02:48.06]has not dropped 
[02:49.47]in the last five years. 
[02:51.02]But time with newspapers 
[02:53.88]and magazines has, 
[02:55.97]though some reading now 
[02:58.08]takes place online.
[02:59.67]Blacks and Hispanics use 
[03:03.10]media over four hours 
[03:04.95]more a day than other groups. 
[03:07.33]And for all children, 
[03:09.24]media use appears to reach 
[03:11.62]its highest point between the 
[03:13.86]ages of eleven and fourteen. 
[03:15.71]Vicky Rideout will try to 
[03:19.19]explain these findings 
[03:20.48]in future research.
[03:22.42]The report is based on 
[03:24.91]more than two thousand students 
[03:27.15]ages eight to eighteen. 
[03:29.49]They took a written survey 
[03:31.88]in class through May of last year.
[03:34.42]And that's the VOA Special English 
[03:37.82]Economics Report, 
[03:39.21]]How much media use do you think 
[03:44.35]is enough for children? 
[03:45.49]Post your comments at 51voa.com, 
[03:50.57]and you can find transcripts 
[03:52.46]and captioned videos of our reports. 
[03:55.25]I'm Mario Ritter.