1-20-2010 National:
The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.
And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.
“I feel like my days would be boring without it,” said Francisco Sepulveda, a 14-year-old Bronx eighth grader who uses his smart phone to surf the Web, watch videos, listen to music — and send or receive about 500 texts a day.
The study’s findings shocked its authors, who had concluded in 2005 that use could not possibly grow further, and confirmed the fears of many parents whose children are constantly tethered to media devices. It found, moreover, that heavy media use is associated with several negatives, including behavior problems and lower grades.
The third in a series, the study found that young people’s media consumption grew far more in the last five years than from 1999 to 2004, as sophisticated mobile technology like iPods and smart phones brought media access into teenagers’ pockets and beds.
Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston who directs the Center on Media and Child Health, said that with media use so ubiquitous, it was time to stop arguing over whether it was good or bad and accept it as part of children’s environment, “like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.”
Contrary to popular wisdom, the heaviest media users reported spending a similar amount of time exercising as the light media users. Nonetheless, other studies have established a link between screen time and obesity.
While most of the young people in the study got good grades, 47 percent of the heaviest media users — those who consumed at least 16 hours a day — had mostly C’s or lower, compared with 23 percent of those who typically consumed media three hours a day or less. The heaviest media users were also more likely than the lightest users to report that they were bored or sad, or that they got into trouble, did not get along well with their parents and were not happy at school.
The study could not say whether the media use causes problems, or, rather, whether troubled youths turn to heavy media use.
“This is a stunner,” said Donald F. Roberts, a Stanford communications professor emeritus who is one of the authors of the study. “In the second report, I remember writing a paragraph saying we’ve hit a ceiling on media use, since there just aren’t enough hours in the day to increase the time children spend on media. But now it’s up an hour.”
The report is based on a survey of more than 2,000 students in grades 3 to 12 that was conducted from October 2008 to May 2009.
On average, young people spend about two hours a day consuming media on a mobile device, the study found. They spend almost another hour on “old” content like television or music delivered through newer pathways like the Web site Hulu or iTunes. Youths now spend more time listening to or watching media on their cellphones, or playing games, than talking on them.
“I use it as my alarm clock, because it has an annoying ringtone that doesn’t stop until you turn it off,” Francisco Sepulveda said of his phone. “At night, I can text or watch something on YouTube until I fall asleep. It lets me talk on the phone and watch a video at the same time, or listen to music while I send text messages.”
Francisco’s mother, Janet Sepulveda, bought his phone, a Sidekick LX, a year ago when the computer was not working, to ensure that he had Internet access for school. But schoolwork has not been the issue.
“I’d say he uses it about 2 percent for homework and 98 percent for other stuff,” she said. “At the beginning, I would take the phone at 10 p.m. and tell him he couldn’t use it anymore. Now he knows that if he’s not complying with what I want, I can suspend his service for a week or two. That’s happened.”
The Kaiser study found that more than 7 in 10 youths have a TV in their bedroom, and about a third have a computer with Internet access in their bedroom.
“Parents never knew as much as they thought they did about what their kids are doing,” Mr. Roberts said, “but now we’ve created a world where they’re removed from us that much more.”
The study found that young people used less media in homes with rules like no television during meals or in the bedroom, or with limits on media time.
Victoria Rideout, a Kaiser vice president who is lead author of the study, said that although it has become harder for parents to control what their children do, they can still have an effect.
“I don’t think parents should feel totally disempowered,” she said. “They can still make rules, and it still makes a difference.”
In Kensington, Md., Kim Calinan let her baby son, Trey, watch Baby Einstein videos, and soon moved him on to “Dora the Explorer.”
“By the time he was 4, he had all these math and science DVDs, and he was clicking through by himself, and he learned to read and do math early,” she said. “So if we’d had the conversation then, I would have said they were great educational tools.”
But now that Trey is 9 and wild about video games, Ms. Calinan feels differently.
Last year, she sensed that video games were displacing other interests and narrowing his social interactions. After realizing that Trey did not want to sign up for any after-school activities that might cut into his game time, Ms. Calinan limited his screen time to an hour and half a day on weekends only.
So last Wednesday, Trey came home and read a book — but said he was looking forward to the weekend, when he could play his favorite video game.
Many experts believe that media use is changing youthful attitudes.
“It’s changed young people’s assumptions about how to get an answer to a question,” Mr. Roberts said. “People can put out a problem, whether it’s ‘Where’s a good bar?’ or ‘What if I’m pregnant?’ and information pours in from all kinds of sources.”
