Most of us are generally aware that television isn’t the healthiest of activities. Yet, like cigarette smoking in the 1970s, it’s one of those harms we continue to whitewash or worse — exposing our children to it as though it were as innocent as playing with Tinkertoys.
Yet as today’s Boston Globe reminds us, TV is not this passive device you sit your children in front of with no ill effects. Decades worth of research have shown the harmful effects of TV on your child’s development. Most child psychologists and child development experts recommend no TV whatsoever for a child before the age of 2 or 3. None. Yet a whopping 43 percent of parents plop their toddler down in front of the television set, apparently blind to the consequence of their actions.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the research:
Countless studies have documented the inverse link between devotion to the boob tube and achievement in school. Researchers at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons concluded in 2007, for example, that 14-year-olds who watched one or more hours of television daily “were at elevated risk for poor homework completion, negative attitudes toward school, poor grades, and long-term academic failure.’’ Those who watched three or more hours a day were at even greater risk for “subsequent attention and learning difficulties,’’ and were the least likely to go to college.
In 2005, a study published in the American Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that the harm caused by TV watching shows up even after correcting the data to account for students’ intelligence, family conditions, and prior behavioral problems. The bottom line: “Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence was associated with a lower level of educational attainment by early adulthood.’’
The baleful effects of TV aren’t limited to education. The University of Michigan Health System notes on its extensive website that kids who watch TV are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to suffer from sleep difficulties, and to have high cholesterol.
There are also the studies that show that teens who watch more sexual content on TV are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the next three years than their peers. Imagine an illicit drug was resulting in twice the amount of teen pregnancies and how quickly parents would be an uproar to stop the peddling of that drug in their neighborhood.
“Ah,” but you argue, “I grew up on TV and I came out okay!” Sure, personal anecdotes and analogies are great, but not a great way to inform public policy or carry on a serious public health debate. What works for a single individual at a single point of time in a single household doesn’t carry the same weight as a scientific study that examines data across families and neighborhoods, studies that were carried out over time and with attention to possible alternative explanations (such as the fact that maybe in your household, TV time was more strictly limited than you remember, or the content in the programs themselves was very different than today’s content).
The upshot — we Americans watch way too much TV and we raise our children on TV, somewhat oblivious to its negative effects on our children’s development. While TV isn’t evil, it is a powerful media that has a well-understood impact on a child’s or teen’s development. Like the Internet, it should be allowed with clear rules and conditions, and time doing it should be monitored and limited. What the “right” number for you and your family will vary, but it should not be “whenever they want” and “as much as they want.”
Read the full article: Silence that idiot box!
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7 Comments to
“The Debilitating Effects of TV on Children”
Correlation is not causality. Why should watching TV cause all of these behavioural problems in such diverse areas? Sleep, smoking behaviour, sexual behaviour, diet, educational attainment, attention difficulties, learning difficulties, not completing homework, attitude to school – to name just the ones listed in this summary. I’m interested to see what theories have been given to explain how watching an illuminated box causes all of these problems.
I see that the 2005 study corrected for some factors, which is a start. But I doubt they corrected for things like how strict the parents are and their work ethic, etc. I imagine that this has an effect on both TV watching and all of the other things apparently ’caused’ by TV. In the end it’s impossible to correct for everything, so the only way to establish causality is first to have a plausible theory that explains why, and then do an experiment to test it directly.
We raised our kids without TV (they are now 33 & 30). My husband & I both attended boarding school so TV was not a big part of our lives. We had to go out of our way to watch it & nothing seemed worth the effort.
My main concern was the attention span of children who watch a lot of TV seems to be short & they do not spend a lot of time reading or interacting w/their parents. I had no idea about all the raunchy stuff on TV, either!
We read to our children every night (went through all of the Oz books; I think there are 8 of them! “Little House on the Prairie” series–of course–”Pilgrim’s Progress”; the Narnia series; “A Wrinkle in Time”; plus all the Madeline books, Winnie the Pooh, etc).
My husband & I loved that time together & reading books OUR parents never read to us.
