Categories: Articles

Kids Today

In case you think that the world hasn’t changed all that much since the Internet became commercially viable…

You may want to check out this very interesting article in today’s edition of the USA Today titled, Kids’ electronic media use jumps to 53 hours a week.

Here are some of the highlights:

Kids spend 53 hours a week with electronic media.
That is 7 hours and 38 minutes per day.
Surprisingly, this is only 79 minutes more than ten years ago.
The biggest drop has been kids reading newspaper and magazines.
Kids reading books remains stagnant – meaning, they’re reading as many books as they used to.
Cellphone ownership has increased from 39% (in 2004) to 66%.
20% of kids’ media comes via mobile devices.

This will freak some people out.

On a personal note, I was surprised at how surprised some of the people involved in the study and interviewed for this article were about kids and their media usage. Without knowing the details of the research project, there may be some questions as to what constitutes media usage, especially when they considered "hanging out online" as media usage. If kids all have mobile devices, laptops, etc… shouldn’t the number of hours be much higher? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to also say that being online is somewhat different from listening to music or watching TV and movies?

Passive versus active media.

It feels a little bit like this study (and others like it) quantify the Internet as if it’s the same as TV, Print, Radio, etc… Which seems silly (and a little wrong). Kids may be engaged with the online media channel, but using it to collaborate, learn, communicate and not just sit idly by watching more reruns of whatever it is that kids are watching these days. Mobile devices and laptops are active media, while channels like TV, print and radio are passive. This makes comparing the two a little outlandish.

Take a read of the article and add your two cents below.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.