Study Details Teens' Ever-Increasing Use of Media

(Jan. 20) -- For American teenagers, consuming media has become a full-time job.

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that 8- to 18-year-olds spend more than seven and a half hours a day online, in front of the television or on their smart phones. The study tracked 2,000 youths and found that "media are among the most powerful forces in young people's lives today."

It's no surprise that teenagers are addicted to technology -- the study found that nearly seven in 10 teens have a cell phone -- but researchers said the findings had them slightly shocked.

One author of the study, Stanford communications professor Donald F. Roberts, said he didn't think it was humanly possible for young people to spend any more time in front of a computer screen than they already were doing. "In the second report, I remember writing a paragraph saying we've hit a ceiling on media use, since there just aren't enough hours in the day to increase the time children spend on media," he told The New York Times. "But now it's up an hour."

Some of the study's findings seem to confirm the concerns of parents who worry that surfing the Internet and vegetating in front of the TV is hurting schoolwork. Almost half of the teens in the study who were considered "heavy media users" reported getting mostly "C's or lower" in school. And according to Kaiser, these kids are more likely to be bored, unhappy and in trouble at school as well.

Francisco Sepulveda spoke to the Times about the extent to which technology has consumed his life. "I use it as my alarm clock, because it has an annoying ring tone that doesn't stop until you turn it off," he said. "At night, I can text or watch something on YouTube until I fall asleep. It lets me talk on the phone and watch a video at the same time, or listen to music while I send text messages."

One form of media teenagers aren't hooked on? Print newspapers. Most youth surveyed said they spent only 38 minutes a day reading a print publication. Another interesting discovery: Kaiser found that black and Hispanic teenagers are the heaviest media consumers, spending nearly five hours more per day in front of a screen than their white peers.