Key Findings from Families’ Education Media Use in America:
Thursday, February 13th, 2014
Following is summary from the recent report on Families’ Education Media Use in America released by the New Mexico Dept of Health. You may also want to see and hear what their experts (Dr. Javier Aceves, Dr. Janis Gonzales and Dr. Neal Horen) and parents have to say about Toddlers and Screen Time. http://nmhealth.org/phd/mchdaytwo.shtml
Key Findings from Families’ Education Media Use in America:
1. Nearly half (44%) of the screen media 2- to 10-year-olds use is considered educational by their parents (56 minutes out of a total of 2:07 screen media per day). Eight in ten children (80%) use educational media at least once a week, including a third (34%) who are daily users.
2. Most parents think that their child has learned from educational media. Among parents of weekly educational media users:
a. More than half (57%) say their child has learned “a lot” about one or more subject areas (e.g., reading/vocabulary, math, or cognitive skills) from educational media.
b. Fifty-four percent say their child “often” takes specific actions as a result of their exposure to educational media, such as talking about something they saw (38%), engaging in imaginative play based on it (34%), asking questions about it (26%), or asking to do a project or activity inspired by it (18%).
3. Educational media use occurs most frequently among very young children (1:16 a day among 2- to 4-year-olds), with a large drop-off in use as children get older (:50 a day among 5- to 7-year-olds, and :42 a day among 8- to 10-year-olds). As children get older, the amount of time they spend with screen media goes up (from 1:37 to 2:36 a day), and the proportion that is educational goes down (from 78% to 27%).
4. Children spend far more time with educational TV (an average of :42 a day) than they do with educational content on other platforms such as mobile devices (:05), computers (:05), or video games (:03). For every subject except math, parents are more likely to say their child has learned a lot about it from educational television than from any other platform. Educational content on mobile devices was ranked lowest in learning by parents in every subject area.
5. Parents don’t believe their children learn as much from educational media about science as they do about other subject areas. Nineteen percent of parents say their child has learned “a lot” about science from an educational media platform, compared to 37% for reading and cognitive skills development and 28% for math.
6. Across every platform and almost all subject areas studied, Hispanic-Latino parents are the least likely to say their child has learned from educational media. For example, among Hispanic-Latino parents of weekly educational media users, 63% say their child has learned a lot or some about math from computers, compared to 91% of Black and 79% of White parents.
7. Many children have access to and are using electronic reading devices. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of 2- to 10-year-olds now have access to either an e-reader or a tablet device. However, only half (49%) of all children with access to such a device have read or been read to on it. On average, children now spend :05 a day with e-books, compared to :29 a day reading in print. Young children (2- to 4-year-olds) with e-platforms in the home are just as likely as older children (8- to 10-year-olds) to have used them (49% and 53% respectively, not a statistically significant difference.)
