ABSTRACT

The explosion in technological options available to children and adolescents over the past few years is truly remarkable. A large proportion of children and teens carry pagers and cell phones. They communicate with their friends via email and join chat rooms on the Web. They enjoy DVD and CD players and do much of their homework on computers. They have quickly come to depend on the efficiency and portability of most devices and are often more knowledgeable about them than their parents and completely at ease in their use. New technological developments can influence the impact of the media on children and adolescents in both direct and indirect ways. Not only has media content changed, but children’s access to it has changed quickly too, and important questions have arisen almost as fast.