Media Is Bad (Or is it?)
Is media bad for you? Has technology ruined a whole generation of children? The answer, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Yale University, is yes.
(Here is coverage of the study from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Broadcasting & Cable.
The researchers took a detailed look at nearly 30 years of research on how television, music, movies and other media affect the lives of children and adolescents. They found strong connections between media exposure and problems of childhood obesity and tobacco use, and nearly as strong a link to early sexual behavior. The connections, it seems, were the result two things: the amount of the time kids spent consuming media and the content of the media they consume.
I expect the media to spend a good amount of time over the next several days beating up on parents, technology, and itself in response to the study. In addition, you’ll see a lot of tips to help parents to “protect” children from media. The most popular of those tips is surely to be limiting or eliminating entirely access to media. And I can understand why — the study notes that the average modern child spends nearly 45 hours a week with television, movies, magazines, music, the Internet, cellphones and video games. By comparison, children spend 17 hours a week with their parents on average and 30 hours a week in school.
However, reducing access to, or consumption of, media by children is just one strategy for addressing this challenge, and likely not the the best one. Yes, we can all do a better job balancing media consumption with family time or other socialization, athletic and cultural activities, volunteering, and countless other pursuits. But, cutting kids off from technology and media doesn’t address this problem entirely, and it doesn’t recognize the unique time in which we live and the opportunities that media and technology provide.
We should acknowledge that media and technology can and does play a positive role in the growth and development of young people, and their preparation for later life. Consider, for example, a recent study carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, and funded by the MacArthur Foundation that showed that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online — often in ways adults do not understand or value. (Read the full study.) Their focus is understanding how media can contribute positively to young people’s lives, not how to stop its growth and influence.
We have to accept the fact that media, especially digital media, and online communication have become a central part of the everyday lives of all of us, and especially young people. Its easy to blame media and technology for the problems we face, or to suggest parents should do more to limit access to technology as a way of protecting their children. But we can’t reverse the trend and we shouldn’t try. Instead, we should think about what opportunities exist and pursue them, what ways technology can be used to enhance our lives and the education of our children, and what contribution better understanding of these tools can bring to our society.
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