It’s back-to-school time for kids and return to the rigors of the academic schedule: up early in the morning, classes all day, homework in the afternoon, and Facebook and texting when the parents aren’t looking.
I went searching on-line to find out exactly how much time teens are spending on Facebook and other media sites. I found one alarming study from the Kaiser Family Foundation called “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-year-olds.” It reported that teens spend on average 53 hours per week on media use, mostly on-line social media sites. Here’s a short synopsis of their report:
Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-OldsA national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that with technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth. Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people's media use. It includes data from all three waves of the study (1999, 2004, and 2009), and is among the largest and most comprehensive publicly available sources of information about media use among American youth.
Even though this report is almost 2 years old now, I have to believe that the numbers have grown even bigger with the overwhelming success of the iPhone, Android phones, and the other 24/7 electronic communication devices now available.
Think about it… 53 hours a weeks is more than a full time job. That’s 31% of the total number of hours in any given day. That’s more than the recommended hours of sleep. So much for the importance of your mattress!
What concerns me most is what I see happening to kids who are techno-consumed. They are losing the ability to communicate face-to-face with other people, that is, to have real conversations. Their posture is changing, as they hunch over their cell phones. They risk their lives while driving with the constant distraction of texting, incoming calls and emails.
As a parent of two teen boys (age 14), my husband and I are doing our best to teach our kids the basics of confident and polite interpersonal communication. We are also trying to delay the time when they will get their own cell phone, email account and Facebook page … until a time when they are bit more mature, more responsible and consistent with their homework, and can afford to pay for their own cell phone bill.
Of course, they are whining big time about the peer pressure that they are facing. They feel left out of the new social norm. Even six year-olds have more technology than they do. (and I’ve seen that first hand at school concerts).
But my boys have something that many other teenagers don’t have: table manners, good handshakes, confident eye contact, good hygiene and respectably dressed personal appearance. Now, that didn’t happen all by itself. We had to teach them that (even if they resisted at first).
Kids need to know more than Social Media to be successful in life
The original manuscript of my book Networking Ahead for Business (kiwi publishing 2010) included a chapter entitled “Become a Driving Instructor: teach your children how to network.” We ended up cutting the chapter in the final edit. I recently revisited the chapter and modified it into an article on Hub Pages entitled: “Parent’s Guide: 14 things you can do to help your children before they enter the work world.”
The article outlines 14 social skills that parents need to teach their children. I believe these will help your kids land jobs after college, and help them to become effective networkers, not to mention civilized human beings. At first glance, the skills seems simple including:
- How to make proper eye contact with other people
- How to shake someone’s hand
- How to have good posture
- How to use their voice properly
- Click here to read 10 more things you can do to give your children a social skills advantage…
Your Networking Goal for this week
So much of this kind of parent-child teaching can be done through personal modeling – that means YOU need to demonstrate these skills in your daily behavior so that your kids see them as normal. That just might mean establishing some limits to your on-line media habits (see my networking tip – Power Down). You will need to make an honest assessment of your social skill level and improve it immediately this week. Two other practical-tactical suggestions that I have for you (from my family to yours):
- Turn off the TV and limit the video games. Don’t let your children become “vidiots” and put some reasonable limits around their time spent with electronic entertainment. Fire your “television babysitter” and find a more productive, healthy way to engage them after school. Get them exercising, volunteering, doing extra projects at school or reading.
- Have a family meal together at least once a day or more. Reclaim the lost tradition of sitting down and sharing a meal together as a family. Turn off all electronic devices (no texting at the table!) and have a pleasant discussion about your day while you eat a delicious, nutritious meal. Have the children help you prepare and serve the meal. Set a formal table where everyone sits down and starts to eat the same time. Make this part of a positive family tradition that they will carry forward in their lives.
