electronic devices: full time job for kids

Here's an excerpt. But you should really read the whole article. 7.5 hours. Just one half-hour short of a full time job. But the electronic thing goes on for the weekend as well, so more than a full time job. Does technology serve us? Or do we serve technology?


If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online

By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: January 20, 2010

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.



(click on the link for the whole article.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html


(now imagine a world in which kids spent just half of those 7.5 hours per day playing live music. doing art. reading, studying writing poetry or fiction. practicing a craft. doing something kind and unselfish--something to nourish and strengthen their community.)

full disclosure: what i'm doing right now is probably a kind of electronic multi-tasking. watching daily show/colbert report while typing this on my laptop with book and martini on my desk. hypocritical and self-indulgent.