New Media Usage among School Children of Bangalore

Abstract

A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in the United States during the turn of the millennium showed that children in America spent almost five hours watching television and two hours in front of the computer. As recently as June 2010, the World Summit on Media for Children and Youth held in Karlstad, Sweden held sway on the topic- ‘Towards the new global vision for children, youth and media’. Alberto Pellai, the Summit keynote speaker (representing the department of Public Health at the University Degli Studi Di Milano, Italy) touched upon the need for media education emphasizing on media content that had to educate and help in the growth and development of children rather than mislead the beliefs and value system of children. Statistics reveal new media as being a strong contender for top spot of favoured past time among children. It no longer surprises people that the time spent by children on new media usage has tripled in the last ten years in the US (Kaiser Family Foundation report). Children in urban India from all accounts are no different from their American counterparts. This trend needs to be pondered, debated and questioned. The researcher would like to explore the different issues related to children and new media usage from an urban perspective since new media is more accessible to urban Indians for obvious reasons- finance, socio-cultural readiness towards new, innovative medium of communication (new media) and educational background. Through interactive sessions with school students, parents and teachers the researcher would like to find out- why children use new media, the content used by children, parent perception of new media usage by their children, teacher’s view on new media usage by students. According to Bagman, a popular blogger, there are two kinds of people, “Whenever there is a question of a new medium, there are those who are excited because of it and those who are wary of it.” The researcher too, through this paper, would like to know which way people in urban India are inclined.