Nickelodeon knows from kids’ TV. Today, the network presented advertisers with its latest research — and, while Nick execs might be happy to hear the numbers, parents will probably be less so.
According to a statement made available after the presentation, the network found that technology and media play a different — and larger — role among “post-millennial” children born after 2005 (kids who are just about turning 9, or younger). That includes a full 35 hours of television a week. In other words, that average kid is spending just as much time watching TV as a French person can legally work in a week. That number represents a 2.2-hour increase since the 2009 survey results, and a 12% increase over nine years.
And all those TV hours are in addition to more time with a tablet or other device. Computers and gaming consoles take up about one fourth of kids’ daily media usage — if a youngster watched 35 hours of TV a week and spent the rest of his media time on a game console, that block would equal more than 10 weekly hours of gaming — and more than half the respondents said they watch long-form content like movies on their “iDevices.”
Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children only spend an hour or two in front of a screen each day.
But despite all that screen time, there’s also good news for parents in Nickelodeon’s research: 80 percent said they wanted to spend more time with parents and the same amount said that academics mattered more than popularity. That willingness to study is especially good news, since the survey also revealed that many kids today hold a belief that, mathematically, can’t be true: 8 in 10 said they were “smarter than most other kids their age.”
(MORE: More Than 33 Percent of Kids Under Two Use Tablets So Prepare for an Army of Robot Babies)