By Meg Jalsevac
LANGLEY, B.C., August 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Eighty-three percent of children under six usually watch about two hours of TV or some other form of screen media according to a study performed by the Kaiser Family Foundation and reported by Today’s Family News. Screen media includes watching TV, videos & DVDs, computer use and video games. By the time children reach the age of four to six, that figure has risen to 90 percent of children having high daily exposure to some form of media.ÂÂ
Most notably, the study highlights that more and more children and teens are being allowed this screen time in the privacy of their own rooms, totally separate from other family members and away from parental supervision. The results of the study show that 19 percent of children one or under had their own television in their room and 43 percent of children in the four to six age group. A separate Gallup Poll shows that 64 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 had TV’s in their rooms and 28 percent had a computer with internet in their bedrooms.
According to the Kaiser study parents justify their liberal use of television by claiming that, among other reasons, TV and videos teach such lessons as the ABCs and that TV is an able babysitter allowing parents to accomplish other things. TV time is also used as a reward and as a soothing agent before bed. However, the most common reason that parents give for putting a television in their child’s room was that it allows parents and other children to watch their own shows.Â
Even the conductors of the Kaiser study were surprised by these results. Victoria Rideout, lead researcher, told AP, “I had this sense of kids clamoring to use media and parents trying to keep their finger in the dam. I found that not be a very accurate picture in most cases.”Â
Bedroom use of TV’s presents a danger because it has been found to diminish family activities and prevent family interaction. With bedroom TV’s, parents have little or no control over the content or amount of television watched, allowing for excessive amounts of media absorption by their child or teen.Â
As to the educational benefits of TV programs for young children, Daniel Anderson, a professor of psychology at University of Massachusetts at Amherst said “[T]he fact is that there is no real evidence yet of learning benefits.” Frequent screen media use presents a danger to small children who become dependent on the noise and images coming from a TV. They become so habituated to it that they are not able to fall asleep without the television going as background noise. Bedroom TV’s have also been associated with childhood obesity since television watching discourages physical activity and rather, encourages munching and snacking.Â
As children grow older and approach the teen years, the effects of bedroom TV’s become more detrimental. According to a study from Stanford University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University, third graders with a TV in their room scored consistently and significantly lower on standardized tests than those without a bedroom TV.Â
The University of California published the results of a study that found that teen-agers that had televisions in their bedrooms are not only more likely to watch more TV but are also more prone to smoking, drug use, drinking and sexual activity than their peers.ÂÂ The study directly links the dangerous behavior to the unsupervised TV exposure that teens enjoy in the privacy of their bedroom.ÂÂ
The study also shows that parents who allow a teen-ager to have a TV in their bedroom were usually less likely to know where and with whom their teens spent time. Another Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 7 in 10 teens ages 15 to 17 say they have come across pornographic material “by accident” on the Internet, including 23 percent who say this has happened “very” or “somewhat” often.
Dr Michael Ferri, a psychiatrist from Ontario, Canada said that TV and other such media, no matter where in the house, compete with the contact time children have in direct relationships with those around them.Â
Ferri emphasizes that the most detrimental effect comes from the content of the television that children are watching. Children become habituated to seeing violence, sexual exploitation and a denigration of the parental role.ÂÂ
Dr. Ferri concluded, “The sum total is that [TV] changes the nature of relationship between children and their parents and children and their peers to be irrelevant and ineffective and provides for an overall decrease in responsiveness to the needs of others so [children] are more detached. The risks of detachment are unhappiness, depression and anxiety.”Â
See Previous LifeSiteNews.com stories:
U.S. Study: TV Depicts Religion in Negative Light
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/dec/04121708.html
Growing Awareness That Time Spent in Front of TV Has Negative Consequences
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/sep/040908a.html
CBS Teams with Gay Group to Promote Homosexuality to Teens on TV
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06050404.html
TV Viewing Hampers Children’s Creativity, Time Spent with Family says New Study
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06020901.html