Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, Report

145 Pages·2005·3.31 MB·English

Generation
Media in the Lives of 8–18 Year-0lds
Donald F. Rober ts, Ph.D.
Stanford Univers i ty
Ulla G. Foehr, M.A.
Stanford Univers i ty
Vic toria Rideout, M.A.
Kaiser Family Foundation
A Kaiser Family Foundation Study
MARCH 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The previous study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The current study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. METHODS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Sampling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Questionnaire items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Survey administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. THE HOUSEHOLD MEDIA ENVIRONMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Household media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Personal media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Household media orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. USE OF INDIVIDUAL MEDIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Screen media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Print media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Audio media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Interactive media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5. OVERALL MEDIA TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Media exposure vs. media use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6. RELATIONSHIP OF MEDIA ENVIRONMENT TO MEDIA USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Personal media and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Media rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Household TV orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Summing up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7. RELATIONSHIP OF MEDIA USE TO INDIVIDUAL TRAITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Academic performance and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Personal contentedness and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Sensation seeking and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Heavy vs. light media users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Media multitaskers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8. CONCLUDING COMMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Young people’s media environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Amount of media exposure and use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Media exposure and demographic characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
The media environment and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Heavy media users and media multitasking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Academic performance and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Personal contentedness and media exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Coda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
FOOTNOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
REFERENCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Appendix 1 – Toplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Appendix 2 – Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Appendix 3 – Tables on Household Media Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Appendix 4 – Tables on Individual Media Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Appendix 5 – Tables on Overall Media Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Appendix 6 – Tables on Relationship of Media Environment to Media Use . . . . . . 133
Appendix 7 – Tables on Relationship of Media Use to Individual Traits . . . . . . . . . 137
1 . INTRODUCTION
ew would deny that media play a central role in the lives that connect to the Internet and do most of what any digital
of today’s children and adolescents. Their homes, indeed screen will do.
Ftheir bedrooms, are saturated with media. Many young • When Wilbur Schramm and his colleagues conducted
people carry miniaturized, portable media with them wherever their early study of TV in the lives of U.S. children (Schramm, et
they go. They comprise the primary audience for popular music; al., 1961), color motion pictures (“Technicolor”) were about 20
they form important niche audiences for TV, movies, video years old, TV was black and white, audio was “hi-fi,” and “drop-
games, and print media (each of these industries produces exten- ping a line” to a friend required postage and several days. Today,
sive content targeted primarily at kids); they typically are among computer animation enables movies to transport us to other
the early adopters of personal computers (indeed, of most new worlds, TV signals arrive in high-definition color, digitized audio
media) and are a primary target of much of the content of the surrounds us with sound, and instant messaging makes “dropping
World Wide Web. a line” instantaneous.
Clearly, attention to the role of media in the lives of children • At the end of the 1950s, seven of eight U.S. homes (87%)
and adolescents is not new. Plato spoke of the role of messengers had a TV set and personal computers and video game consoles
from outside in The Republic, the Brothers Grimm edited their had not been invented. As the century came to a close, 99% of
fairy tales with children in mind (cf. Roberts, 2003; Starker, children 2- to 18-years-old lived in homes with a TV set (60%
1989), and by mid-20th century, social scientists were studying lived with three or more TVs, and over half had a TV in their
children and media empirically (cf. Himmelweit, Oppenheim bedroom), 70% had video game consoles, and 69% lived in
& Vince, 1958; Peterson & Thurston, 1933; Schramm, Lyle & homes with a personal computer (Roberts, Foehr, Rideout &
Parker, 1961). Nevertheless, substantial and ongoing changes Brodie, 1999; also see Roberts & Foehr, 2004).
in the media environment witnessed in recent years have led to And the media environment continues to change. In the past
increased public perceptions that media are important in young five years, the proportion of 8- to 18-year-olds with computers
people’s lives, and that their role is both growing and evolving. in their home has increased 13 percentage points (from 73%
That the media environment has changed is inescapable. For to 86%), and the proportion with Internet connections has
example, consider the following: grown from 47% to 74% (see Chapter 3). Instant messaging, a
• At roughly the mid-point of the 20th century, the U.S. computer activity that barely existed in 1999, has now become
media landscape included TV, radio and records, movies, and one of the most popular things to do online (see Chapter 4).
