Saturday
Internet tops TV in battle for teens' time
By Janet Kornblum
USA TODAY
Teens and young adults spend more time on the Net than they do watching TV, a study says today.
Several studies have chronicled the increasing amounts of time spent online by teens and young adults weaned on computers and cellphones. But this time, the Internet seems to have a solid lead.
The study of 13- to 24-year-olds, by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited, finds that young people spend an average of 16.7 hours a week online (not including e-mail), compared with 13.6 hours watching TV.
It also confirms something other studies have shown: Young people like to multitask, watching TV while instant messaging and e-mailing or surfing the Web. In addition to the Net and TV, they spend an average of 12 hours a week listening to the radio; 7.7 hours talking on the phone and six hours reading books and magazines.
''This has been a trend that's been building,'' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which chronicles Internet trends. ''This has been a generation that has grown up with these multiple technologies.''
The Net is better than TV, says Brooke Avery, 14, of Mountain View, Calif., who participated in the study. She spends about three hours a day, off and on, e-mailing, instant messaging with friends and checking out Web sites such as mtv.com and seventeen.com.
She doesn't have cable TV, but if she did, ''pretty soon I'd just get bored of it,'' she says. On the Internet, ''you can actually interact with it. TV, you can't really do anything but watch.''
And you can't talk to your friends on television, she adds.
''The reality is the media landscape has changed,'' says Wenda Harris Millard of Yahoo, which commissioned the study with media agency Carat North America. ''It's not that it's about to change. It has.''
The study included an online questionnaire of 2,618 respondents ages 13 to 24 in June and a focus group.
By Janet Kornblum
USA TODAY
Teens and young adults spend more time on the Net than they do watching TV, a study says today.
Several studies have chronicled the increasing amounts of time spent online by teens and young adults weaned on computers and cellphones. But this time, the Internet seems to have a solid lead.
The study of 13- to 24-year-olds, by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited, finds that young people spend an average of 16.7 hours a week online (not including e-mail), compared with 13.6 hours watching TV.
It also confirms something other studies have shown: Young people like to multitask, watching TV while instant messaging and e-mailing or surfing the Web. In addition to the Net and TV, they spend an average of 12 hours a week listening to the radio; 7.7 hours talking on the phone and six hours reading books and magazines.
''This has been a trend that's been building,'' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which chronicles Internet trends. ''This has been a generation that has grown up with these multiple technologies.''
The Net is better than TV, says Brooke Avery, 14, of Mountain View, Calif., who participated in the study. She spends about three hours a day, off and on, e-mailing, instant messaging with friends and checking out Web sites such as mtv.com and seventeen.com.
She doesn't have cable TV, but if she did, ''pretty soon I'd just get bored of it,'' she says. On the Internet, ''you can actually interact with it. TV, you can't really do anything but watch.''
And you can't talk to your friends on television, she adds.
''The reality is the media landscape has changed,'' says Wenda Harris Millard of Yahoo, which commissioned the study with media agency Carat North America. ''It's not that it's about to change. It has.''
The study included an online questionnaire of 2,618 respondents ages 13 to 24 in June and a focus group.
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