Kids today watch a lot of TV. That's the most immediate take-home message from a new report published by the children's advocacy organization Common Sense Media. Despite repeated warnings from pediatricians that young children and TV shouldn't mix, the report, Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America, finds that two-thirds of children aged eight and under watch TV at least once a day, typically watching for an hour-and-three-quarters. By comparison, they spend just under half an hour reading or being read to.

Back in 2007, the American Academy of Pediatrics published survey data on media consumption by young children that made for scary reading. Common Sense Media's report builds on that work, and where the data is comparable, it shows that we're making progress, but often not in the right direction.

TV is the big winner when it comes to kids' media consumption. Among five- to eight-year-olds, the heaviest media consumers, TV accounted for 1:57 of their 2:50 total screen time, and 72 percent watched TV daily. Computers and video games each got 24 minutes of their attention, with about five minutes of cell phone/iPod/iPad thrown in for good measure.

Common Sense Media's report also highlighted the socioeconomic disparities in media consumption and access among young children. African-American children spent more time watching TV, reading, and playing video games than either white or hispanic children. As family income and education levels increase, time spent consuming media decreases, with the bulk of that decrease coming from less time spent watching TV, which wasn't the case in the 2005 study.

Interestingly, there was no effect of family income or parental education level on the amount of time kids spent reading or being read to, although there was a racial effect, with African-American children reading the most (41 minutes a day), followed by white (28 minutes a day) and hispanic (25 minutes a day) children. The reading trend across time is a little depressing; compared to studies in 2003 and 2005, young children now spend 25 percent less time reading each day.

To my mind, the most critical data involves children aged two and younger. There's now plenty of evidence that these kids should not spend any time at all watching TV. That message isn't reaching parents, however; 66 percent of children under two have watched TV, even though their brains can't actually process the information meaningfully. Although the numbers of daily TV viewers aged two and under has kept constant between 2005 and 2011, the amount of time they spend in front of the box has risen, from just over an hour to an hour and half. The number of infants and toddlers with TVs in their rooms has jumped too, from 19 percent to 29 percent.

Sadly I don't have any great ideas about how to reduce this. I'm aware that for many time-strapped parents, plunking junior down in front of the screen may provide much needed respite, but the jury is back in on this one, and it's pretty clear that junior isn't being done any favors in the process.