print media. Fewer than five years into the 21st century, the Video game devices have become more sophisticated, video game
media landscape encompasses broadcast, cable, and satellite TV, content has become more realistic, and the video game industry
the TV remote control, the VCR, the DVR, print media (books, has become more profitable. The ability of computers to stream
magazines, newspapers), various audio media (broadcast, satel- both audio and video information, file sharing programs, and
lite, and cable radio, tapes, CDs, digital recordings – all of which the development of highly portable digital music and video
are now highly portable), personal computers and the various recorders and players, all appear to be reshaping the structure
on-line activities they allow (e.g., World Wide Web, e-mail, and behavior of both the music and movie industries. And
instant messaging, gaming, music and video streaming), video finally, each of the various media are devoting more resources
games (both TV-based and handheld), and portable telephones (time, money, research, attention) to producing content explicitly
2 G E N E R A T I O N M : M E D I A I N T H E L I V E S O F 8 – 1 8 Y E A R - O L D S
targeting children and adolescents than ever study. Rather, they tended to focus on one,
before (Pecora, 1998; Roberts, Christenson, What do all these changes two, or three – usually TV and sometimes
& Strange, 2004); indeed, entire TV computers, print, radio, or VCRs (e.g.,
mean for kids? Has the amount
networks are now dedicated to young Bower, 1985; Horatio Alger Foundation,
of time they spend with media
audiences. 1996; Kaiser Family Foundation & YM
increased? Are they changing
What do all these changes mean for kids? Magazine, 1998; Stanger, 1998; Stanger
Has the amount of time they spend with the way they distribute their & Gridina, 1999). Most typical were
media increased? Are they changing the way studies that looked at only a few media
time across the many
they distribute their time across the many and that used nonrepresentative samples
different media?
different media? Are changes in media acces- (e.g., Brown, Childers, Bauman, & Koch,
sibility – for example, greater penetration of 1990; Chaffee, McLeod & Atkin, 1971;
personal computers and/or high speed Internet connections, or the Christenson, 1994; Greenberg & Dervin, 1970; Greenberg, Ku
miniaturization of and price decreases in almost all media – affect- & Li, 1985; Kuby & Larson, 1990; Maccoby, 1954; McLeod,
ing the nature of young people’s media exposure? In short, to what Atkin & Chaffee, 1972; Medrich, Roizen, Rubin & Buckley,
extent does an environment saturated with new and evolving media 1982; Morgan, Alexander, Shanahan & Harris, 1990; Murray,
influence their lives? 1972; Wartella, Heintz, Aidman, & Mazzarella, 1990). In short,
prior to the 1999 Kaiser study, our general picture of young
The previous study people’s media behavior was constructed from an array of studies
This is the second time we have posed questions such as these. In that typically focused on a few media, and that more often than
1999, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted the first compre- not depended on relatively small, nonrepresentative samples (see
hensive examination of U.S. young people’s media exposure. Kids also Comstock 1991; Comstock, Chaffee, Katzman, McCombs
& Media @ the New Millennium was comprehensive in that it & Roberts, 1978).
