Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, April 05, 2004

Elvis and TV

According to an article published in the April issue of Pediatrics, watching TV can be bad for kids. In a study of pre-school youngsters, the study's researchers found that for every hour of TV per day a child watched there was a 10% increase in the likelyhood that the child would suffer from attention deficit disorder or ADD. While the exact mechanisms for this increase are unknown it is surmised that the rapid stimulation the child is subjected to through TV viewing causes the brain to wire itself in ways that are not beneficial to functioning in a normal (i.e.-not TV) world. If this is true, the deliterious effects of the viewing are permanent.

This is, to me, an amazing finding. As a educator I am exposed to the wreckage that ADD created in the lives of my students. They can't follow lecture. They can't focus in group work. They can't apply themselves to homework. Oftentimes they are being treated with drugs that don't always seem to make things better but instead induce something of a zombie-like state wherein the student interacts in a very superfical way with the world around them. This leads to a much higher incidence of failure among these students. Since education is the foundation of a person's success in a meritocracy based society these folks all start with a huge disadvantage. All because of TV.

Think about it. If we found out that for every jar of brand X baby food a toddler ate there was a 10% of developing a condition that would disadvantage the little tikes for life, you can gaurantee that there would be exactly zero bottles of brand X baby food on the shelves within about 30 minutes of the announcement. Yet, will there be regulations on "entertainment"? I doubt it. We tell parents that they HAVE to put kids in child seats in cars and wear helmets on bikes and all for very good reasons. But furthest we've gone on the whole kids and TV issue is to have the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children under two not be allowed to watch TV. If a cop sees Patti Parent driving down the road with Junior standing up in the front seat he has the right to take Junior away and place him in protective custody. If Patti Parent decides to use TV as a long-term baby-sitting solution however, more power to her even though it may gaurantee her child less opportunity in life. You think this is far-fetched? According the the households surveyed for the study, 11% of the 3 yr olds watched 5-6 hours of TV daily and another 10% watched over 7 hours. If the study is representative of the larger culture (and with over 1300 households surveyed the statistics are likely to be pretty good) then about 20% of our kids have a better than 50% chance of developing ADD.

Elvis was right...shoot your TV. Especially if you have kids.

The Physicist   Link Me    |