Creating a balance between media consumption and face-to-face interaction.
According to a report published in 2009 by Nielsen, time spent online among kids increased 63 percent in the last five years. Since 2004, the actual number of kids who have gained online access has increased by 18 percent.
"The growth of children online outpaces the overall growth of children in the U.S., where kids under 14 are projected decrease by 1 percent from 2004 to 2010," the report states.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids eight to 18 years old spend 7.5 hours a week consuming various forms of media -- from television to the Internet.
With this increased consumption of media, some parenting experts are arguing that parents are losing touch with their kids' personal lives, and that more effort should be made to mediate and involve themselves in their children's media experience.
"[We have] the three Cs: contact, content and cost," said Wired Safety's Parry Aftab in a Today Show appearance (Wired Safety is a Safe Internet Alliance member). "Every time we put technology in our kids' hands, we need to say, 'can our kids talk to others, can other kids contact our kids, can they share or view content, and what can they do that's going to cost them in value, time, and money?"
Aftab explained that there's a fine line when it becomes apparent that kids are consuming too much media: their grades go down, they don't speak to their parents as often, etc.
"What we need to do is be brave enough to say, 'I'm the parent," she said. "Take the cell phone, put it in your night stand when your kids are supposed to be having dinner with you. Know the technologies, and find that balance. They have to do well in school and their social lives and with their families."
Another parenting expert interviewed for the segment said that it's too early to know the effects that all this media will have on children.
"Because it's redefining a whole sense of childhood," she said. "We don't know the neurological implications, we don't know how this is going to impact our kids socially. So let's get more commonsensical about it. The key question is, 'what is your kid tuning out?' It's you. If he's watching seven hours of all this other media it means that the face-to-face relationship of just being with you is gone. Your influence goes down."
Though she said that this media consumption shouldn't be resisted, she argued, like Aftab, that the lack of face-to-face time can be a detriment:
"It is clearly the way they live their lives, so we have to step up to the plate. And we also have to make the face-to-face interaction that people might be losing."