examined most of the various media used by children at the end The 1999 survey responded to a perceived need to establish
of the 20th century; in that it included questions about amount valid, comprehensive baseline data characterizing young people’s
of exposure, kinds of content used, and conditions of use; and media behavior as we entered the 21st century. After years of
in that it employed a large, representative sample of U.S. 2- to debate, there appeared to be growing consensus that media do,
18-year-olds, (Roberts, et al., 1999; Roberts & Foehr, 2004). A indeed, play an important role in the socialization of our youth
primary motive for that study was a growing body of research (although the nature of that role often remains at issue). The
attesting to the importance of media in the socialization of today’s explosion of new communication media, the kinds and amounts
youth, coupled with the absence of a comprehensive examination of information they made available, the different forms that digital
of their overall media behavior as the 20th century drew to a close. information can take, and emerging evidence that young people
Until the 1999 Kaiser study, generalizations about media use were are often among the early adopters of new communication tech-
based on data drawn from numerous, often limited studies, no nologies seemed to have caught people’s attention in ways that
single one of which had ever provided a complete picture. even the TV revolution, some 50 years earlier, had not. Given the
Of course, research conducted prior to 1999 examined rate and nature of change in both media and media systems that
1
children’s media use. However, many of those studies predated society was experiencing, an accurate description of how much
the dramatic changes in the media landscape of the past 20 years, of which media young people use, and under what conditions use
only a few attempted to examine all media, and most were based occurs, seemed imperative to inform future research and policy.
on nonrepresentative samples – for example, school kids from The findings reported in Kids & Media @ the New Millennium
Northern California and the Rocky Mountain states (Schramm, (Roberts, et al., 1999), as well as in subsequent analyses of the
Lyle & Parker, 1961) or Los Angeles (Lyle & Hoffman, 1972a), data (Roberts & Foehr, 2004), then, represented a substantial step
6th and 10th graders from Michigan (Greenberg, Ku & Li, forward on several fronts:
1989), high school students from the San Francisco Bay Area • They were based on a large, representative sample of U.S.
(Roberts & Henriksen, 1990), and so on. A few surveys of kids’ young people (2- to 18-year-olds);
media use had used national samples, but none that we have • African American and Hispanic youths were over-sampled,
located gathered data on all media available at the time of the enabling comparisons among racial and ethnic groups usually
A K A I S E R F A M I L Y F O U N D A T I O N S T U D Y 3
precluded in prior, mostly smaller studies (see Brown, et al. 1990, great deal of time using media content tailored especially for
for an exception); them and often in the absence of any adult presence, but were
• Questions pertained to almost all of the media typi- fascinated to discover that children used two or more media
cally used by U.S. youths at the end of the 20th century simultaneously at least 16% of their media time, and that media
– TV, VCRs, video game consoles, radio, audio CD/tape use in the presence of parents was more the exception than the
players, movies, print media (newspapers, magazines, books), rule. We were also interested to see that some of the negative
and computers (including use of games, Internet Web sites, relationships between the amount of TV viewing and various
e-mail, and chat rooms); measures of children’s happiness or contentment reported in
• Questions explored amount of exposure, kinds of content or early studies (e.g., Himmelweit, Oppenheim & Vince, 1958;
activities engaged, and conditions of exposure, as well as various Johnstone, 1974; Maccoby, 1954; Schramm, Lyle & Parker,
demographic and personal characteristics. 1961) continued to hold at the end of the century. That is, kids
The body of information produced by a large, nationally rep- who spent more time watching TV still tended to report being
resentative sample provided an opportunity not only to describe less contented. In short, while many findings from the 1999
young people’s media use at the beginning of a new century, but study supported earlier research, many raised new questions, new
also to test various earlier generalizations about media behavior issues, and new concerns.