Needless to say, without them viewing commercials we didn’t have them clamoring for the latest “It” gift for Christmas. One year I heard of people flying to Europe to get some doll–cabbage patch?–for their poor darlings who would be heartbroken without one. Soda pop, boxed cereal, all that advertised stuff we were free of being nagged about!
It was funny in that one recess at school when my daughter was in kindergarten the kids wanted to play “Wonder Woman.” She had no idea what that was, but seemed to get the gist of it enough to participate. I remember taking walks on beautiful evenings after dinner (we lived in an apartment complex while my husband was in grad school) & in practically every window you could see a TV screen lit up. It felt almost eerie, like the country was being indoctrinated by “Mork & Mindy”–that was the hot show back then–shows how old I am!
One little girl came to play after school & when we told her we had no TV to watch, she was amazed. When she told her mother that, her mother said that we MUST have one & hid it in the closet!
Our kids did very well. I’m a mother so I don’t want to get into bragging, etc., but we didn’t have to pay any college tuition or grad school (or law school) tuition.
Most importantly they have established themselves as competent, caring individuals & still like to spend time w/me (mean old Mom because I was so strict). They are voracious readers & put me to shame about how current they are on all the issues & the books they are reading, buy the “season” passes to museums & the theatre, participate in marathons, some kind of relay marathons, ski, Pilates, surf–I don’t know. I just get tired thinking about all they do.
So many people say that there are so many educational shows on TV now for kids. I just don’t agree that they should be sitting there “learning” how to read or count. Do it w/Mom & Dad. Get outside. Go clam digging & count them & make clam chowder.
Shop at Goodwill on the sale days & figure out how much things cost at 50% off (as we did).
When Husband gets a raise once a year go out to a fancy French restaurant & indulge as a celebration. Try to figure out how to pronounce the menu & translate it (daughter ended up spending her jr. year of college studying in France)!
I remember some friends from church went out to Burger King for lunch every Sunday after church. How extravagant! We couldn’t afford to do that, but we could afford to buy lots of books & go DO things–not watch things. Stop spending money on cable & spend it on experiences w/your kids.
I hope I don’t sound like a lunatic (I do, after all, have a mental health issue & that’s why I’m here at P.C.), but I guess I am a zealot about not having a TV, especially with children in the house.
Dr. Grohol: Thanks for the informative article and wonderful site. Growing up we did not have a TV until I was eight years old, and in those early days of TV (really early!) viewing was limited. As a parent of two grown daughters my husband and I, both voracious readers and writers, limited TV time for our girls and instead fostered creative pursuits and family time. Now as adults our daughters watch very little TV preferring more proactive interests.
Now as a therapist who specializes in working with children who suffer from anxiety, I recommend that parents limit TV and computer time and instead spend that time interacting with their child. Positive parental engagement is crucial in helping kids to overcome anxiety.
Also, many anxious children are sensitive to the often disturbing images on TV and can’t mentally turn them off, leading to spikes in anxiety.
The overeating during television occurs in keeping with the fact that TV is an extended, interactive, and unnatural form of dream vision AS waking vision. Bodily feeling/sensation is therefore reduced during TV (as is the case during dream experience), so the feeling of fullness is reduced/lacking. Dr. Joyce Starr agrees with this as well. (Television is an unnatural creation of generalized thought; accordingly, TV may be held to be a generalized hallucination.) The experience of sound and vision in/as TV is even more like thought than in the case of the vision and sound in the dream.
Emotion is manifest as sensory experience and feeling.
