Globe Technology: Children Abandon Remote, Grab Mouse

If teenagers and children are forgoing a few weekly hours with Buffy and Bart Simpson - the Statistics Canada study found teens are watching two hours less a week and children under 12 are watching one hour less - then experts say it's only because the computer, with its endless games, chat rooms and on-command music videos, is kicking the boob out of the tube.

It's a trend with mixed results: It doesn't ease fears that endless vegging before a small screen is creating a disease-plagued generation of school-aged couch potatoes. But observers suggest it does identify the youth of today as a discerning audience with a growing preference for the machine they can control rather than the one that controls them - a choice, doctors and sociologists say, for the lesser evil.

While navigating the computer "at least they have the opportunity to develop their brains and not turn them into mush," said Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the McLuhan Program on mass media at the University of Toronto.

Oh please. Sure, it's great that kids are spending more time in the Internet but is it really better then sitting on the couch and watching TV? Oh wait, I'm an online marketer…I want more online time!

Kids, you can go exercise later. Right now, click on my ad.