using a current, nationally representative sample. And perhaps New questions and concerns, then, form one reason for updat-
most important, it offered the means to describe young people’s ing the 1999 study. Another is that it makes sense – indeed it is
overall media behavior (as opposed to TV behavior, computer viewed as “good science” – to replicate earlier research. As long as
behavior, etc.). In other words, in addition to providing informa- we must depend on drawing inferences from samples (even large,
tion about use of various individual media, the study enabled nationally representative samples) rather than directly character-
characterization of overall media behavior and total media bud- izing full populations, and as long as our measures of any kind
gets, for the first time enabling examination of the relative roles of human behavior are error-prone (How many minutes of radio
played by each of the various media available to U.S. youth. were you exposed to yesterday? Are you certain?), there can’t be
Many of the findings that emerged from the 1999 study were a definitive study of young people’s media behavior. We must
simultaneously expected and unanticipated. We expected a sub- live with error, estimates, and inferences. Confidence in social
stantial proportion of U.S. kids to have their own, personal media; science findings, then, depends not only on how well any single
we did not anticipate that more than half would have a TV in study is executed, but also on the degree to which its findings are
their bedroom (two-thirds of 8- to 18-year-olds). We expected to replicated. When different studies, using different samples and
find a great deal of media use; we did not anticipate average daily sometimes different questions, produce similar patterns of results,
media use among 8- to 18-year-olds to exceed six hours (nor did confidence in our knowledge increases. Thus, we envision the
we anticipate that the use of two or more media simultaneously current research as confirming the results of earlier work at the
2
would push exposure to media content to nearly eight hours). same time that it extends our knowledge about changes in young
We expected that some children would be particularly heavy users people’s media behavior.
of one or another medium; we did not anticipate that more than
20% of 8- to 18-year-olds would report in excess of five hours of The current study
daily TV viewing, nor that extremely heavy users of one medium Many of the same issues that led to the 1999 study, in combina-
would also be heavy users of most other media. We expected that tion with questions and concerns raised by the findings reviewed
TV would still be the dominant medium among young people; above, motivated this new research. As far as we can see, there
we did not anticipate that TV would account for over 40% of all has been no slowing of the “changing media environment,”
media exposure (over 50% when videos and movies were folded and change raises new questions. Decreases in the prices of per-
in) even when including time spent with music, print media, sonal computers, growing use of high-speed Internet connections,
video games, and computers, and we certainly did not anticipate developments in size and definition of TV screens, rapid diffusion
that computer use would account for less than 5% of the average of DVD players, the introduction of affordable digital TV record-
8- to 18-year-old’s media time. ers (DVRs), the emergence of digital music recorders and music
We did not know what to expect about such issues as media file-sharing – all such developments continue to reshape the
multitasking or the phenomenon of young people spending a media environment…and thus, we believe, to reshape children’s
4 G E N E R A T I O N M : M E D I A I N T H E L I V E S O F 8 – 1 8 Y E A R - O L D S
media behavior. For example, at about the time the 1999 study environment inhabited by today’s young people in the U.S.
was completed, American kids were just beginning to use instant Chapter 4 describes young people’s exposure to different indi-
messaging, a computer activity not even considered in our vidual media. Here we look at noninteractive screen media (i.e.,
original questionnaire. But as we will see, in just five years instant TV, videotapes, movies), print media (newspapers, magazines,
messaging has emerged to become one of the most popular of all books), audio media (radio, CDs/tapes, MP3s), and interactive
computer activities among kids, changing the way they distribute media (computers, video games), in that order. Chapter 5 merges
time when engaged in computer activities. the data from individual media to look at young people’s overall
Clearly, such ongoing changes in the media environment media budgets. Chapter 6 looks at the same data from several
raise new and important questions. For example, are today’s kids different perspectives, including various psychological and social
devoting more time to media or are newer media simply displac- characteristics of young viewers (e.g., school grades, levels of
ing older ones? Do the new media affect how children prefer to contentedness, heavy or light media use) and characteristics of
get information (e.g., passively or interactively)? Are there differ- the homes within which they live (e.g., degree of TV orientation,
ent kinds of media users (e.g., vid-kids, gamers, computer geeks), presence of media rules). Finally, Chapter 7 presents a brief sum-
and if so, what are their different characteristics? Are young mary of our findings.
people really becoming “media multitaskers,” and if so, how does Each of the chapters focuses primarily on the results for 2004.
this affect the overall patterns of media behavior? However, where interesting and appropriate, we also present
In short, the pace of change in almost all communication comparisons with results from the 1999 study. More often than
media continues to call “old” information into question (even, not, such “over-time” comparisons are presented in sidebars to the
it seems, redefining our conception of “old”) and to raise new primary discussion.
