← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · weisbrot
Thread ID: 10826 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-10-29
2003-10-29 20:54 | User Profile
...your televitz.
Before it's too late...
Over a third of youngsters found to have a TV in their room Study's results prompt warning from educators [url]http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/302/metro/Over_a_third_of_youngsters_found_to_have_a_TV_in_their_room-.shtml[/url]
By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff, 10/29/2003
A national study released yesterday found that more than one-third of America's children under the age of 6 have televisions in their bedrooms, prompting educators to warn that TV habits are starting too early with potential harm to developing minds and bodies.
The findings from the study were particularly striking for the youngest of the preschool set: More than one-fourth of children under 2 had a TV in their bedroom. And on a typical day 70 percent of them spend two hours with some kind of ''screen media,'' TV, video, DVD, or computer and video games, according to the study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a philanthropic research group that focuses on media and health care policy issues.
While educators have linked excessive TV watching with childhood obesity or learning troubles, the study found that many parents of young children see TV in a somewhat positive light. More than 40 percent of parents of children under age 6 believed the television ''mostly helps'' learning.
Anitra Beckers, 27, a billing clerk at Children's Hospital in Boston, allows her daughter Kaija Chalmus, 4, to have a TV in her bedroom, viewing it as a family activity. ''I don't think it's bad as long as you watch with them,'' said Beckers.
She believes Kaija has learned reading skills and good manners from some of the shows she watches, Beckers said. But she said she sometimes lets Kaija watch TV for too long, up to three hours on some nights.
While some educators believe very limited viewing can be harmless for infants and toddlers, they warn against patterns that create sedentary children hooked on the fast pace of electronic media.
''Watching television can be addictive, so why introduce it so early?'' said Dr. Alvin Poussaint, the director of the Media Center at the Judge Baker Children's Center and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Poussaint, known for his work as an adviser for ''The Cosby Show,'' emphasized that he is aware of no study that proves specifically what happens to a toddler's brain if he or she watches television. But he warned against the television-as-babysitter lifestyle that can take children away from other ''proven ways of learning,'' such as playing outdoors, listening to an adult read a book, or hands-on art projects.
Recent studies have tracked the media habits of preschoolers; one study last summer found that 40 percent of children under 5 from low-income households had TV's in their bedrooms. But the Kaiser study went further by looking at a wider sample of families from all income levels as well as analyzing data for the very youngest of the preschool set. The study looked at the media habits of a broad cross section of young children, collecting data from a random sample of more than 1,000 households with children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years.
''Lots of kids can play a DVD before they can dress themselves,'' said Victoria Rideout, who directed the research project for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Rideout said she was particularly surprised to see the percentage of young children who have the option of watching TV in their bedrooms, including 43 percent of those between the ages of 4 and 6. She and other researchers said that question was one of the strongest indicators of early media use because it required a simple yes-or-no answer, whereas parents often are reluctant to admit high viewing rates.
The majority of young children also grow up in homes where the TV is on almost all the time, Rideout said. Two-thirds of the families had a TV on roughly half the time, even when no one was watching it; one-third had the television on always or most of the time. The study also found that half of the families reported having the television on during mealtime, either half or all of the time.
In Boston, many parents say they believe their children watch TV too much. But they say it's tough to keep youngsters away from televisions, particular with older siblings around, and viewing gives exhausted parents a break.
''If I didn't have a TV for them, it would be hell,'' Carmen Andino, a 32-year-old mother of three young children, said while shopping at a Dorchester toy store. ''I would not be able to do anything.''
Rideout said more research needs to be done to see if warnings against excessive TV for young children are based on a mistaken intuition, or proven research. She said her group hopes to do more work studying young children over time, as well as seeing what demographic factors explain high viewing rates. ''We're not saying TV is bad for kids,'' she said. ''We just don't know.''
Patricia Wen can be reached at [email]wen@globe.com[/email].
This story ran on page B3 of the Boston Globe on 10/29/2003. é Copyright 2003 New York Times Co.
2003-10-30 05:25 | User Profile
Otherwise knows as the One Eyed Jew. I am seriously considering having "Kill Your Televitz" bumper stickers made to distribute, gratis.
We each must do our bit. Each, what we can.
2003-10-30 19:52 | User Profile
How many of these parents who claim that their kids watch too much TV are doing anything about it? How many of them have the guts to cancel their cable service? Of course they won't do that since the parents are just as hooked on the jewbox as the kids are. They spent thousands of dollars for that bigscreen in the living room (that's another whole rant in itself. a TV pricetag has no business needing a comma in it) never mind the smaller sets in every other room of the house.
2003-10-30 21:46 | User Profile
If watching TV is addictive, why isn't the government including telemania into its war on drugs?
2003-10-30 21:57 | User Profile
Along the same lines....
[url=http://www.jbs.org/visitor/rotnol/031026_transcript.htm]JBS: If you Want to be Free -- Kill Your TV![/url]