Today’s tech-savvy kids and young adults spend more text messages everyday than there are people on the planet. They grew up tethered to multiple electronic devices while juggling text messages, surfing the Net and listening to iPods – all while doing their homework. They mix learning, communicating and playing.
By age 21 years of age, it is estimated that the average child will have:
– Spent 10,000 hours playing video games
– Sent 200,000 emails
– Spent 20,000 hours watching TV
– Spent 10,000 hours on their cell phone
– Spent under 5,000 hours reading
As more and more adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or playing video games, social network and video sharing sites, online games, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are becoming more mainstream fixtures of youth culture. Is our next generation of workers frittering their lives away – or is it just possible that resistant parents and employers are the ones becoming more out of touch with reality. New research just released by the MacArthur foundation might serve as a wake-up call…or at least force adults to pause before they pull the plug on their kids.