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February 28, 2007 05:01 pm
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Photos
News Courier/Kim Rynders
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Generation M: Millennial kids wired
Born within a decade or so of the millennium, children ages 8 to 18 have adapted to a new world filled with technology.
By Kelly Kazek
CNHI News Service
ATHENS, Ala. — From the moment she wakes, 17-year-old Hannah Cole is connected to the world by a series of invisible wires.
Her cellular telephone is her alarm clock. She shuts off the alarm and checks her phone for any messages that might have been left while she was sleeping.
When she arrives at Clements High School, where she is a senior, she and other students have their phones in hand –- talking to whomever –- before the first bell rings.
When she gets home from school, she logs on to the computer and goes to her MySpace site to check new messages, friend requests or comments. She simultaneously begins sending instant messages to her friends in another window on the computer.
If her cell phone rings while she’s typing, she feels compelled to answer it and talk while she continues to send IMs.
At some point, she’ll eat dinner and do homework, but when she lays her head down on the pillow for the night, the blue-purple neon light of her cell phone casts a glow upon her face.
Sometimes, the phone rings after she’s asleep. She answers it, groggily, and tells the caller to call back in the morning.
Welcome to a day in the life of Generation M.
Hannah’s routine is repeated daily by kids across the country, those who are assigned the label Generation M, for millennial kids. Born within a decade or so of the millennium, children ages 8 to 18 have adapted to a new world filled with technology. They have fast fingers that type small letters on small phone screens, they have the ability and creativity to create Web pages for their personal sites, their minds capable of paying attention to a movie on DVD while sending instant messages from the computer.
This saturation of screen time has led some experts to say Generation “M” stands for media.
A 2004 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation backs this label: Kids are spending six hours and 21 minutes each day using various media, but are being exposed to eight hours and 33 minutes of media messages because, 26 percent of that time, they are often using more than one media at the same time, the study found.
Usage breaks down into these categories:
• TV, videos, DVDs: four hours, 15 minutes
• Radio, CDs, MP3s: one hour, 44 minutes
• Computer (instant messaging, Internet): one hour, two minutes
• Video games: 49 minutes
The study also found kids are spending 49 minutes on recreational reading, including magazines, books and newspapers.
If kids are spending eight hours each day at school and eight hours sleeping, how is there time for all this media exposure?
“The answer, of course, lies in the growing phenomenon of media multi-tasking,” according to the study synopsis. “More and more, kids report using two, three or even more media at the same time.”
The Kaiser Report found that “despite concerns that parents often express about the impact of media on their children, the kids themselves do not report much parental effort to monitor or curb their media consumption.”
Coupled with the phenomenon of media saturation is the fact that children are also spending more time doing activities outside the home.
In a study conducted by William J. Doherty of the University of Minnesota, children ages 3 to 12 have lost 12 hours per week of free time in the past 25 years.
“They play less and their unstructured time has declined significantly,” he said.
Tom and Sabrina Holt of Athens saw this trend developing when their sons were young and hoped to ensure family time by setting limits.
Alex, 13, and Clinton, 11, have a Game Boy, but Sabrina allows them to use it only in the car. The Xbox, banned from the house for years, finally made its way inside last summer, but she unplugs it on Sunday nights and does not plug it in again until Saturday mornings.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “They spend plenty of time on the computer. But we didn’t want them to be obsessed about it.”
The Holts also do not subscribe to cable television, a rarity these days, and rent DVDs to watch as a family.
“That eliminates a lot of TV watching, and when they do watch, I know what it is they are watching,” she said.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study determined that in homes where limits are set “kids watch less TV, play video games less, listen to music less and spend less time on the computer. They also read more.”
This has been true in the Holt house, said Sabrina, who left her job when Alex was born to raise children and is a member of of the local school board. Tom is a computer engineer.
“I think they read more books and play outside. They play board games and card games,” she said. “And we eat dinner together every night.”
She admits, however, there is not much time at home because Alex and Clinton both play sports: Alex is on the Athens Middle School soccer team and Clinton plays recreational league baseball.
“There’s just not that much time for doing other things,” she said.
Doherty said the Holts are helping their children by having family meals.
“It is the one time in the day when the family can gather, share a pleasurable activity (eating), and have conversation as a family,” he said. “Family meals build a sense of connection and they are where the family transmits its unique culture.”
But Doherty said scheduled activities such as sports, dance classes, piano lessons and more can cause children to be overscheduled.
“They become fatigued and stressed,” he said. “If everything revolves around their schedules, they can also become self-oriented – ‘It’s all about me’ – and not family oriented.”
He said it is clear that a higher proportion of kids are stressed nowadays.
“They lack enough time to be kids and to be with their families,” he said.
In his study, Doherty also determined (in the past 25 years):
• Children’s structured sports time has doubled.
• Their time spent on the sidelines watching siblings and others play has increased five-fold.
• Their time in religious participation has declined by 40 percent.
• Families‚ household conversations (talking together as a family, with no other activity going on) have declined from infrequent to non-existent, on average.
In the last 35 years, Doherty found:
• Family vacations have declined by 28 percent.
• Although TV watching has increased in American homes, watching TV as a family has declined by nearly 25 percent. TV has become a more solitary activity.
• Family dinners have declined by one-third, based on the number of families who report that their whole family usually eats dinner together. But the rebound may have begun. A poll that tracked adolescents from 1998-2004 found a 28 percent increase in families having dinner together five or more times per week.
Doherty stated: “For young children, meal time at home is a stronger predictor of academic achievement and psychological adjustment than time spent in any of the following activities: school, studying, sports, church/religious activities, or art activities. For teens, having regular dinners with parents is a strong predictor of academic success, psychological adjustment, and lower rates of alcohol use, drug use, early sexual behavior, eating disorders, and risk for suicide.”
Kelly Kazek writes for The News Courier in Athens, Ala. Jean Cole of The News Courier contributed to this report.
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