Published on in “Web & Computing”, language — English. 8 pages.
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Today’s children are deeply impacted and consumed by media and technology—42 percent of children eight years and younger have a TV in their bedroom; 29 percent have a DVD/VCR; 11 percent have a video game console; and four percent have a computer. Children under the age of two spend over twice as much time watching TV (53 minutes per day) as they do reading books (23 minutes per day).
As you can imagine, parents and teachers have strong opinions about the effect media and technology is having on America’s youth. About 73 percent of parents say they would like to limit their children’s TV watching. The top parental concerns of social media’s impact on kids include the following: violation of privacy, inappropriate sexual behavior, cyber bullying, identity theft/fraud, and diminishing ambition. Two-thirds of parents talk to their children about the dangers of social media sites.
One thing is very clear—there is a widespread belief that media and technology hurt a child’s attention span. Some 42 percent of Americans agree that in 2020, young technology users will be easily distracted, lack deep thinking skills, and thirst only for instant gratification. Teachers believe that media and technology has severely hurt students’ attention span. More
