Sonia Livingstone
Moira Bovill
London School of Economics and Political Science
NEWS RELEASE
A fascinating and comprehensive account of leisure time and media use by children and concerns of their parents is published today in a report from the London School of Economics and Political Science. It provides detail of the way in which young people use the media, together with the impact upon them and their families. In addition, a startling comparison is drawn between British children and those in other European countries. There is also a worrying trend for children in this country to be less likely to have home access to computer technology.At the launch in London today of the first wide-ranging survey of media use by children of its kind for at least 40 years, leader of the project team Sonia Livingstone, from the LSE, said: “Our research does not support moral panics about children addicted to computer games or mindless entertainment on television. But today’s children need to be screen-wise as well as book-wise. They are developing new skills and need support in doing this”.Funders of the research include the Advertising Association, the BBC, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, BT, ITV, the Independent Television Commission and the Leverhulme Trust. On behalf of the funders, Stephen Whittle, chairman of the steering committee said: “the report has implications which extend beyond broadcasting to education and social policies for the young.”
Parental concerns
Parents are concerned for their children’s safety outside the home while young people themselves say there is not enough to do in the area where they live. As a result, young people are much more likely to be watching television or playing computer games than their continental counterparts. British children as young as 6 are two or three times more likely to have a television in their bedroom and British children watch an hour a day more than French or German children.
- There is a stark contrast between the perception parents have of the environment today compared to when they were children.
- Only 11% say that the streets where they live are very safe for their children compared
- with 56% saying the same about the neighbourhood where they were brought up.
A developing ‘bedroom culture’
Equipping the bedroom with TVs, audio and computer equipment represents an ideal compromise in which children are both entertained and kept safe. Two in every three have TVs in their bedroom, including half of 6-7 year olds. As young people spend more time in their own rooms, media become less central to the family but more important among friends, with whom TV is a shared experience. From around 9 years children’s bedrooms become important to them as a private space and new media especially are welcomed for the entertainment value as well as symbols of status.
TV usage dominates
The study looks at the use of TV, video, books, computer games, music and personal computers. It finds that young people use the media for around five hours each day and points to the dominance within the UK of ‘screen-entertainment culture’. Television occupies about half of this time and is named as the medium which young people ‘would miss most’, by three times as many as its nearest rival, music centres. Its dominance rests heavily on the breadth of gratification it offers: for excitement, to overcome boredom, for relaxation and to overcome the threat of feeling ‘left out’.Once children have reached their early teens many parents consider it impracticable for them to attempt restrictions on media use in the home. This may be one of the reasons why they wish strongly to rely on the good judgement of broadcasters and media regulators. This is particularly important to them in relation to television. The knowledge that children are watching television in places which are relatively difficult to supervise may lie behind parents’ endorsement of the broadcasting Watershed.82% think the Watershed a ‘very good idea’ and 25% consider it should be 10pm rather than 9pm.The report also considers some of the differences between social classes and television usage, in homes where there are children. Nearly everyone has a TV and a VCR at home and 4 in 10 have cable and satellite.
- 72% of working-class children have a TV in their bedroom compared with only 54% for the middle classes.
- working-class families are more likely to have a TV-linked games machine than the middle classes, 72% compared with 61%.
- Computer usage has gender and social class differentials
- The study is one of the first to assess the impact of computer technology and the Internet on children.
- 53% of children have a PC in their home and 7% use the Internet. Within that, some clear gender and social class differences emerge.
- Twice as many boys (16%) as girls have a PC in their bedroom;
- 46% of middle class compared with 19% of working-class homes with children have a multi-media computer;
- 14% of middle-class children compared with only 2% of working-class children have access to the Internet at home.
The Internet – a 21st century pen-pal
The Internet inspires both positive and negative associations for the young. The most positive being a means of linking Britain with other countries, enabling a new kind of pen-pal relationship, combining the pleasures of long distance communication with the immediacy of the telephone.The major downside is the cost. But those few with extended experience of using the Internet are ambivalent. They report great excitement over the potential but considerable difficulties in effectively accessing information and frustration with the quality of information obtained.Twice as many children have access to IT at school as at home and the social inequalities in access at home are not reproduced at school. However, there remain some geographic differences, with Scotland and Northern Ireland lagging behind England and Wales.
The decline of books
The place of books in young people’s lives is changing, threatened both by IT as a source of information and television as a source of narrative. Those who have access to a PC are twice as likely to use that as a source of information than turn to a book. With the possible exception of young girls, most children turn to television or a computer game for their narrative appeal. Books are most positively viewed when the child is interested in a particular type of content, for example horror. Overall the image of books is poor. They are widely seen as boring, old-fashioned, frustrating and requiring too much effort. Books are not trendy; they are the sort of thing ‘your parents approve of’.
Music, music, music
There is almost universal access to audio equipment of some kind in the home. The mode of delivery is of little consequence, content is king. Music continues to play a uniquely flexible and pervasive part in children’s and, especially, teenager’s lives.
Concerns for and of children
The media rank low amongst parental concerns. More parents are likely to make rules about use of the telephone than about use of television.
- The biggest concerns expressed for their children are drugs, 51%;
- the child’s job prospects were named by 47% of parents;
- and the child being the victim of crime, by 39% of parents.
When parents were asked to choose which change in society they would most like to see, the largest number, 63%, said ‘more emphasis on family life’. Likewise, when their children were asked what will be most important to them when adult, the largest number say ‘a happy family life’, with ‘good education’ in second place. Young people distinguish sharply between what is important for them now, self presentation, style and image, with what will be important in later life. There is also a strong correlation between their values and the values of their parents.
Synopsis
The suprising statistics of leaisure time speant by children, teenagers and other users in the united kingdom of new media technologies compared to those of german and french users. The statistics of uers is begining to worry society and parents of the users are becoming increasingly concerned for the welfare of their childrens social tactis and what, in the end, will come of communcation in general. The article highlights the main statistics of users in the seperate countries and further makes a point of the family values which has slowly deteriorated due to the extreme use of NMT in a household each day. A bedroom culture has gradually been constructed by the younger users of the new media technologies due to most communication commensing between friends through online forums and websites therefore dooming users obliviously to their bedrooms unaware they are slowly retreating from the world of physcially commication aswell as its interaction.
Bullet Points
> Televisions influences to social outcasting in younger users
> The worrying issues most families and parents have due to the slowly decrease of social interaction and communication they have with their children.
> Though parents are concerned for the safety of their children outside of the home they are also worried for their welfare inside their own doors. They worry the extreme use of new media technologies which dominate their households are increasing arguments and destroying traditional family values.
Quotes
“Equipping the bedroom with TVs, audio and computer equipment represents an ideal compromise in which children are both entertained and kept safe. Two in every three have TVs in their bedroom, including half of 6-7 year olds.”
“The place of books in young people’s lives is changing, threatened both by IT as a source of information and television as a source of narrative. Those who have access to a PC are twice as likely to use that as a source of information than turn to a book”
“The report also considers some of the differences between social classes and television usage, in homes where there are children. Nearly everyone has a TV and a VCR at home and 4 in 10 have cable and satellite.”
