The Pervasiveness of Media

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With global satellite technology and 24/7 news and entertainment content, many of us have mass media content available to us at all times. The average adult spends about 5 hours per day watching TV and about 3 hours per day on the Internet. Recent data suggest that on a typical day children and teens now spend about 7.5 hours devoted to entertainment media, including TV, movies, computers, cell phone entertainment, video games, music/audio, and print—an increase of more than an hour per day in just five years (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). Much of this time is spent media multitasking—using more than one media type at the same time—and that overlapping usage allows kids to pack nearly 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours of daily use. The increased availability and decreased costs of portable media devices have contributed greatly to the rise in media use among all ages. In fact, in today’s digital media environment, it is almost impossible to escape media (Pavlik & McIntosh, 2011).