Half of the 12-year-olds in Malta can freely access the Internet from their bedroom, while another quarter have cable TV in their sleeping area, according to fresh research. Traditional media barely features in the lives of 12-to-15-year-olds.
The ability to surf the net from the privacy of their bedroom rises with age to 62 per cent for 13-year-olds and 63 per cent for 14-year-olds.
These figures emerge from the preliminary nationwide research of Velislava Hillman as part of her postgraduate work.
The study took a sample of 744 youngsters aged 12 to 15, with a small percentage of 16-year-olds, with a proportionate representation of students in state, Church and private schools.
Research abroad has shown the time young people spend with new media technologies is equivalent to a full-time job, and this is reflected in Malta, where children as young as 12 own a mobile phone (96 per cent), an iPod or MP3 player (73 per cent), a smartphone (43 per cent), and video games (43 per cent).
Children aged 12-16 spend between two to 13 hours with some form of media on a typical day and none of this media use is in any way related to schools projects or homework.
The study revealed a correlation between how students scored in school and their level of media use. Heavy media users (three hours and more in a day) are more likely to perform poorly and get grades of 50 per cent and less, when compared with moderate (30 minutes to one hour) and light (up to 30 minutes) users.
A similar correlation exists between media use and the level of youngsters' personal contentment. Heavy users said they were often bored (45 per cent compared with 23 cent of light users), got into trouble a lot (49 per cent compared with 22 per cent), and were often sad or unhappy (43 per cent compared with 25 per cent).
Light users tended to have more friends (37 per cent compared with 28 per cent of heavy users), get along with their parents (43 per cent compared with 27 per cent) and are happy at school (40 per cent as opposed to 26 per cent)
Multitasking – reading, while listening to music and browsing the internet – has also become a way of life for youngsters, and the older they are, the more they indulge in this habit. Those aged 12-14 are equally split, but 15- to 16-year-olds are predominantly multi-taskers – 52 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.
Ms Hillman believes gaining knowledge about media use and exposure plays a vital role in the effort to build and maintain a healthy environment for young people.
"We cannot isolate children from media because it's such an integral part of our lives. What we all need to focus on is striking the eternal balances," she said.
Full story in The Sunday Times