Northwestern Study Finds Minority Kids Use Media More
Washington - Minority youth aged eight to 18 years in the US consume an average of 13 hours of media content a day, about 4-1/2 hours more than their white counterparts, a study by Northwestern University has claimed.
"In the past decade, the gap between minority and white youth's daily media use has doubled for blacks and quadrupled for Hispanics. The big question is what these disparities mean for our children's health and education," Northwestern Professor Ellen Wartella, who directed the study and heads the Center on Media and Human Development in the School of Communication, said.
The report finds that minority children spend one to two additional hours each day watching TV and videos, approximately an hour more listening to music, up to an hour and a half more on computers, and 30 to 40 minutes more playing video games than their white counterparts.
Other findings include:
— Minority youth spend 3 hours and 7 minutes per day using mobile devices to watch TV and videos, play games and listen to music. That's about 1.5 hours more each day than white youth.
— Traditional TV viewing remains most popular. Black and Hispanic youth consume more than three hours daily; whites and Asians more than two hours.
— Access to TiVo, DVDs, and mobile and online viewing increase television consumption to 5 hours and 54 minutes for black youth, 5 hours and 21 minutes for Hispanics, 4 hours and 41 minutes for Asians, and 3 hours and 36 minutes for whites.
— Black and Hispanic youth are more likely to have TV sets in their bedrooms (84 percent of blacks, 77 percent of Hispanics compared to 64 percent of whites and Asians), and to have cable and premium channels available in their bedrooms (42 percent of blacks and 28 percent of Hispanics compared to 17 percent of whites and 14% of Asians).
— 78 percent of black youth, 67 percent of Hispanic, 58 percent of white and 55 percent of Asian 8- to 18-year-olds say the TV is "usually" on during home meals.
— Black children under 6 are twice as likely to have a TV in their bedroom as whites, and more than twice as likely to go to sleep with the TV on.
— Asian youth spend more time in recreational computer use: Nearly 3 hours a day compared to 1:49 for Hispanics, nearly 1.24 for blacks and 1:17 for whites.
