TV or Not TV, That is the Question
Tim Jordan, M.D.
“Television encourages children to grow up too fast and is producing a passive,
passionless generation; children who have no sense of values, no feeling of wonder, no
sustained interest.”
Believe it or not, that quote was taken from the first influential, book length study:
“Television in the lives of our children” in ….1961! So current day parents’ worries
about the effects of TV viewing on children is not a new story. But it’s still an important
story to consider.
For many baby-boomers, Miss Nancy on Romper Room was our first teacher, and
the families depicted in Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver were the role models
for what middles class families were supposed to be like. Since then parents have fretted
about American Bandstand, Laugh-In, James Bond movies, MTV, and today, well most
any show kids watch. Today’s fears about TV and other media mirrors a deeper national
concern over a perceived moral decline and the “break up of families”.
From my experience as a behavioral pediatrician, and books and research articles
I’ve read, here is some of what I believe about television and children.
First off, I don’t think kids younger than 3 years need to watch any TV. Studies
about the effects of Baby Einstein videos show no positive effect on general language
learning between 1-2 years of age, and the younger age at first exposure to these videos
was related to lower scores on measures of general vocabulary knowledge. Kids best
learn to talk by hearing parents who talk with them and read to them.
I watched a video a few years ago from Media-wise where a group of 4 year olds
were filmed watching two different videos. While watching Barney, they got up and
danced around gently. When a Power Rangers video came on, within minutes most of
them, boys and girls, were up kicking and play fighting each other. One mom, sitting
behind the two way mirror, remarked that her quiet, shy daughter was never exposed to
this kind of TV and was probably scared. As she was saying this, her “passive” daughter
walked up to a boy and kicked him! The moral of this study and many others is that
watching violent TV does affect children’s levels of aggression.
We know that kids who consistently watch more than 4 hours of TV per day are
more likely to be overweight. Teens who watch a lot of sexual content on TV are more
likely to initiate sexual intercourse and participate in other sexual activity earlier than
peers who don’t watch sexually explicit shows.
I worry that way too many toys today are pre-scripted; they are tied to a TV show
or movie and kids thus just imitate what they see on screen and reenact rote scripts.
It cuts their creativity and imaginative play, and their play becomes controlled by the
marketers of these products.
Even brief exposure to the typical, idealized images of women on TV has been
shown to lower girl’s opinions of themselves. Girls subconsciously accept these
stereotypes and compare themselves to them, and usually unfavorably. The more of this
type of media girls are exposed to, the more importance they place on being pretty, thin
and sexy. They don’t really understand that these images of women are unrealistic,
photo-shopped and unhealthy.
Because of these links to obesity, language, aggression, sexualization and
objectification of girls, and recently to ADD, here are my suggestions for TV’s place in
families:
Never ever have a TV in a child’s bedroom (70% do today). Turn off the TV during
meals. Take the TV out of the car except for long vacation trips. Don’t get into the habit
of having what my mom used to call the “boob-tube” on all day long as a background
distraction. Don’t use it after school to relax (the real result is zoning out). Maybe only
have one TV in the house, in a central room. Be extremely vigilant over what kids
watch; it’s always best to see shows and movies first to access whether they are
appropriate.
Use the freed up time to do things like: actually talk to each other during meals
and car rides, read more books, play more games, have regular family meetings, create
special Friday night movie nights. Studies show that children’s stress levels decrease
within minutes of being in green spaces, so get outside in nature more.
If you’re honest, most TV shows are a waste of time and inappropriate for
children. Shows are marketed for children’s aspirational ages, so a TV show like “Glee”
is watched by 8 – 12 year olds even thought it’s geared for high schoolers.
I think for the most part my mom was right: it really is a boob-tube and to quote
Jim Carrey in “The Cable Guy”, maybe it’s time to “kill the babysitter”.