WASHINGTON -- The bedrooms of many American children and teens have become "media arcades," where two-thirds of them can watch television, half can play video games, and 20 percent can access the Internet, according to a new study released yesterday.

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The Kaiser Family Foundation study also showed that, despite increased parental concern over kids' media use, nearly two-thirds of children in grades 3 through 12 say the television is "usually" on during meals, and more than half of the 2,000 youths surveyed said their parents have no rules about watching TV.

Interestingly, however, youngsters who spend the most time with media also reported spending more time with their parents, being physically active and engaging in other hobbies, although the study's authors indicated that much of the time these children share with their parents may be spent watching television.

The Kaiser report, titled "Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds," highlighted parents' power in controlling media use. Children whose parents don't allow them to have media in their bedrooms, who turn off the TV during meals, and who set and enforce media rules spend substantially less time using electronic media and more time reading than other children.

"What parents do can make a real difference -- the environment they create, whether they allow media in the bedroom, and the rules they do and don't set," said Vicky Rideout, the Kaiser vice president who directed the study.

Donald Roberts, a Stanford University communications professor and co-author of the report, added: "When I was a kid and was told to go to my room, it was a punishment. Today, when kids are told to go to their rooms, they can visit a virtual media arcade."

The Kaiser report is the foundation's latest effort to track the impact of media in the lives of American children. Two years ago, another Kaiser study found that pre-schoolers up to 6 years old spent an average of two hours daily with "screen media" (TV, videos, computers) -- about the same amount of time they spent playing outside and three times as much time as they spent with books.

The new Kaiser study, meanwhile, shows that kids 8- to 18 devote an average of 6 1/2 hours each day to media (including books, magazines and newspapers), or 44 1/2 hours a week. That's basically the same amount as five years ago when the Kaiser Family Foundation released its first study on kids' media use.

Because children today are more likely to "media multi-task," however, their total media consumption actually is closer to 8 1/2 hours daily, as young people simultaneously watch television, "instant message" friends on the computer and listen to music on their CD players, the report said.

By multi-tasking, kids are devoting amounts of time to "new" media like computers, the Internet and video games, without cutting back on the time they spend on more traditional electronic media, such as television, according to the study. The amount of time kids spend media multi-tasking rose from 16 percent in 1999 to 26 percent today, with one in four young people saying they "often" or "sometimes" multi-task, the report showed.

"Multi-tasking is a growing phenomenon in [kids'] media use and we don't know whether it's good or bad or both," said Drew Altman, Kaiser's president and chief executive officer. "I do believe that kids' media use is one of the big public health issues of our time."

Altman and others who spoke during a morning news conference focused on the report's call for more research on the impact of media on kids. A few hours later, a bipartisan group of senators, including Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., attempted to oblige, as they re-introduced legislation that would target $90 million in federal funds over five years to develop more research on kids' media use.

"In effect, by exposing our children to so much unchecked media ... is like conducting an experiment...," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. "We have to be more aware of what children are exposed to, and encourage media habits that allow kids to be kids."

According to the Kaiser report, the 6 1/2 hours that children devote daily to media compares to about 2 1/4 hours spent hanging out with parents and about 1 1/2 hours being physically active. Data collected just on kids in grades 7 through 12 showed that they spent an average of just under an hour doing homework and about a half-hour doing chores each day.

TV and music are the dominant media in the lives of American youngsters, just as they were in 1999. Kids spend an average of three hours daily watching TV, with the youngest children, those ages 8-10, watching the most -- more than four hours daily, including videos and recorded shows.

But there have been some changes in recent years about how kids watch TV, the study showed. For example, more kids tune into cable TV than broadcast television, with two-thirds of all young people watching cable compared to just under half who watch broadcast TV. That's the exact reverse of the situation in 1999.

The number of kids who have cable or satellite TV in their bedrooms also increased, from 29 percent in 1999 to 37 percent. Kids with televisions in their bedrooms watched almost 1.2 hours more TV daily than those without bedroom TVs.

The Kaiser report also showed that more than eight of 10 kids listen to some kind of music daily, spending an average of 1 3/4 hours listening to the radio, or to CDs, tapes or MP3 players. Two out of three kids have downloaded music from the Internet, while almost half have listened to the radio through the Internet, the study showed.

One major change in children's media use over the past five years is the increase in the number of kids who have access to computer and the Internet. The percentage of kids with home computers rose from 73 percent in 1999 to 86 percent today, while home Internet access jumped from 47 percent to 74 percent.

As a result, the average amount of time kids spend on the computer outside of schoolwork each day has more than doubled to one hour. Instant messaging, which was a new media five years ago, now has become one of kids' most popular computer activities, consuming an average of 17 minutes daily.

More kids also have a computer in their bedrooms today -- 31 percent compared to 21 percent five years ago, and the proportion with Internet access on their bedroom computers has doubled from 10 percent in 1999 to 20 percent today, the report showed.

The majority of kids now have Internet access at home, but the digital divide persists. Eighty percent of white children have home Internet access, compared to 67 percent of Hispanic kids and 61 percent of African-American kids, the report showed.

More than eight in ten kids have a video game console at home, and just over half of kids have one in their bedrooms. Kids spend an average of 49 minutes daily playing video games. Eight- to 10-year-old boys are the biggest game players, with 73 percent of them playing daily for an average of 1 hours.

Only one in five children said their parents have rules about which video games they can play. Just 17 percent said their parents check the ratings on the video games they purchase; two-thirds of 7th through 12th graders -- including 77 percent of the boys -- said they have played the controversial "Grand Theft Auto" game in which police officers are shot.

Children do continue to read for pleasure, with nearly three of four kids saying they read for pleasure every day. On average, young people spend about three-quarters of an hour reading. Books were the most popular reading material, followed by magazines and then newspapers.