issues. For a generation now documented as devoting more Tables within the text present highlights of the data, and more
than a quarter of each day to media (Roberts, et al., 1999), it is complete results are included in appendices that correspond with
vitally important to update our information and address the new each chapter, which can be found at the back of this report.
questions. These appendices often include the over-time comparisons as
The following pages present a brief introduction to the well, along with detailed results by age, gender, race, and socio-
survey methodology (Chapter 2). The following chapters turn economic group.
to presentation of the results. Chapter 3 describes the media
2 . METHODS
Overview national probability sample. At stage one, schools were randomly
This report is based on a nationally representative survey of 3rd- selected from a list of approximately 80,000 public, private, and
to 12th-grade students, designed to explore their access to and parochial schools in the U.S. At stage two, grades and classes
recreational (nonschool) use of a full range of media, including within grades were randomly selected to participate. The sam-
newspapers, magazines, books, TV, DVDs/videotapes, video pling design permits oversampling by various criteria (e.g., grade
games, movies, radio, MP3s, CDs and tapes, computers and level, race/ethnicity). This study includes an oversample of Black
the Internet. In addition to interviews with 2,032 students age and Hispanic students, enabling a number of between-group
8–18, 694 seven-day media-use diaries – collected from respon- comparisons among different racial/ethnic groups.
dents who chose to participate – were used to help guide the Data from the primary survey are weighted to ensure a nation-
survey analyses (primarily to develop a proportion of time spent ally representative sample of students. Weights are based on data
multitasking with various forms of media). The findings in this from the National Center for Education Statistics and from the
report are based on the nationally representative sample, except U.S. Bureau of the Census. The weighting procedure controls dis-
where noted. The margin of sampling error for this sample is tribution of students by grade, region of the country, size of resi-
+/-3.8%, and smaller for subgroups. dence locale (urban, suburban, rural), gender, and race/ethnicity.
The Kaiser Family Foundation worked with Dana Markow Students who completed the basic questionnaire were also
and Jordan Fein at Harris Interactive, Inc., and with Donald F. invited to keep a seven-day, media-use diary. This procedure pro-
Roberts and Ulla G. Foehr of Stanford University, to design and duced a self-selected (thus nonrepresentative) diary sample of 694
analyze the survey. All parties were involved in all stages of the students. Appendices 1 and 2 present the full survey questionnaire
research, however, Harris Interactive was primarily responsible for and sample pages from the diary questionnaire.
sampling and data collection while data analyses and reporting
of results were the primary responsibility of the Kaiser Family Questionnaire items
Foundation staff and the Stanford contingent. At the Foundation, Questionnaires were developed to enable as complete a descrip-
the project was directed by Victoria Rideout, and received sub- tion of U.S. young people’s media environment and behavior as
stantial input from Mollyann Brodie. The current study updates possible given classroom time constraints. Time constraints also
the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 1999 study, Kids & Media @ the dictated questionnaires of differing lengths for younger (3rd- to
3
New Millennium, which was conducted by the same team. 6th-grade) and older (7th- to 12th-grade) respondents. Older kids
The following provides a brief overview of the study’s meth- answered a number of questions that did not appear in the ques-
odology. Appendix 2 gives full details on sampling, questionnaire tionnaire administered to their younger counterparts.
administration, interviewer training, statistical levels of confi- A substantial majority of items in the survey questionnaire
dence, and questionnaire design. repeated questions asked in the 1999 survey. However, there
were a number of additions and changes. The current study
Sampling includes new questions about such things as newer media (e.g.,
The data for this study come from a nationally representative digital music devices such as MP3 players), miniaturized personal
sample of 2,032 students in grades three through 12 (8- to 18- media (e.g., handheld video games, portable CD players), newly
year-olds). The sample was obtained using a stratified, two-stage popular computer activities (e.g., instant messaging), family rules
6 G E N E R A T I O N M : M E D I A I N T H E L I V E S O F 8 – 1 8 Y E A R - O L D S
controlling media use, personality characteristics, and various (for personal enjoyment), TV, movies, video games (on a device
non-media activities. In addition, several items employed in the connected to a TV screen), handheld video games, radio, audio
4
earlier study were modified to save time and space in the current recordings (CDs, tapes, MP3s), and computers (excluding
questionnaire. Questions will be introduced briefly in this chap- school-related computer activities). In addition, 7th- to 12th-
ter; the full text of all questions can be found in Appendix 1. graders were asked how much time they spent talking on the
The media environment. Questionnaire items assessing the telephone, and all respondents who indicated that they had used
media environment pertained to both the physical and social a computer, were asked to estimate the time they spent on a dozen
environment. The physical environment defines what kinds of different computer activities (see Appendix 1).
