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Teens Spend an Average of 9 Hours a Day in front of a Digital Screen, Study Finds

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Nov 03, 2015 02:10 PM EST

Children and teens today have a lot more access to different forms of media than ever before. Despite all of the cool new gadgets, a new survey conducted by Common Sense Media, found that teens still prefer television the most.

The group surveyed, 2,658 teens (13-18) about their media use and found that on average, they spend nine hours in front of some kind of digital screen. 58 percent stated that they watched TV on a daily basis with 50 percent of them stating that they watched a specific TV program during its scheduled time. The rest of them said that they watched TV via DVDs, online video or delayed viewings/reruns.

45 percent of the surveyed teens said they used social media everyday. Only about 33 percent of those people said they liked using social media "a lot."

Overall, about 50 percent of the teens that watched TV or used social media do so while doing their homework. Aside from watching TV and using social media, 76 percent of teens stated that they listened to music while doing homework.

"As a parent and educator, there's clearly more work to be done around the issue of multitasking," Common Sense Media founder and chief executive James Steyer said. "Nearly two-thirds of teens today tell us they don't think watching TV or texting while doing homework makes any difference to their ability to study and learn, even though there's more and more research to the contrary."

The survey also looked into media use among children aged 10-12 and found that kids from this group spent an average of six hours.

For more information on the survey, click here.

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