Data for youth exposure to media for 1999-2009 comes from a series of studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and accounts for media multi-tasking (e.g. an hour spent watching TV while surfing the Internet would count as two hours of Media Exposure, but only one hour of Total Media Time). Data from 1981/82 is from a study done by the University of Michigan.
SOURCE
Kaiser Family Foundation: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds
University of Michigan: Changing Times of American Youth (.pdf)
| Media | 1981/82 (6-17 yr olds) |
1999 | 2004 | 2009 |
| Television | 2:15 | 3:47 | 3:51 | 4:29 |
| Music/Audio | NA | 1:48 | 1:44 | 2:31 |
| Computer | 0:00 | 0:27 | 1:02 | 1:29 |
| Video Games (7% of "Playing" for 1981/82) |
0:04 | 0:26 | 0:49 | 1:13 |
| 0:10 | 0:43 | 0:43 | 0:38 | |
| Movies ("Other Passive Leisure" for 1981/82) |
0:06 | 0:18 | 0:25 | 0:25 |
| TOTAL MEDIA EXPOSURE | 2:35 | 7:29 | 8:33 | 10:45 |
| Multitasking Proportion | NA | 16% | 26% | 29% |
| TOTAL MEDIA TIME | 2:35 | 6:19 | 6:21 | 7:38 |
Notes: Study from 1981/82 did not include Computer, Music/Audio, Video Games or Movies categories. For that study, we allotted 7% of Playing time to Video Games (approx. 8 million households had video game consoles in 1982), and 100% of Other Passive Leisure time to Movies.
