Kids and TV
By Rich Bayer, Ph.D.
Most kids love TV. They may have 5, 10, or even 15
favorite shows. For many, it’s their number one pastime.
But how does their TV viewing affect them?
On the average, children watch 3 to 4 hours of TV per
day. That’s 21 to 28 hours each week or between 1,100 and 1,450 hours a
year. By contrast, kids spend 900 hours a year in the classroom.
On the Positive Side
Under some circumstances, TV can benefit kids. It can
be educational.
Studies prove that some TV shows have a positive
effect. Three shows that were noted include Sesame Street, which was shown
to produce educational growth in children, Blues Clues which helped
develop children’s attention and focus, and Mr. Rogers which helped kids
deal with everyday life events. When watching these three shows, children
were able to learn.
There’s also some evidence that TV can be useful as
a distraction. It can get our minds off unhappy thoughts. This works for
both children and adults. In particular, TV viewing can be used as a
short-term solution to stress. The trouble is, this doesn’t help you
solve the problem; just avoid it for a little while.
On the Negative Side
Perhaps the strongest negative effect TV has on kids
pertains to violence. There’s a correlation between watching a lot of
violent TV and performing violent acts.
This has been documented for acts of violence in
general. Kids who see a lot of aggressive or violent acts on TV are more
likely themselves to act in an aggressive or violent way.
It also has been demonstrated for specific acts. Kids
who have seen a specific act of violence on TV are more likely to commit
that specific act. This is the “copycat effect.”
Other research on the long-term effects of TV shows
that the amount of aggressive TV we watch as young children predicts our
level of aggressiveness in later life. What is alarming is that the
research supports the idea that watching violent TV actually causes
children to be more violent. This data comes from well-run studies
conducted over 10 - 15 year periods of time. In other words, we tend to
model behaviors we see regularly.
For society as a whole, there’s another problem.
The more we see a set of images that evoke an emotion, the less those
images will bring about a strong emotional response. So if we see a lot of
violence, we become less uncomfortable with violence, or more tolerant of
it.
Is this good? Wouldn’t it be better if all of us
remained repulsed by violence?
There’s another interesting, long-term side effect
to watching a lot of TV. Adults who have watched a lot of TV throughout
their lives tend to misperceive the likelihood of being victimized by a
crime. They believe, for example, the chance of being robbed or being
raped, or being the victim of a violent crime is much greater than what it
actually is. Some social scientists worry that this may mean that we are
becoming more accepting of being the victim of violence, and that may have
a big impact on how we prosecute and punish crime.
There’s one last issue that researchers have just
begun to study. It relates to the fast pace of the action on TV. In recent
years, many commercials and shows use fast cuts from scene to scene,
sometimes to the point of flashing image after image in an attempt to
create a “total experience.” Can this cause problems in the viewer?
One thing for sure, it creates an atmosphere of “high stimulation” and
this may change how we see the world. It affects children especially. Kids
can grow to expect high stimulation to the point that anything else, like
daily classroom activities, seems boring.
Researchers are also studying whether the fast pace
of TV may decrease kids’ ability to pay attention and lead to such
disorders as Attention Deficit Disorder or ADHD.
Often those things we “love” to do, like watching
TV or eating sweets, actually cause problems. The reason? If we let
ourselves go, we tend to overdo it.
The trick is not to let ourselves go, not to overdo
it. So if we can help our children find ways to limit and structure their
TV viewing habits, we may be doing them a big favor.
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Rich Bayer,
Ph.D., is the CEO of Upper Bay Counseling and Support Services, Inc. and a
practicing psychologist.
# # #
For More Information Contact:
Upper Bay Counseling and Support Services, Inc.
200 Booth Street, Elkton, MD 21921
Tel: 410-996-5104
Toll Free: 877-587-7750
FAX: 410-996-5197
Internet: info@upperbay.org
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