[samscommunity] Interesting Article

More TV time means worse school performance 
Tue May 8, 12:20 PM ET 
 
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more TV adolescents watch, the more likely they 
are to develop attention and learning problems, and to do poorly in school in 
the long-run, a new study confirms. 


The findings "suggest that by encouraging youths to spend less than 3 hours per 
day watching television, parents, teachers and health care professionals may be 
able to help reduce the likelihood that at-risk adolescents will develop 
persistent attention and learning difficulties," Dr. Jeffrey G. Johnson of 
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and 
colleagues write.
 
Children in industrialized nations generally watch 2 or more hours of TV each 
day. There is evidence linking TV watching and poor academic and intellectual 
performance, the researchers point out, but it's not clear whether the TV time 
leads to school failure, if kids who don't do well in school tend to watch more 
TV than their better-performing peers, or if there are factors such as poverty 
or neglect that may contribute to both increased television watching and 
learning problems.
 
To investigate, the researchers followed a community-based sample of 678 
mother-child pairs from upstate New York beginning when the children were about 
14 years old until they reached age 22.
 
The amount of TV kids watched when they were 14 was positively linked with 
having attention problems later, not doing homework, being bored at school, not 
finishing high school, and "hating school," the researchers found.
 
The relationship between TV watching and school failure was stronger among kids 
with higher-than-average verbal intelligence scores, and those whose parents 
had more than 12 years of education.
 
When children who watched less than 2 hours of TV at age 14 reduced their TV 
watching by 1 hour or more, they halved their risk of school failure, the 
researchers found. But when 14-year-olds who watched fewer than 2 hours added 1 
more daily hour of TV, they doubled their risk of academic failure at age 16.
 
Further analysis of the findings found that time spent watching television 
likely contributed to learning and attention problems, rather than vice versa.
 
Future research should address "whether promoting opportunities for 
developmentally appropriate weekend, summer, and after-school extracurricular 
activities...may help to reduce risk for the development of attention and 
learning difficulties during the adolescent years," the researchers conclude.
 
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, May 2007.
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