Work, Leisure, and Mass Media

WORK, LEISURE, AND MASS MEDIA

CH 7

Today’s Teens

Spend more time in leisure activities Than in “productive” school activities

Spend more time alone Than with family members

Spend 4 times as many hours at part-time jobs As they do on homework

Patterns of Time Use

47%

29%

24%

Suburban, middle-class, white teenagers

Leisure (T.V., mu-sic, talking, playing games or sports, thinking, etc.)

Productive (class-work, homework, extracurricular or religious activities, etc.)

Maintenance (eat-ing, resting, doing chores or errands, personal mainte-nance, etc.)

Patterns of Time Use (continued) Suburban, middle-class, white

teenagers, and urban, poor, African American teenagers have very similar time allocation.

~50% Leisure, 24% Maintenance, 20-28% Productive

Differences in Contemporary Society American adolescents spend more

time on leisure, less time in productive activities, than peers in other countries

ExampleAverage American high school student

spends < 5 hours per week on homework

In Asian countries a student spends 4 to 5 hours per day on homework

Differences in Contemporary Society (continued) Industrialized countries

75% of U.S. high school juniors hold jobs during the school year

25% of Japanese and Taiwanese juniors do so

Paid employment is even rarer in most European countries

Structured apprenticeship programs in career-related jobs more common in other countries

Beneficialor

Detrimental?

Adolescents and Work:

Work At any point during the school year, 6

million American high school teenagers will be working.

But where at? Over the age of 16? Under the age of 16?

• Most people believe that working helps teens build character, teaches them about the real world, and prepares them for adulthood

• But recent studies show that benefits of working during adolescence have been overstated

Adolescents and Work:

While this may be true… Working 20+ hours a week can be

detrimental to adolescents. Lowers school performance Lowers enjoyment of school Decreases time spent on homework Lessens involvement in extracurricular

activities Increases absenteeism

Adolescents and Work:

Problem Behavior Time-honored belief: Working will deter

teens from criminal activity by keeping them out of trouble

Research findings: Working long hours may actually be associated with increases in aggression school misconduct precocious sexual activity minor delinquency

Adolescents and Work:

Problem Behavior Differential Impact:

Middle-Class vs. Poor Youth Poor youth – working may not lead to

problem behavior – WHY? Working during junior high may increase

chances of problem behavior as opposed to working later in high school—working early may make school seem less important

Adolescents and Work:

Adolescents and Mass Media: The average adolescent spends more than

7 hours each day using one or more media

The average teenager spends over 50 hours a week using digital media, more than a full-time job!

Many adolescents view TV, listen to music, get on the internet, and play video games, all from their bedrooms

This context makes parental monitoring more difficult

Videos

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/living-faster/split-focus/how-do-teens-do-homework-today.html?play

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/living-faster/digital-natives/rewiring-young-brains.html

Adolescents and Mass Media: Discussion How does all of this media intake

impact adolescents? Food for Thought: Politicians often

argue that adolescents’ development is being adversely affected by the mass media. How do you respond to these claims?

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzEOZF9MNS0

70% of prime time television contains sexual themesObjectification of women, sex as a symbol of masculinity, sex as competitionHow often are consequences shown?

Media Impact on Sexual Themes

The Adolescent Consumer

The average adolescent has more than $400 in spending money per month. In 2008 Teenagers were projected to

spend more than $200 billion

Perceived Effect of Social Networking

Makes them feel: More LessConfident 20% 4%Depressed 5% 10%Outgoing 8% 5%Popular 9% 4%Shy 3% 29%Sympathetic to other 19% 7%Better about themselves

15% 4%

Source: Common Sense Study, July 2012

2012 Freshman Technology survey 641 students Taken during Freshman Orientation in

Summer 2012 90% brought Laptops 43% on Mac 43% on Windows 92% Facebook Users 63% prefer to use St. Ed’s account

when contacting a professor Survey Site

Your personality on facebook Study done by Gwendolyn Seidman Motivation vs Behaviors based on the BIG

5 High Extraversion vs High Neuroticism High Conscientiousness and photo sharing Study revealed more about motivations

than behaviors Agreeableness vs Neuroticism

Seidman, G., (2013). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: Howpersonality influences social media use and motivations.

Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 402-407.

Effect of media Based on the statistics of how much

time people spend online and with media every day, what are your opinions on this video