Children and TV

Did it really take a study to prove that TV is bad for young children? Apparently so.

Researchers at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Centre in Seattle found that for each hour of TV a child watches, there is a 10% increase in the risk of attention deficit disorder (ADD). Read the complete research findings here.

Wonder why? Possibly because children become accustomed to a level of stimulation watching TV that is much higher than they would experience in life. Combine this with the flashing images common in children's programming, and you've set children up to be ill-suited to deal with school, homework, concentration, reading, and real life in general. Three recent studies show that as TV viewing increases, academic performance decreases (Diller, Amen, and Armstrong).

Before formal schooling even begins, however, the damage of TV viewing is well underway. Research has found that exposure to television causes delayed language acquisition in toddlers. As if that is not bad enough, a 2006 study linked the rise in autism to an increase in exposure to television.

Grim facts. Perhaps that's why the American Academy of Pediatrics advises that children under the age of two be kept away from TV altogether.

International TV Turnoff Week is observed during April of each year. The challenge is to abstain from any TV viewing for an entire week. Mark you calendars! Are you up for the challenge?

-Brandon

Sources:
Amen D (2001) Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program That Allows You to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD, New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Armstrong T (1995) The Myth of the ADD Child, New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Christakis D (2004) Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children, PEDIATRICS: Vol. 113 No. 4 April 2004

Close R (2004) Television and language development in the early years, from National Literacy Trust Web site: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/TV.pdf

Diller L (1998) Running on Ritalin, New York, NY: Bantam.
Waldman M (2006) Does Television Cause Autism?, from Johnson Graduate School of Management Cornell University Web site: http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/Waldman/AUTISM-WALDMAN-N...