Teens spend 50 hours a week using media

US teens spend more than seven hours a day watching TV, playing video games and surfing the Internet. That’s what researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation found when they asked 2,000 people aged 8 to 18 how much they use media.

The study found that 66% of US teens have cell phones and many of them use them to listen to music, play games and watch TV. Girls spend more time than boys do on social networking sites like Facebook. Boys spend more time playing video games and visiting video sites like YouTube. And many teens do more than one thing at the same time, like listening to music while watching TV.

The amount of time teens spend using media outside of the classroom every day has increased by one hour and 17 minutes to seven hours and 38 minutes in the last five years. Victoria Rideout from the Kaiser Family Foundation says this increase is significant. “Media use is not inherently good or bad but from a health perspective, there are a lot of things to think about," she says.