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How Much Media Do You Use?

In November 1999, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report on kids’ media use. The authors polled children aged 2-18 in order to secure the information on which they based their report. Among many other things, they asked about the amount of time each spent using various media outside of school, and not required for school work.

Filling out the table below will give you a taste for what they did. For each medium listed, write out what you believe is the average amount of time you spend using it in non-school-related activities each day*. Write those answers in the table’s middle column. In the right-hand column, write down what you believe is the average amount of time spent by an average person of your age and gender. The print media category includes books, newspapers and magazines. The computer category would include the time you spend on the web, using e-mail, etc.

If you want to explore the concept of averages before completing this table, have a look at the Classroomtools.com activity Averaging Ages.

Click here to see what the Foundation reported about your age group and gender.

If you’re interested, you can read the complete report on the web at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/1535-index.cfm. The news release announcing the report is at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/aids/1999/11/kh991119.7.html.

Note: On March 9, 2005, the Foundation released a follow-up report, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds. In 2010, they followed up again: click here for the 2010 report page

	average time you think you spend each day*	average time spent by kids your age and gender
Television (not on tape)
Taped TV Shows
Videotapes (commercial)
Movies (in theaters)
Video Games
Print Media
Radio
CDs and Tapes
Computer
Total Media Exposure

* If you do not use a given medium each day, determine how much time you spend with it in an average week, then divide that by 7.

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