American children spend much more

time per year in front of electronic screens in their homes

— TV, computers and video games — than they spend in

school, according to a new national report on children

and the media.

The survey found that nearly half of all homes with

children 2 to 17 years old have at least one television set,

a VCR, video game equipment and a home computer.

Three of five kids 12 to 17 years old have a TV set in their

room. In homes with children, subscriptions to the Internet

are nearly as common as subscriptions to newspapers.

As a result, researchers found that more teenagers could

name the cartoon characters on the popular TV show “The

Simpsons” than could identify Vice President Al Gore.

“Although television is still dominant, with the

introduction of new media, young people are now

spending an average of 4 1/2 hours every day sitting in

front of a screen of some kind,” said Jeffrey Stanger,

Washington director of the Annenberg Public Policy

Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

“Rather than displacing television as the dominant medium, new technologies have supplemented it, resulting in an aggregate increase in electronic media penetration and use.”

The data are found in four reports that the center released Sunday at its fourth annual Conference on Children and Television.

The 4 1/2 hours a day in front of a screen add up to about 1,642 hours a year. The average American child spends about 1,000 hours a year in school, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

–