Between texting 24/7, checking Facebook as much as possible, tuning in to Glee every Tuesday night, playing Black Ops, and having Katy Perry playing in our ears during it all, teens are almost always using some sort of technology.
A study shows that children, ages 8-18, spend about seven hours and 40 minutes a day with media.
This doesn't even include the time using the web for something school related. This also does not include the time texting.
Finally, this does not factor in the fact that most teens multitask; they have music playing while they are surfing the web, for example. Cell phones are so widely used by teens today. Sixty percent of all teens have a cell phone.
More time is spent either texting or surfing the web on a cell phone than actually talking on it. That shouldn't be a surprise.
At least 70 percent of teens have an iPod, MP3 player, or music player of some sort. Most teens have music playing throughout the day.
I am not saying that I am not guilty of spending too much time with media, at all. Truth is, almost every teen says that they wish they spent less time with electronics and more time outside or doing something productive.
We all know as teens after we've spent two hours on Facebook when we have a research project due the next day that we have done something we regret. But how can we solve it? We admit we shouldn't do it again but, here's a shocker: We do it again.
Well, we can start with changing our homepage on our computer off of a social networking site. This takes away the temptation to look at it.
Next, we shouldn't have it minimized when we are doing homework.
Finally, rewarding ourselves before we are completely done with an assignment never ends well. We always tell ourselves that we will give 10 minutes on a site of our choice after we finish our science homework. But an hour later when we still have English homework and its 10 p.m., we are a bit out of luck.
Besides the computer, video games seem to be very popular these days.
Although I personally never play video games, they are a common thing, especially for boys. They have popular ratings and are good for entertainment, however some are proving to have negative effects.
Games that glorify warfare are resulting in violent behavior, anti-social attitudes anfd generally, negative thinking.
Technology is a great thing for our modern day world; so much progress and knowledge is being gained every day because of it.
It's nice to stay in touch with the rest of the world or our group of friends but nothing is wrong with just taking a peaceful bike ride and just taking in the world's beauty every once and a while. But then again, there might be an app for that.