From the Washington Post:
Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently “rewire” the developing brain.
For every hour of television watched daily, two groups of children — ages 1 and 3 — faced a 10 percent increased risk of having attention problems at age 7.
We haven’t had TV (with brief periods of cable connection) since my oldest son was born. I can’t tell you how much I recommend it.
Littlest Guy just invented a game involving a chessboard, Lego parts, and dice today and taught it to me. That’s what kids do when they aren’t sucking on the glass teat (sorry, Harlan)
I haven’t owned a TV in decades. There have been some studies to the effect that internet usage and TV watching are inversely correlated. If I had a TV I don’t know when I would watch it, I don’t have enough time in the day for everything I do as it is.
I miss some interesting documentaries and series people tell me are good, like the Sopranos, but these days you can buy a DVD of many TV series and documentaries anyway.
Not to say that this blog is unrepresentative of the US at large, but we are the other family in America with no TV.
We don’t watch TV. But I read a study that babies and toddlers thrive mentally if they watch a collection of kid’s videos over and over from 6 months to three years. I was convinced and so subjected my toddler to the program. Now he’s three and very sharp. Now we’re taking his TV away. Besides, you can get only one channel where I live, and I ain’t paying for cable.
Spelling: res ipsa loquitur
Sorry
(Too much television?)
Nor do I watch much TV at all, aside from the occasional game. But I will never be able to give up the TV/VCR for one reason, and that is because I am honor-bound to pass along my love Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and my massive tape collection) to Junior.
If that doesn’t happen, I’ll have failed my child as a father.
I can’t really give up TV, because that is a major source of information that I receive. I’m deaf, so radio is useless to me. If I didn’t have TV in my house, I would have to depend on other people, and my husband is not always in the house at the same time I am, and paper media will always be behind. Yes, there’s the internet. But not everything gets posted to the internet, especially local news.
I wonder if it has similar effects on adults: there are biofeedback techiniques that can be used on adults to REDUCE A.D.D., so I don’t see why there might not be some that would INDUCE A.D.D.
Television is the devil.
Hate to rain on your parade, but you should note that these are correlational data, not experimental data. That means you really can’t draw any cause-effect conclusions. It’s distinctly possible that (for example) parents with higher intelligence have more education and thus a better job, and that means more money, which in turn means more choice of leisure time activities. Parents with higher intelligence will also read to their children more and have more books in the home. Plus, intelligence is partly inherited. All of these things mean that you could find a correlation between hours of TV watching and psychological variables such as intelligence, creativity, or ADHD/ADD disorder severity, without any causal effect of the TV watching.
Maybe its just me, but Im totally jaded on the whole studies thing. Nine-times out of ten either their methodology is a joke or the media twists their conclusions into something else. Is it possible that ADD kids watch more tv because theyre ADD? Correlation does not imply causation. I’d have to study the study myself and im far too lazy to check out every one that comes down the pipe, and needless to say the media is too intellectually lazy to do the work for me. Oh well.
PS, reminds me of a great Onion article about a man who doesnt own a tv constantly talking about not owning a tv. Very true in my experience.
10 years TV free, and never felt better. I still keep my TV/VCR because life is not complete without Monte Python movies.
Correlation or causation, the fact is if you aren’t sitting in front of a television, you’re doing something else, and odds are good that it’s more useful. Based on that alone, it’s in a parent’s interests to limit their child’s television time, just to give them a chance to develop some actual interests and hobbies.
My mother, a special ed teacher, believes that ADD is very common in the US partly because most Americans are self-selected and people willing to travel across oceans to live in countries where they don’t know anyone or even the language are more prone to being risk-takers, which is a symptom of ADD. It’s an interesting idea to say the least.
Guess I’m not alone in keeping the TV dedicated to the VCR/DVD. I wonder if kids who just watch taped shows have as bad an effect. Is it the shows, or the commercials, or just sitting in place?
Celeste, it’s probably in a child’s interest to spend time away from the TV, learning to do and be interested in other things. We didn’t have TV in our house until last fall as my daughter approached her eleventh birthday, so she is not much of a TV watcher. But it’s not in anyone’s interest to draw inappropriate conclusions, such as the WaPo article’s conclusion that TV watching causes attention deficit disorders. That conclusion is inappropriate on the basis of the evidence presented, even if it later turns out to be true.
