Debate
Continues on TV Watching by Children
Three new studies reported in the Archives
of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine find that too much television
time can lower test scores, retard learning, and even predict college performance.
In the first report, researchers studied the effect that
having a TV in a child's bedroom can have on third graders.
"We looked at the household media environment in relation
to academic achievement on mathematics, reading, and language arts tests," says
study author Dr. Dina L.G. Borzekowski, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Borzekowski and her colleague, Dr. Thomas Robinson of
Stanford University, collected data on 386 third graders and their parents
about how much TV the children watched, the number of TV sets, computers, and
video game consoles in the household, and where they were.
They also collected data on how much time the children spent
using the different media, as well as the time spent doing homework and reading.
The researchers found that the media in the household, where
it is, and how it is used can have a profound effect on learning.
"We found that the household media environment has a very
close association with performance on the different test scores," Dr. Borzekowski
said.
"A child who has a TV in his or her bedroom is likely to
have a score that is eight points lower on a mathematics test compared to a
child who doesn't have a TV in the bedroom," she notes. These children also
scored lower on the reading and language arts tests.
However, children who have access to a home computer are
likely to have higher scores on each of the tests compared with children who
do not have access to a home computer, Dr. Borzekowski notes.
The reasons why TV has this negative effect are not clear,
Dr. Borzekowski points out. "When there's TV in the bedroom, parents are less
likely to have control over the content and the amount watched. They are also
unable to know how early or how late the set is on. This seems to be associated
with kids' performance on academic tests."
Dr. Borzekowski believes that content and the time the TV
is on may be the primary reasons for its negative effect.
"If the TV is in the family room, then parents can see the
content of what children are watching," she says. "Parents can choose to sit
alongside and watch, or turn the set off. A simple and straightforward, positive
parenting strategy is to keep the TV out of the child's bedroom, or remove
it if it's already there."
In the second report, Dr. Robert J. Hancox from the University
of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues found, regardless of your
intelligence or social background, if you watch a lot of TV during childhood,
you are a lot less likely to have a college degree by your mid-20s.
In their study, the researchers followed 1,037 people born
in 1972 and 1973. Every two years, between the ages of five and 15, they were
asked how much television they watched. The researchers found that those who
watched the most television during these years had earned fewer degrees by
the time they were 26.
"We found that the more television the child had watched,
the more likely they were to leave school without any qualifications," Dr.
Hancox says. "Those who watched little television had the best chance of going
on to university and earning a degree."
Dr. Hancox's team found that watching TV at an early age
had the most effect on graduating from college.
"An interesting finding was that although teenage viewing
was strongly linked to leaving school without any qualifications, it was earlier
childhood viewing that had the greatest impact on getting a degree," he says. "This
suggests that excessive television in younger children has a long-lasting adverse
effect on educational performance."
In the third report, Dr. Frederick J. Zimmerman and Dr.
Dimitri A. Christakis from the University of Washington report that, for very
young children, watching TV can result in lower test scores in mathematics,
reading recognition, and reading comprehension.
"We looked at how much television children watched before
age three and then at ages three to five," Dr. Zimmerman says. "We found that
for children who watched a small amount of TV in the earlier years, there was
considerable beneficial effect compared to children who watched a lot of TV."
For children ages three to five, the effect was not as clear,
Dr. Zimmerman notes. "There were some beneficial effects of watching TV on
reading, but no beneficial effects for math or vocabulary. The worst pattern
was to watch more than three hours of TV before age three. Those kids had a
significant disadvantage compared to the other kids."
Parents should follow the American
Academy of Pediatrics recommendation, which is no TV for children
under two, Dr. Zimmerman notes. "Personally, I feel the cutoff should be
children under three, because there is just not any good content for children
under three."
One expert believes that TV can have both positive and negative
effects, but it all depends on what children are watching.
"Content matters," says Dr. Deborah L. Linebarger, an assistant
professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who co-authored an accompanying
editorial.
"Educational content has been found to be related to performance
on school readiness tests, higher grades when they are teenagers, whereas non-educational
content tends to be associated with lower academic performance," Dr. Linebarger
says.
Another expert agrees. "TV watching takes up space that
could be used by more useful things," says Dr. Christopher P. Lucas, a clinical
coordinator at the Early Childhood Evaluation and Treatment Program at the
New York University Child Study Center.
"TV is not necessarily toxic, but is something that has
to be done in moderation; something that balances the other needs of the child
for healthy development," Dr. Lucas notes.
Dr. Lucas puts the responsibility for how much TV kids watch
and what they watch squarely on parents.
"The amount of TV watching certainly has a link with the
reduced amount of time reading or doing homework," he says. "The key is the
amount of control parents have in limiting the amount of access. Get the TV
out of the bedroom; be aware of what is being watched; limit the amount of
TV watching," he emphasizes.
Always consult your child's physician for more information.
|
