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I remember my "Introduction to Film Theory" class in graduate school where, during a discussion of Bourdeiu's Distinction, the professor argued that her colleagues demonstrated their Taste (their Education, their Class etc) by showcasing art and literature in their living rooms and hiding their televisions elsewhere (in the den, perhaps. Or in the bedroom). Television -- owning a TV, god forbid watching a TV -- was a marker of the lesser educated and the lower class. Whether or not this argument -- Bourdieu's or my professor's -- is believable, I wonder -- is the role of the television as a centerpiece of / stranglehold on our lives and our living rooms changing? Is it "good taste" or "bad taste" to watch TV? And even if (apologies to Bourdieu) massive flat screen TVs are one of the domestic status symbols du jour, surely these are not the only, or even the most important screens, we pay attention to.

This household's living room is not focused around a television (actually, there isn't one in here), but it's far from screen-free. If I count the iPhones and computer monitors and laptops in operation in here right now, there are nine. Nine. The one TV is in Isaiah's room; it's used primarily for console-gaming. There are bookshelves in every room; my copy of Bourdieu's Distinction is on one of them somewhere. But no one is reading print.

This household focuses on digital media consumption. It's pervasive. And it's complicated, certainly a lot more complicated than my professor's suggestion that the elite (pretend to) read and the working classes watch television.

I stumbled across a Kaiser Family Foundation report, released earlier this year, on the media consumption of kids age 8 to 18. The report provides a fascinating snapshot of the changing media habits of children over the past ten years. No surprise: kids are consuming a helluva lot of media: they're exposed to 10.5 hours of media per day, with 29% of this time spent multitasking. Kids aren't simply watching TV (and when they do watch TV, they aren't necessarily doing it on a television screen).

But sadly, they aren't reading: "Reading for pleasurecontinues to be the only media activity that decreasesas children grow older."

Download the full report here.

Audrey Watters


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Audrey Watters

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