The heaviest media users, the study found, are black and Hispanic youths and “tweens,” or those ages 11 to 14.
Even during the survey, media use was changing.
“One of the hot topics today is Twitter, but when we first went into the field and began interviewing, Twitter didn’t exist,” Ms. Rideout said. ..Source.. TAMAR LEWIN
January 20, 2010
If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online
April 5, 2009
CA- MySpace Musings Aren't Private, Appeals Court Rules
4-5-2009 California: (Posted by eAdvocate)
Hate rained down on Cynthia Moreno's family after her hometown newspaper in Coalinga, Calif., published her online rant about how much she despised the small Central Valley city in which she had grown up. So much so that her family claims it had to move away.
Moreno sued for invasion of privacy, but late Thursday a Fresno, Calif.-based appellate court said she had no grounds even if she meant her thoughts for a limited audience on her MySpace page.
"The facts contained in the article were not private," 5th District Court of Appeal Justice Bert Levy wrote. "Rather, once posted on myspace.com, this article was available to anyone with Internet access."
Free-speech lawyer Karl Olson, who represents The Recorder but was not involved in this case, called the ruling a "cautionary tale" for Internet socializers. "Some people," he said, "probably may need a Miranda warning before they go on the Internet -- that anything they post can and will be used against them."
Moreno, a University of California at Berkeley student at the time, posted her "Ode to Coalinga" on her MySpace page fresh after visiting the town of 19,000 residents off Interstate 5 midway between Sacramento and Los Angeles. She began by saying "the older I get, the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga," and then made several negative comments about the town and its inhabitants.
(Posted by eAdvocate)
The entry was posted only six days, but that was long enough for Roger Campbell, principal of Coalinga High School, to find the ode and forward it to Pamela Pond, editor of the Coalinga Record. The ode was published in the newspaper's letters section.
Local reaction was swift, according to the suit. Moreno's parents, David and Maria, and younger sister, Araceli, who lived in Coalinga, say they got death threats and a gun shot was fired at their home. David Moreno's 20-year-old business -- which wasn't identified in the ruling -- lost so much money that it was closed, the suit claimed, and the family moved out of town.
Moreno and her family responded by suing Campbell, the Coalinga Record, its publishers -- Lee Enterprises Inc., Lee Enterprises Newspapers Inc. and Hanford Sentinel Inc. -- and the Coalinga-Huron Unified School District. They alleged invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The publishers were dismissed from the suit, and eventually Fresno County Superior Court Judge Adolfo Corona sustained demurrers dismissing the complaints against the remaining defendants. The 5th District on Thursday affirmed the ruling on invasion of privacy.
"Cynthia's affirmative act made her article available to any person with a computer and, thus, opened it to the public eye," Justice Levy wrote. "Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material." He noted that Moreno's "potential audience was vast."
The court also said it wasn't relevant that Moreno only used her first name on her online journal, because her identity was "readily ascertainable" from her MySpace page.
"There is no allegation that Campbell obtained Cynthia's identification from a private source," Levy wrote. "In fact, Cynthia's MySpace page included her picture."
Presiding Justice James Ardaiz and Justice Gene Gomes concurred.
The justices gave the Moreno family a partial break by ruling that their emotional distress complaints should go before jurors. Moreno and her family contend that Campbell didn't have permission to submit the online journal to the Coalinga Record, had hoped to punish them for Moreno's comments, and that as the younger daughter's principal, his conduct was "extreme and outrageous."
"Based on these allegations," Levy wrote, "we conclude that reasonable people may differ on whether Campbell's actions were extreme and outrageous. Accordingly, it is for a jury to make this determination."
Neither Berkeley lawyer Paul Kleven, who represented the Moreno family, nor Paul Auchard, a partner with Fresno's Auchard & Stewart, who represented the school district and principal, returned calls seeking comment.
Olson called the case a "2009 Internet version" of Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co., 154 Cal.App.3d 1040, a 1984 ruling in which San Francisco's 1st District ruled that a gay man who was outed by a column by Herb Caen after he stopped an assassination attempt on then-President Gerald Ford couldn't sue for invasion of privacy.
"Certain people didn't know he was gay, but he had come out of the closet [to others]," Olson said. "So I think when you post something on the Internet -- even if you're not really thinking very carefully about what you post -- you don't really have a privacy claim."
The ruling is Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel Inc., 09 C.D.O.S. 4208. ..News Source.. by Mike McKee, The Recorder
