The Kaiser Family Foundation has published a shocking survey on the usage patterns of media:

A national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that with technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth.  Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Lets do the math:

• 6 hours for school (we hope)
• 8 hours for sleep (kids need their sleep)

That leaves 10 hours for other stuff of which 75% involved media of some form. This would obviously include the kids walking around in a group, a single ear bud in their ear while they hang out with their friends. No wonder childhood obesity continues to skyrocket.

It is all about moderation. On the business side, it has profound impacts. How do you keep their attention? An HBR blog makes an interesting point:

In this increasingly seamless media landscape, you need to ask yourself, how "continuous" is your brand and the service that supports it? Do people "see" the same company across the web, phone, call center, and in person? In my work with companies, I have found great disconnects among the customer contact channels.

In conversations I have with CIO’s, when it comes to the next generation of workers, the number one challenge is ‘How do I match their consumer like experience, where they work with the latest and greatest to the realities of a controlled IT environment?’ Very interesting times ahead.