And I Thought My Kids Consumed a Lot of Media

I'm amazed at how much media I can consume throughout the course of a day. Between the iPhone, the Kindle, the computer, the DVR, and outdoor messages, it's quite a lot.

Well, I've got nothing on the kids, apparently. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8- to 18-year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using entertainment media across a typical day. Amazingly, because they’re so adept at “media multitasking,” they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7.5 hours.

The main reason for this is mobile devices. Over the past five years, the percentage of kids with cell phones has grown from 39% to 66%. The percentage increase of kids with iPods and other MP3 players is even greater, growing from 18% to 76% over five years.