Latino Youth Consume More Media Than Whites

A new study from Northwestern University, “Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian American Children” found that Latino and African-American youth consume about 4.5 hours, on average, more of media daily than do white children. The Associated Press reported:

Minority youth media consumption rates outpace their white counterparts by two hours when it comes to TV and video viewership, approximately an hour for music, up to 1.5 hours for computer use, and 30 to 40 minutes for playing video games.

“In the past decade, the gap between minority and white youth’s daily media use has doubled for blacks and quadrupled for Hispanics,” said Northwestern Professor Ellen Wartella, who co-authored the study along with former Kaiser Family Foundation vice president Vicky Rideout and Northwestern post-doctoral fellow Alexis Lauri.

So what we’re talking about here is the difference between having Little League, tutoring and daycare versus having a TV babysitter, at least that’s my opinion. I give props to Wartella who made a point of telling AP the problem here wasn’t that it was parents’ faults, but that all things — even technology — must be used in moderation. See the graph below and read the whole report here.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD