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172 Heather A. HorstRoutines and RhythmsAlthough parents value the potential of new media to bring familiestogether, they also recognize that young people’s use of new media causesdisruptions to school and family life. Parents attempt to counteract thepossibilities for distraction from activities that they believe are more importantby restricting their kids from playing games or going on IM and socialnetwork sites before schoolwork, household chores, and other productiveactivities are completed. In addition, they set time limits on media use,such as thirty minutes or one hour per day. Peter, a thirteen-year-old participantin Matteo Bittanti’s study “Game Play,” explained, “My parents letme play between four and ten p.m. during the week, but the schedule ismore flexible during weekends.” Twelve-year-old Akmalla notes that herparents have set controls on World of Warcraft so that she will go to bed.As she described to Patricia Lange (YouTube and Video Bloggers), “like ifyou try to log on after a certain hour when your parents have said no, it’llsay, ‘You cannot log on because your parents are controlling it.’ ” Suchexternal control features are used by parents who possess a more sophisticatedknowledge of computers.In some cases, parents prohibit their kids from using new media altogetherduring the school and workweek, saving weekends for unstructured,nonproductive play. Nineteen-year-old Torus, who is an Indian-Italianfrom the Los Angeles area, discussed with Patricia Lange (YouTube andVideo Bloggers) how his parents structured his time for gaming:Before I kind of got to college and my senior year of high school, it was pretty muchyou play on weekends for just a couple of hours, but you have to study, all the restof the time. So, even when we were very young . . . even when I was like eight ornine, my dad required us to study for two hours before we could play two hours ofgames, so it was those kind of . . . it was very clear to us that our parents thoughtof it as definitely a reward system, not a privilege, not a right, sort of thing. Like Icould never play during the week and I hardly watched TV during the week, but onthe weekend, I could usually play. Me and my brother would play.Such routines changed seasonally. Many of the young people we interviewednoted that their parents closely monitored their use of new mediaduring the school year, but summers and breaks remained relativelyunstructured. Kids report playing games or checking social network sitesup to five or six hours a day during summer breaks and other less structuredtimes of the year. Many young people value this time because it enables