New Study Finds Black, Latino Youth More Media-Saturated
According to a study released yesterday by the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University, minority youth (African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans aged 8 to 18) spend an average of 13 hours per day consuming media of some kind. That’s more than 4.5 hours more than their white counterparts. The differences persist even when controlled for social factors like socioeconomic status and whether the youth comes from a single-parent or two-parent household.
As David Aguilar writes for the Associated Press, the study, “Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian American Children” “was touted by researchers as the first national study to focus exclusively on children’s media use by race and ethnicity.”
The study measured media consumption of all types, including TV, music, video games, internet, movies and mobile web devices.
Among the other revelations: minority youth are twice as likely as their white counterparts to access the web on a mobile device, Asian American youth spend more time online than other groups, and Black and Latino youth are more likely to eat meals with the TV on.
The average time spent reading for pleasure was the same across all four groups – an average of 30 to 40 minutes per day, the study found.