The report showed that American teens spend an average of 16.7 hours online per week, and 13.6 hours watching television. These numbers may seem low at first glance, but let's stop and examine how these hours spent online and watching television add up.
An average school day lasts about seven hours. That means 35 hours a week are spent in school. Add the internet and television time spent per week together, and you get 30.3 hours. That means teens are spending almost as much time on visual media as they are in school every week. This begs the question, when do these kids have time to do the afterschool activities, work those first jobs, do their homework, and even sleep? Has visual media become so important in the lives of modern-day teenagers that it trumps the need for a proper nights' sleep?
A recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation showed that American teens are "dangerously sleep deprived," missing an average of an hour to an hour and a half of sleep per night. Psychologist Michael Breus says "Twenty-four-hour access to the internet and fast-paced video games are tempting products in the digital age," and he attributes some of this sleep loss to teenagers' excessive use of visual media outlets during the school week. A growing concern among parents and the psychological communities is that this lack of sleep can lead to impaired driving, lack of attention in the classroom, and even bouts of depression.
One might say that there is a silver lining in the fact that teens seem to be watching less television these days. However, replacing one kind of screen with another does not seem beneficial to teenagers when it comes to getting through the next school day.
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