Completely Connected

The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.

And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

via www.nytimes.com

The 100% connected generation is here. Every waking minute they are online.

This is a great cause for the Sunday supplement writers. “They’ll go blind! What about calm and reflection? They are losing the ability to [fill in the blank: relate to people, read the newspaper, think critically, exercise, spend time alone].”

We’ll hear it all.

This is interesting, though:

Youths now spend more time listening to or watching media on their cellphones, or playing games, than talking on them.

A cell phones is no longer a phone + other capabilities. It’s now a mobile internet-enabled device that also works as a phone.