A day in the digital life of a teenager

How many hours of screen-time do you have each day? This video takes a look into the digital lives of two teenagers from the USA. See what you think about their digital lives.

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercise. Remember you can read the transcript at any time.

Transcript

THE COMMON SENSE CENSUS: MEDIA USE BY TWEENS AND TEENS

Alejandra: My name's Alejandra and I'm 13 and, like, on a daily basis, I’ll go on my phone in the morning and I’ll check my Instagram, Snapchat, KIK, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine. Go to school and then I come back, and I’ll use, like, go on Netflix and I’ll go in my room and listen to Pandora, Spotify. I’ll play on my Xbox, like, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty and … that’s about it.

If I would add up, like, all the time that I use, I think I would spend about seven to eight hours every day.

TEENS USE AN AVERAGE OF 9 HOURS OF MEDIA DAILY

Alejandra: When I’m on social media I feel like I know what’s going on, you know, you do feel a little connected and you know, like what people are up to.

TEEN GIRLS SPEND 1:32 HOURS ON SOCIAL MEDIA DAILY

Alejandra: Like, you know, I’ll post pictures or videos, I’ll like, comment on stuff. I don’t think I’m addicted to it … my phone. I think it’s kind of a leash though coz you always have to be on it, and you know and when you hear a buzz, it’s like, oh … I have friends!

Sasha: I’m Sasha, I’m 16 years old. Currently I have the Xbox 360, MacBook Pro laptop, the iPad, the old Xbox, a Samsung Galaxy smartphone and a PlayStation 4. I like to play a lot of different video games on the console on my PS4 when I get home and I just, you know, veg out sometimes and play …

OVER ⅓ OF BOYS SPEND MORE THAN 2 HOURS A DAY PLAYING ELECTRONIC GAMES

Sasha: I have, you know, first person shooter, like Call of Duty or Battlefield, and we also have a baseball game that I’ve been playing. I absolutely think that there is an addictive quality to video games. Sometimes I’ll, you know, I’ll just keep going if I really want to level up on a video game.

Alejandra: Usually when I do my homework, when I get home. I’ll either come in my room, listen to music or I’ll go to the living room and watch TV while I do my homework.

⅔ OF TEENS WHO MULTITASK DURING HOMEWORK SAY IT DOESN’T AFFECT THEIR WORK

Alejandra: If I’m, like, reading something and I, like, get distracted from the TV oh I’ll pause it or I’ll turn off the music. I’ll go through the problem again or whatever I’m working on coz I guess I was a little distracted.

Sasha: If I’m doing my homework on my laptop I might be also having conversations with my friends or intermittently checking my phone. Sometimes if I just get too bored with my homework I might play, like, Candy Crush or something. When I was younger I could go much longer without using media but when I’m in an environment that has a lot of media and all of my friends are all on media then I find it hard to kind of resist.