Читать книгу Our Social World - Kathleen Odell Korgen - Страница 168

Take a moment to consider the impact of rapidly growing screen time on the socialization process. Television, computers, and other electronic devices are important informal agents of socialization at the meso level. They can be categorized as intermediate-sized social units—larger than a local community but smaller than a nation. However, their impact reaches from the micro to macro levels, from individuals and families to nation-states and global agencies. Electronic media shape global policies at the macro level and affect family interactions at the micro level.

Internet users now number over 4 billion, over half of the world’s population; the fastest growth of users is in Africa (Kemp 2018), and the largest number of users are in China, followed by India not far behind. In all of North America, 70% of the population had at least one social networking account in 2017, including 81% in the United States (Statista 2018b). The rapid change in electronic usage around the world is affecting the socialization process, world interconnectedness, and how people communicate from the micro to macro levels. Figure 4.2 shows the use of social media in the United States in 2018 (Smith and Anderson 2018).

Description

▼ Figure 4.2 Social Media Use in the United States

Source: “Social Media Use in 2018.” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (March 1, 2018), http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018.

Note: Pre-2018 telephone poll data are not available for YouTube, Snapchat, or WhatsApp.

Young adults and millennials spend more time on their mobile phones and catch up on TV shows through that medium. By the time an average child in the United States reaches age 18, he or she will have spent more time watching television than doing any other single activity besides sleeping. Although TV is still the most watched media, other electronic forms are catching up and in some cases surpassing TV (Dunn 2017).

Thinking Sociologically

What impact do you think the introduction of electronics and social media has on families in the Global South developing countries, especially in rural areas?

On average, children 9 years and under in the United States are on their screens more than 2 hours a day; pediatricians agree that this affects their socialization experience, often negatively, depending on the amount and type of screen time. Children are spending much more time on mobile devices than they are reading, being read to, or playing outside. In addition, children from lower-income families (under $30,000 a year) spend more time with screen media than children from homes making more than $75,000 a year, a screen difference of 1 hour and 39 minutes daily (Howard 2017). Couch potato behavior cuts down on active play and brain development.

▲ These children illustrate how electronic devices influence the socialization process. Notice that they are not even all sharing the same device, and this influences the way they relate to each other.

© iStock/gradyreese

Mass media moguls influence what electronic media reaches children. These meso-level social institutions can influence the socialization of children within the most intimate of environments—the micro-level family. However, what influence they have depends on parental decisions about access to media. Parents oversee children’s media experiences, what they are allowed to watch and for how long (Ofcom 2017). Parents who play an active role in helping children understand the content of television and computer games can have a powerful effect on mitigating media’s negative impacts and enhancing the positive aspects of media. The media usage habits of parents can also influence how their children respond to media (National Consumers League 2013).