New Study Shows Black Kids Watch More Than Three Hours Of TV Daily

Parenting

by BMWK Staff | on June 14th, 2011 | 2 comments

Is all this media consumption helping or harming us? A new study from Northwestern University titled, “Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian American Children,” shows that black children lead the pack when it comes to hours spent consuming TV, whether through traditional means, online, or through the use of mobile devices.

From the study:

The findings show black and Hispanic youth consume more than three hours of television daily. Whites and Asians consumed more than two hours. Technologies such as DVDs, TiVo, and mobile and online viewing increased television consumption to 5 hours and 54 minutes for black children, 5 hours and 21 minutes for Hispanics, 4 hours and 41 minutes for Asians, and 3 hours and 36 minutes for whites.

On a typical day for 8- to 18-year-olds, blacks consumed one hour and 28 minutes of media on cell phones compared with one hour and 11 minutes for Asians, 1 hour and 4 minutes for Hispanics and 26 minutes for whites. (Read the whole report here.)

Other findings include that Black children are more likely to have TVs in their bedrooms (including premium cable channels), and are more likely to have the TV on during dinner. Interestingly, the study also notes that time spent reading for pleasure averages about 30 minutes a day for all racial groups.

The study authors don’t draw any conclusions about whether this media consumption is harmful to youth, but you can easily see that time spent watching TV is time lost doing other things – studying, practicing a sport or musical instrument, reading.

How do you feel about these results? Do you think your kids watch too much TV? Has it ever been a problem in your household?

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Dnlrm62

Why is it whenever there’s a “study”, not facts, that blacks are either at the bottom or top of it and it’s always a negative? Think. Blacks are at higher risks for majority of man made diseases or like with this TV research, they’re making black kids seem lazy. I highly doubt black kids spend more time online than white kids, I find that hard to believe.
Anonymous

It can be difficult to predict the affect the amount of T.V. watching has on a child’s learning, due to the learning style, focus, determination, etc… of the child. u00a0This is where I believe parenting comes in, as a parent, you know what is good or bad for your child whether it is T.V., ice cream, video games, music, etc… If the studies, quoting the rise of single parent black households, are valid then an increase in media consumption would make sense (in my opinion). u00a0An increase in media consumption does not mean the child will not turn out well. u00a0I say this because my brother and I were raised by our mother and we both have families, successful careers (biopharmaceuticals and nursing) and are active in our churches and we CONSUMED some media u00a0I believe the difference was the LOVE (sometimes tough) & respect our mother showed us made the difference.nBlessings,u00a0n-dnnwww.broskee.com