MUMBAI: Asia's youth spend nine and a half hours each day consuming some form of media  Listening to music is very important to the lives of two thirds of young Asians and 34 per cent said they had spent more time listening to music in the last year, according to a new Synovate study.

The fourth annual Synovate Young Asians study looks at what's in the hearts and minds of the region's youth, revealing their media consumption, purchase habits, attitudes, favourite singers and cartoons  It covers 12 markets across Asia, including Japan and Vietnam for the first time.

Synovate conducted the survey in conjunction with the research sponsors - Microsoft Advertising, MTV, and Yahoo!.

Media across different platforms have certainly taken hold of youth across Asia in a significant way and this influence continues to grow. In fact, twenty-five percent admitted that they just couldn't live without the Internet while 23% said that they plan to watch more TV," says Synovate managing director Steve Murphy.

The survey also explored the engagement levels of eight to 24 year olds on  different types of activities and time spent on media. Synovate found that 35 per cent had used the Internet more than a year ago, while close to a quarter (23 per cent) had spent more time watching TV.

Newspaper and magazine reading remained unchanged with 64 per cent of respondents spending roughly the same amount of time on both media. More than a quarter (29 per cent) of young Asians set-aside time and plan their schedules around their favourite TV programmes, hoping to catch every episode.

The biggest media junkies can be found in Korea (13.7 hours a day), Hong Kong (12.7 hours a day) and Singapore (12.6 hours a day)  This covers time spent on the Internet, watching TV or DVD/VCD/videos, reading newspapers or magazines and listening to the radio.

Topping the list of purchasing influence and decision making among individual markets were young Thais (94 per cent) when it comes to buying snack food followed by Indonesians (92 per cent) and Indians (89 per cent) while Hong Kong youngsters (64 per cent) were able to influence the purchasing of video games.

Young Thais (62 per cent) again together with Koreans (51 per cent) top the influence scale when it comes to buying skincare and grooming products while Indonesian youngsters have the biggest say on mobile phones.

Apart from voicing an opinion and having influence, we also discovered a sense of pro-activeness among Asian youth, particularly young Indians (59 per cent), Taiwanese (47 per cent) and Vietnamese (43 per cent) who indicated that they would not only influence purchases but get their own snack food, candy, chocolates and soft drinks,... he added.