Kaiser Foundation Family Study

After Reading through the report my previous notions of media usage were shattered. Before I read through the report I had assumed that it is only natural for younger people to be using more media sources for more time of the day. Obviously since the amount of available media resources have increased exponentially since 1999 and even 2004 the usage and time must go up. However I was astonished to see the amount of time kids spend in front of the TV and with mobile media devices.

As a child all my memories are of my friends and I playing outside whether sports games or using our imagination playing army or games like that. Driving around town now, I never see any children playing outside. I would be outside Rain or Shine, 100 degrees or 10 below we never cared. Now kids have all these stimuli with the computer, cell phones, and game-boys there is no reason for imagination. As described in the report "Cell phone...the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking." These mobile media devices are attached to the hands of these kids. Especially when it comes to texting, even sitting in classes here at Dominican you can find at least 30% of the students texting. This abuse of media is limiting these kids and killing the best part of being a child, your imagination. Since we all know that as we get older we forget how much fun it can be.