A study released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that daily media use among children and teens is up dramatically from five years ago. Most youth stated that they have no rules about how much time they can spend with TV, video games, or computers. Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people’s media use. It includes data from all three waves of the study (1999, 2004, and 2009), and is among the largest and most comprehensive publicly available sources of information about media use among American youth.

Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Among the findings:

• Media and homework. About half of young people say they use media either “most” (31%) or “some” (25%) of the time they’re doing their homework.
• Rules about media content. Fewer than half of all 8- to 18-year-olds say they have rules about what TV shows they can watch (46%), video games they can play (30%), or music they’re allowed to listen to (26%). Half (52%) say they have rules about what they can do on the computer.
• Gender gap. Girls spend more time than boys using social networking sites (:25 vs. :19), listening to music (2:33 vs. 2:06), and reading (:43 vs. :33). Boys spend more time than girls playing console video games (:56 vs.: 14), computer games (:25 vs. :08), and going to video websites like YouTube (:17 vs. :12).
• Tweens and media. Media use increases substantially when children hit the 11-14 year-old age group, an increase of 1:22 with TV content, 1:14 with music, 1:00 using the computer, and :24 playing video games, for total media exposure of 11:53 per day (vs. 7:51 for 8-10 year-olds).
• Texting. 7th-12th graders report spending an average of 1:35 a day sending or receiving texts. (Time spent texting is not counted as media use in this study.)

The report states that the increase in media use is driven in large part by ready access to mobile devices like cell phones and iPods. Another reason is that most families don’t have any rules regarding media consumption and the TV is typically left on whether anyone is watching it or not. Only about three in ten young people say they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV (28%) or playing video games (30%), and 36% say the same about using the computer. About two-thirds (64%) of young people say the TV is usually on during meals, and just under half (45%) say the TV is left on “most of the time” in their home, even if no one is watching. Seven in ten (71%) have a TV in their bedroom, and half (50%) have a console video game player in their room. Obviously children in TV-centric homes spend far more time watching: 1:30 more a day in homes where the TV is left on most of the time, and an hour more among those with a TV in their room.

Interestingly, but not surprising, the amount of time spent watching regularly-scheduled TV actually declined by 25 minutes a day (from 2004 to 2009). The increase in total TV consumption comes from video viewed via the Internet, cell phones, iPods and other MP3 players.

The study doesn’t delve into the consequences of our ever-increasing media usage but it does state that parents matter. When parents set limits, children spend less time with media: those with any media rules consume nearly 3 hours less media per day (2:52) than those with no rules.

How has our society’s growing “media saturation” impacted your family? Sounds like a great topic for the dinner table this week, try having it without any distractions – turn off the TV, cell phones, stereo, e-mail, telephone . . .

The report, related materials, and a live webcast are available online.