Television & Children

The amount of television Americans watch daily has increased dramatically through the years.  Many households use TV as their main source of entertainment and spend thousands of dollars a year on new TV sets, cable/satellite service, DVDs, and various accessories.  This is not to mention the amount of money spent on gaming such as X-Box®, Nintendo®, Play Station® and Wii®.

The Facts

The average American child spends:

• 3 hours a day watching TV (28 hours a week)
• 6 ½ hours a day with various media combined (games, videos, and TV)
• 30 hours a week in the classroom
• 39 minutes a week talking one-on-one with a parent

• 70% of day-care centers use TV during a typical day.
• 1 in 4 children under the age of 2 years has a TV in his/her bedroom.
• There are 2.73 TV sets in the average American household.

Children six and under spend an average of 2 hours a day using screen media compared to the 39 minutes reading (or being read to).

Kids who watch 4 or more hours of TV per day:

• Devote less effort to school work
• Have poorer reading skills
• Have less social skills
• Have fewer hobbies
• Are more likely to be overweight

Influence of Media on Children

Children are physically passive, yet mentally alert when watching TV. 

• Violence on TV becomes so familiar to children that it becomes “the norm”.
• Children who watch television often have reduced boundaries between adult and child knowledge.

TV and Violence

Violence on TV is so prevalent that children who watch a lot of TV view violence as “the norm.”  Violence becomes more acceptable, because children are so accustomed to seeing it.  According to a recent longitudinal study on national television violence, nearly 2/3 of all TV programming contains violence with children’s shows containing the most violence.  Additionally, portrayals of violence are usually glamorized and perpetrators are usually unpunished.  The link between violence seen on TV and real-life violence has been proven, with as much as 10% to 20% of real life violence being attributed to media violence (Pediatrics, 2001).

 

Body Image and Gender Identity

Boys	Girls
Learn violence is acceptable	Learn Ideal Weight & Image
Body dissatisfaction	Gender Roles and Stereotypes
Treatment of women	Effects on self esteem

TV and Obesity

In a study of preschoolers (ages 1-4), a child’s risk of being overweight increased by 6% for every hour of TV watched per day.  If that child had a TV in his or her bedroom, the odds of being overweight jumped an additional 31% for every hour watched. (Dennison, et.al. 2002)

Television & Developing Minds

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to avoid television and other electronic media for children two years of age and under.  Children are especially vulnerable at these earlier ages.  They are more sensitive to stimulation and modeling and cannot filter out negative images.   They also have difficulties discriminating between reality and imaginary world portrayed on TV.

Jane Healey wrote in the American Academy of Pediatrics News (1998), “While appropriate stimuli — close interaction with loving caregivers; an enriched, interactive, human language environment; engrossing hands-on play opportunities; and age-appropriate academic stimulation — enhance the brain's development, environments that encourage intellectual passivity and maladaptive behavior (e.g., impulsivity, violence), or deprive the brain of important chances to participate actively in social relationships, creative play, reflection and complex problem-solving may have deleterious and irrevocable consequences.”

 

Research indicates that for every hour of TV children watch each day, their risk of developing attention-related problems later increases by 10% (D. Christakis, 2004)

Quantity and Quality Matter!

Educational Programs:

• teach sharing, manners, and cooperation
• expose children to new countries, languages, and cultures
• provide an opportunity for discussion

Recommendations

• Avoid using TV as a babysitter.
• Know what your kids are watching.
• Set guidelines about what programs are acceptable.
• Avoid watching TV during mealtimes.
• Be a role model for your children-limit your own TV watching.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents:
• Limit children’s total media time (with entertainment media) to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming per day.
• Remove TV sets from children’s bedrooms.
• Discourage TV viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.
• Monitor the shows children and adolescents are viewing.  Most programs should be informational, educational, and nonviolent.
• View TV programs along with children and discuss content. 
• Use controversial programming as a stepping-off point to initiate discussions about family values, violence, sex and sexuality, and drugs.
• Use the VCR (or DVR) to record wisely to show/record high-quality, educational programming for children.
• Support efforts to establish comprehensive media-education programs in schools.
• Encourage alternative entertainment for children, including reading, athletics, hobbies, and creative play.

This information was based upon the following materials:

Richardson, Debbie.  “Taming the Tube: Effects of TV on Children.”  Presentation with Oklahoma Cooperative Extension, April, 2005.

Policy Statement: Children, Adolescents, and Television.

Pediatrics, 107 (2) February 2001, pp. 423-426.

Dennison, Barbara A., Erb, Tara A., and Paul A. Jenkins (2002). Television Viewing and Television in Bedroom Associated With Overweight Risk Among Low-Income Preschool Children. Pediatrics, 109 (6), 1028-1035.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/109/6/1028

Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH, Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD, David L. DiGiuseppe, MSc and Carolyn A. McCarty, PhD (2004). Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children. Pediatrics, 113 (4), 708-713.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/113/4/708

Tashman, Billy. Sorry Ernie, TV isn’t Teaching. New York Times, November 12, 1994.

Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital Media Centers, 2003.

Healy, Jane.  Understanding TV’s affects on the Developing Brain. American Academy of Pediatric News, May 1998.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

http://www.brainy-child.com/article/tvonbrain.html