media young people may access in their homes. The social envi- Respondents were assisted with estimates of TV time
ronment includes family norms, policies, and general household through provision of “TV grids” (akin to the TV schedule found
orientation toward various media (especially TV). in most daily newspapers) for each of three times of day (7:00
Questions assessing the physical media environment asked a.m. until noon; noon until 6:00 p.m.; 6:00 p.m. until midnight).
how many of each of the following media (or media capabilities) Respondents were asked to circle each program they had watched,
were to be found in the child’s home and in the child’s bedroom: then to report time spent viewing.
TV, VCR or DVD player, digital video recorder (DVR, e.g., Because questionnaire administration was spread across the
TiVo, Replay TV), CD or tape player, radio, computer, video days of the week, “time spent yesterday” includes responses for
game console, telephone, cable or each of the seven days, with the
satellite TV, premium TV channels, caveat that a slightly lower propor-
Questionnaires were developed to enable
Internet access (dial-up and high- tion of questionnaires pertain to
speed) and instant messaging pro- as complete a description of U.S. young Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (8%,
gram. Respondents were also asked 10%, and 13%, respectively), than
people’s media environment and behavior
whether or not they had any of the to Monday through Thursday (14%,
as possible.
following more portable media: cell 19%, 17%, and 18%, respectively).
phone, personal CD player, MP3 Further details on time estimates are
player, pager, laptop computer, handheld video game (e.g., presented when results for each medium are discussed.
Gameboy), personal digital assistant (such as a Palm Pilot), and Non-media time. In order to help us better understand the
any other handheld device that connects to the Internet (e.g., time young people spend with media, respondents were also
Blackberry, cell phone with Internet capabilities). asked to estimate the amount of time they had devoted to seven
The social media environment was assessed by items ask- non-media activities the previous day. The non-media activities
ing about TV orientation within young people’s homes, and consisted of: “hanging out” with friends, “hanging out” with par-
items concerned with the frequency and nature of family rules ents, doing homework, being physically active or exercising, par-
governing TV viewing, computer use, music listening, and/or ticipating in other activities (e.g., clubs, hobbies), doing chores,
video game playing. TV orientation questions asked how often and working at a job (see Appendix 1).
a TV operated in their home even when no one was watching, Media content consumed. Information about what kinds of
how often a TV was on during meals, and whether or not there media content kids consume was gathered primarily for TV;
were any rules about TV. Questions about rules controlling students in 7th–12th grade also provided information about the
media activities varied, but generally asked about controls on music genres to which they had listened. As noted above, when
amount of use, on content used, and on contingencies con- estimating TV time, respondents indicated specific programs
trolling use (e.g., no viewing until homework is completed). listed on the TV grid. The circled programs were then classified
In addition, several items assessed “parent involvement” with into one of the TV genres listed in Appendix 2.3. Older youths
youth media behavior independent of explicit rules (e.g., parents’ (7th- to 12th-graders) were asked to indicate the type of music (if
attention to ratings). any) they had listened to the previous day from a list of 16 pos-
Amount of media exposure. Media exposure was assessed by sible genres (Appendix 2.3).
asking respondents to estimate the amount of time, in minutes Social context of media use. Respondents who indicated using
and hours, they spent exposed to or using each of the follow- either a TV or the computer the previous day were also asked with
ing media on the previous day: magazines, newspapers, books whom they used it.