The Medium is the Message: The Subtle Danger of Too Much Time Online
Many of the stats mentioned point to a hidden danger of increased Internet use: how online media impacts how we use our time.
- Young people spend seven and a half hours per day with some kind of media, and over 10 hours if you include multitasking.
- Total media exposure in the average household is nearly 10 hours, but that jumps to over 12 hours in households without rules.
- Today 99% of children ages 8-17 access the Internet.
- Nearly one-third of teens say being unplugged from technology makes them feel more “stressed.”
- About four out of 10 tweens and teens visit a social networking site (like Facebook or MySpace) at least once a day.
More and more psychologists and sociologists are asking the question: With so many young people feeding their brains on a regular diet of online videos, Facebook, massive multiplayer games, instant messages, and Web browsing, how is this impacting the way they relate to others and see the world around them?
Being a parent of kids in the Internet generation is as much about examining online culture as it is about filtering online content. Of course, the Internet is loaded with bad content, but if this is our only concern, we miss the subtle dangers of too much time with technology.
- read the rest at Breaking Free Blog
