We found that teens generally found watching television more enjoyable than playing video games. However, when gender was analyzed, it appeared that boys reported that both activities were equally enjoyable, while girls would much rather watch television than play video games.  

Teens reported a diversity of viewing habits. On average they reported spending 13 hours a week watching television (somewhat below Statistics Canada figures). The majority of teens watched somewhere between 4 and 20 hours per week and a minority of teens said they watched in excess of 30 hours (9 per cent) or did not watch at all (6 per cent).  

The survey revealed gender differences in the use of both television and video games. In particular, boys seemed to use these as complementary forms of entertainment. That is, the boys who spent the most time playing video games also reported the most TV watching. In fact, male heavy players watched on average 20 hours of television a week, almost double the amount that other males and females watched. Keeping in mind that heavy players were kids who spent at least 7 hours a week playing games, the combined activities of television and video game play took up nearly 30 hours per week, if not more. This pattern of complementary media use was not found for girls who seemed to trade off TV and video game play.  

Participants were also asked to rate the types of shows they liked to watch (e.g. sports, comedy/sitcom etc). Genre preferences for television were much more clearly defined than for video games. In particular, a preference was found for entertainment oriented programs over information based programs. For example, teens liked watching sitcoms (82 per cent), films (73 per cent), action shows (70 per cent), and cartoons (53 per cent). In contrast, teenagers generally disliked advertisements (10 per cent), infomercials (11 per cent), educational programs (14 per cent), news (15 per cent), and nature shows (18 per cent).

Girls and boys reported stereotypical viewing preferences. In particular, males enjoy watching sports and action shows whereas females were keener on drama. Different viewing tastes were also found among heavy and light players. Both male and female heavy players tended to enjoy watching cartoons more than light players, suggesting the existence of shared entertainment value for cartoons and video games.