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32 Heather A. Horst, Becky Herr-Stephenson, and Laura RobinsonBox 1.1 Media Ecologies: Quantitative PerspectivesChristo SimsHere I contextualize our ethnographic data by connecting our work to quantitativemeasures collected in several recent large-scale surveys of Americanyouth media practices. Such surveys strikingly demonstrate the pervasive, andseemingly increasing, prevalence of media in the daily lives of Americanyouth. In 2005, the Kaiser Family Foundation published data from a nationallyrepresentative survey of eight- to eighteen-year-olds showing that mostAmerican youth lived in households where media technologies were variedand numerous. On average, the youth in its sample lived in households with3.5 televisions, 2.9 VCRs or DVD players, 2.1 video-game consoles, and 1.5computers (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr 2005). Additionally, the Kaiser FamilyFoundation survey found that more than 80 percent had access to cable orsatellite television. More recently, the Pew Internet & American Life Projectconducted a survey that showed 94 percent of all American teenagers—whichit defines as twelve- to seventeen-year-olds—now use the Internet, 89 percenthave Internet access in the home, and 66 percent have broadband Internetaccess in the home (Lenhart et al. 2008). In 2008, the USC Digital FutureProject reported that broadband was now used in 75 percent of Americanhouseholds (USC Center for the Digital Future 2008). Additionally, Pewreported that in the fall of 2007, 71 percent of American teenagers owned amobile phone and 58 percent had a social network site profile (Lenhart et al.2008). In a 2006 survey, Pew found that 51 percent of teens owned an iPodor MP3 player (Macgill 2007). In addition to access, these studies tend toemphasize the frequency with which American youth engage media, manyof which have become part of daily life. The Kaiser Family Foundation studyfound that young Americans spend on average 6.5 hours with media per day:almost 4 hours a day with TV programming or recorded videos, approximately1.75 hours per day listening to music or the radio, roughly one houra day using the computer for nonschool purposes, and about 50 minutes aday playing video games (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr 2005). Pew’s 2007survey found that daily 63 percent of teens go online, 36 percent send textmessages, 35 percent talk on a mobile phone, 29 percent send IMs, and 23percent send messages through social network sites.The Pew, Kaiser, and USC studies each report on the increasing prevalenceof new media—notably the Internet and the mobile phone. Pew reports asteady increase in teen Internet use, from 73 percent in 2000, to 87 percentin 2004, to 95 percent in 2007, and a rapid increase in mobile phone ownership,going from 45 percent in 2004 to 71 percent in 2007 (Lenhart, Rainie,and Lewis 2001; Lenhart, Madden, and Hitlin 2005; Lenhart et al. 2008). Yetwhile new media have increased in popularity, they have not, according to