Or that’s the way the numbers look in two studies released last week.
One set, by The Nielsen Co., declared that new data show that teens depend primarily on traditional media for news and information.
The other set, results of the American Times Use Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seems to verify the Nielsen report.
However, Nielsen acknowledges the total times measured may be a bit misleading. A Baylor University expert in the subject of American habits when it comes to media agrees.
“Teens have the TV on, so they may be watching, but they’re really also watching other sources of information,” said Dr. Corey Carbonara, professor of film and digital media and director of the Digital Communication Technologies Project.
He said teens are accustomed to dealing with multiple media simultaneously, and they take the input in slivers or slices. Then they stitch all that information together.
Playing games, watching television, text-messaging and exploring the Internet make up a media matrix that is all part of a teen’s environment.
The result, he said: “Fluid learning,” that is learning that involves simultaneous stimuli from multiple sources.
The implication: Educators will have to adapt to this new way of learning.
