VOA慢速英语2010年-Economics Report - For Youths in US, a

This is the VOA Special English Economics¹ Report.

American children and teenagers have increased their use of entertainment media by more than one hour a day in the last five years. On an average day they now spend seven and a half hours using media.

These are the findings of a new survey. It included devices like TVs, computers, mobile phones and MP3 players, but also media like books and magazines. It did not count media use for school.

Vicky Rideout at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group, wrote the report. She was surprised that kids could fit even more media time into their day.

She found that they spent ten hours and forty-five minutes if you counted each device individually. But children multi-task a lot, and Vicky Rideout says this is not necessarily a good thing.

VICKY RIDEOUT: "People who study the brain will tell you that you can't actually multi-task in that way. You're really switching back and forth² sequentially from different tasks, just doing it rapidly, and that you don't really do either task as well as you would do them if you did them one at a time."

The study suggests a link between heavy media use and lower performance in school. About one-fourth of those who used media the least reported that their grades were mostly average or below. But that was true of half the heavy media users.

So where are the parents? Children who had any rule limiting the use of any kind of media were exposed to an average of about three hours less media a day. But only one-third of children had to follow any rules.

Girls spent more time than boys on social networking sites, listening to music and reading. Boys spent more time on video games -- an average of forty-eight minutes more a day than girls.

VICKY RIDEOUT: "It looks like the girls just sort of lose interest in the games and they drop off and start doing other things, whereas³ the boys' interest remains⁴ strong."

Some other findings: Time spent reading books has not dropped in the last five years. But time with newspapers and magazines has, though some reading now takes place online.

Blacks and Hispanics use media over four hours more a day than other groups. And for all children, media use appears to reach its highest point between the ages of eleven and fourteen. Vicky Rideout will try to explain these findings in future research.

The report is based on more than two thousand students ages eight to eighteen. They took a written survey in class through May of last year.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. How much media use do you think is enough for children? Post your comments at voaspecialenglish.com, and you can find transcripts⁵ and captioned⁶ videos of our reports. I'm Mario Ritter.

1 economics   

n.经济学，经济情况

参考例句：

• He is studying economics,which subject is very important.他正在学习经济学，该学科是很重要的。
• One can't separate politics from economics.不能把政治与经济割裂开来。

2 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

3 whereas   

conj.而，却，反之

参考例句：

• They want a house,whereas we would rather live in a flat.他们想要一座房子，而我们宁愿住在一套房间里。
• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

6 captioned   

a.标题项下的； 标题所说的

参考例句：

• This paper reviews the production, development and nationalization of the captioned materials. 本文就铜系合金引线框架材料的生产、发展和国产化进程作一论述。
• Please advise other considerable hotels for this captioned group. 请推荐其它一些高级的旅馆给这一群打标语的人。