A huge hit of the 21st century for young adults is media. Whether it is through a phone, laptop or TV, media is everywhere. Teenagers are significantly influenced by it, making it a huge part of their life.

The Internet gives teens a place to go when they have nothing to do. With smartphones and handy devices, teens spend most of their day on cell phones and have difficulty staying off of addictable media. Even schools are promoting media use, such as Allen uses the flipped classroom where students watch videos to learn class material at home. Also, teachers and students are required to use Canvas for homework and class assignments. At other schools in Texas they have provided ipads for AP or challenging courses where students can use them in class to do class assignments or to take notes.

According to the Common Sense Media study conducted on teens and media, an average tween spends about four and a half hours on media daily, while teens spend about six and a half hours on media daily. Hours of media usage consist of reading or listening to radio, social media and video chatting/texting. Some disadvantages of high amount of hours spent on media are that it lessens amount of sleep, gives headaches, takes away time from education, provides a large availability of inappropriate content and makes teens too dependent on Internet.

The Common Sense Media study discovered that boys use more video games while girls use social media, gamers don’t get out as much as other people, and there’s a digital divide that follows income differences among teens/tweens who use media.

Nearly one in five teens is using more than six hours of screen media and 18 percent are using more than 10 hours of social media.

One myth conducted in the study is media will put an end to reading. On average a teen spends only half an hour per day reading (in print or screens), although reading was still one of their most favorite activities. Another myth is that the teens spend most of their time watching TV. To support this myth, statistics state that about 47 percent of tweens and 57 percent of teens have TV sets in their bedrooms.

Teens and media research demonstrates how teens spend too many hours invested in devices rather than hanging out with friends, enhancing education or improving life skills.

This issue can be solved by enforcing more strict regulations and laws by parents and schools. Parents should limit their children’s video game hours, TV hours and cell phone usage; instead enforce reading books, meeting new people and spending more time outdoors. Also, school systems should stop mandatory usage of apps and programs that force students to use media even more than how much they already do on other fun apps or shows.

Media gives people something to rely on; whether it’s to have fun or learn, but imagine a world without media. Most people would discover that they lack important skills. Teens have become extremely dependent on media and that will destruct society in the future.