TV involves emotional detachment, disintegration, contraction, and loss; and this certainly relates to (or involves) depression and anxiety as well. Importantly, TV also reduces memory and thought; and this is also consistent with/similar to dream experience. Hence, the overeating while watching television relates to the reduction in thought and memory as well. Frank Martin DiMeglio (author/expert)
Television is only possible because this disintegration, reconfiguration, contraction (i.e., compression), and extension of visual sensory experience occurs during dreams. Accordingly, both television viewing and dreams may be said to include (or involve) reduced ability to think, anxiety, and increased distractibility. Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the dream; but it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is addictive. Similar to the visual experience while dreaming, television compels attention to the relative exclusion of other experience. Television reduces consciousness and results in a flattening of the visual experience as a result of combining waking visual experience with relatively unconscious visual experience. Television involves the experience of what is less animate, for it involves a significant reduction in (or loss of) visual experience. This disintegration of the visual experience (as in the dream) also results in an emotional disintegration (i.e., anxiety). That television may be so described (and even possible) is hard to imagine; but this is consistent with the fact that it took so very many different minds (and thoughts) of genius in order to make the relatively unconscious visual experience of the dream conscious. Since the thinking that is involved in making the experience of television possible is so enormously difficult, it becomes difficult to think while partaking of that experience. Television may be seen as an accelerated form or experience of art, thereby making someone less wary (or less anxious) initially, but less creative and more anxious (as time passes) as the advance of the self becomes unsustainable. The experience (or effects) of television demonstrates the interactive nature of being and experience; for, in the dream, there is also a reduction in the totality (or extensiveness) of experience.
Thought involves a relative reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling. In keeping with this, dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general. Accordingly, both thought and also the range and extensiveness of feeling are proportionately reduced in the dream. (This reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling during dreams is consistent with the fact that the experience of smell very rarely occurs therein.) Since there is a proportionate reduction of both thought and feeling during dreams, the experience of the body is generally (or significantly) lacking; for thought is fundamentally rendered more like sensory experience in general. Thoughts and emotions are differentiated feelings. By involving the mid-range of feeling between thought and sense, dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general. The reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling during dreams is why there is less memory and thought therein.
Dream vision is generally closer (or flattened), thereby resulting in a loss/reduction of peripheral vision as well. Comparatively, television further flattens vision; and it also involves a reduction in peripheral vision.
In the dream, vision and thought are semi-detached from touch (and feeling). One may or may not be able to touch what is seen in the dream. In the visual experience that is television, the visual images may not be (and are not) touched at all. In the case of waking vision, one can [generally] touch what one sees.
It is not only in the dream that the vision of each individual person is necessarily different. That is obvious. Importantly, the experience of television is uniquely that of the individual.
Television may be understood as a creation of generalized thought. The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sense.
Television makes thought even more like vision than in the dream, thereby reducing thought and vision. Thoughts are relatively shifting and variable. Likewise, dream vision is relatively shifting and variable. In the case (and form) of television, the visual images become more shifting and variable than that of the dream; and this is in keeping with attention being compelled and sustained in conjunction with these images being even more like (or consistent with) thought. People tend to believe what they see (and hear) during television.
Ordinary (and natural) vision is removed and replaced in the case of television. Unlike art, which can be the interactive creation of any one person, television is impossible for any one person to possibly create or otherwise experience.
Television is an hallucination. Hallucinations are already known to be connected with/associated with/”caused by” all sorts of very serious mental/physical/emotional conditions or disorders. It is undeniable that this is a very important and serious matter.
Good to hear Suzanne’s comments. I grew up without a TV and I now read a lot. I bought one once I left home but when my daughter was 2 I decided to ditch it. I have not looked back, and now I wonder how I ever had time to watch it. My daughter has not suffered – she is the top of her class and loves books. If you are really honest, how often do you ever watch something really good, anyway? You just waste hours channel flicking in the vain hope of finding something decent to watch!
During this past week I have learned a lot how watching tv can caused different side effects when you are doing it at a period of time. To much of anything is not good for you. As I read in my resources about Dr. Grohol explained our children our watching more tv now than ever. They are from the tv to the refrigerator, in between commercial breaks we have to put out children on a schedule and become better parents.
I noted that only 1 in 6 had an open mind on the subject as I understand it. The other 5 were fairly sure of what they saw and wanted the article to state. I think ” no TV whatever” would possibly make for a less rounded person, however I do agree that TV should be monitored in children and teens. Even adults should be aware of their time involved in TV to the exclusion of other more productive things.
Anthony Pugh
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 27 Sep 2009
