Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds, Report
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Generation Media in the Lives of 8–18 Year-0lds Donald F. Roberts, Ph.D. Stanford University Ulla G. Foehr, M.A. Stanford University Victoria 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 GENERATION M: MEDIA IN THE LIVES OF 8–18 YEAR-OLDS 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 mean for kids? Has the amount computers, print, radio, or VCRs (e.g., networks are now dedicated to young Bower, 1985; Horatio Alger Foundation, of time they spend with media audiences. 1996; Kaiser Family Foundation & YM What do all these changes mean for kids? increased? Are they changing 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 time across the many studies that looked at only a few media 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.