This time, the conclusion is one you agree with. The next time, it might not be.
Patrick Brown –
I’m not disagreeing with your comment – I don’t think the study proves TV causes ADD either; I’m just chiming in that it is good to limit the amount of time your children spend watching TV, regardless. Forgive me if my cavalier tone irked you.
My sisters and I didn’t really have a choice – we spent most of our childhood in Germany, we didn’t speak the language, and we lived in an area off-post that didn’t have any reception for AFN. Instead we’d play hide and seek over entire vineyards, make up silent plays to mom’s classical music, dance, read, fight, experiment in the kitchen, and make up other games. Eventually, we came back to the U.S., promptly glued ourselves to the television, and looking back, my favorite memories are of when we didn’t get to watch the television.
A.L. and I have been having this argument (along with many others) for years now. I would argue that TV is no worse than radio. Actually, the internet has screwed up my life much more than television. If you really want to live, multiplexing is the answer. Currently, i am reading the internet while the History Channel runs in the background. The real problem is not too much TV, but too little. If i had to live on over-the-air broadcasts, i would cut down dramatically on my viewing but with DirecTV and a ReplayTV box, i spend my time watching the things that matter. English soccer, Turner Classic Movies and the Geek Channels (Discovery, History, Food, et al) are what makes life worth living!!!!
But I have to tell you, there is nothing funnier than the face of A.L. when you make a pop culture/TV reference. He still thinks Paris Hilton is a place to stay in France!!!!
Luv Ya, A.L.
No forgiving necessary, Celeste. Your tone did not irk me, and I did not intend for my reply to give you that impression. I just have a bit of a hair-trigger on this issue because I teach it and I was sensitized even more this morning by reading an article in the National Post. The article was about a US church group’s report that movies featuring sex scenes made less money on average than movies not featuring sex scenes, over the last few years. They drew the conclusion that the sex scene variable was the operative variable…
But FWIW I never watched much TV when I was a kid – that was before electricity and we were too poor to afford one of those old wood-burning TV sets – and I’m happy that my daughter doesn’t watch much either.
Back at you, Mike – but if you had less T.V., you’d have a life!! </ducking> When are we having lunch?
A.L.
A.L.;
Since I’ve often thought that some of your arguments are constructed of similar components, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh? 😉
My family has been off the broadcast tube for 20 years. No loss.
Now if only I could kick the non-interlaced crt…
Well, VT – as any racer should know, wire, duct tape and JB Weld have won many a race…
A.L.
Life without the boob tube is grand.
Lived without one for five years; invaded friends’ houses to watch “Buffy” and “Farscape” each week.
Although my apartment now includes a black box, its only function is to show “Northern Exposure” videotapes (c:
Patrick Brown –
I’m totally with you, there. People will pull statistics to prove whatever they want them to prove, and push legislation based on their ‘results’. It’s important to point out when they’re doing it, if you don’t, you might find yourself saddled with a truly ridiculous law.
Honestly, even if the study did manage to prove that watching television caused ADD, I still wouldn’t support any efforts to force people to stop watching. I won’t support any legislation trying to restrict our food choices based on the ‘obesity epidemic’, either, especially when govt’s definition of obesity includes nearly every wrestler on the WWE roster, and NBA and NFL player.
I think what matters more is the content. Surely watching the bilge that doubles for television does nothing for their young minds.
A.L.
Very true. But you still must pass tech inspection…and everything has to hold together for the duration of the race!
of course, it’s
res ipse loquitur
My daughter was diagnosed ADHD about two years ago. One of the first things our doctor told us is that the most common misconception people have about ADHD is that “Well, little Johnny can’t be ADHD because he can sit in front of the TV and pay attention to a movie for a couple of hours!” However, what has been shown is that ADHD kids watch more TV for the image/brain stimulation. (Most ADHD medications are brain stimulants. Ironic, isn’t it? Hyperactive kids need a stimulant to be more calm.)
Is TV watching a cause or an effect? I don’t know. We have tried limiting TV, but it doesn’t seem to matter one way or the other.
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