[opendtv] News:Short Attention Span Linked To TV
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 13:15:12 -0500
So maybe TV really is the SOMA of "1984..."
Regards
Craig
Via Shoptalk
Short Attention Span Linked To TV
By Marilyn Elias
USA TODAY
The more television infants and toddlers watch, the more likely they
are to have trouble paying attention and concentrating during their
early school years, a study reports Monday.
Although there has been other research on how many hours of TV very
young kids watch, this is the first study on how early viewing might
affect attention span. Young children often are mesmerized by the TV
screen, says study leader Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at
Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. The
possible link between watching TV and attention problems is of great
concern because so many infants and toddlers are frequent viewers, he
says.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV for children
younger than 2 and no more than two hours of high-quality programming
for older kids. Many children watch much more TV. Christakis used a
government database to see how much TV 1- to 3-year-old children
watched, as reported by their mothers, and then related that to their
scores on a behavior checklist showing attention problems at age 7.
His report on about 1,300 kids is in Pediatrics.
Frequent TV viewers in early childhood were most likely to score in
the highest 10% for concentration problems, impulsiveness and
restlessness. Scoring within that 10% doesn't mean a child has
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but many would have
it, and the others could face major learning problems, Christakis
says.
Every added hour of watching TV increased a child's odds of having
attention problems by about 10%. Kids watching about three hours a
day were 30% more likely to have attention trouble than those viewing
no TV. The researchers accounted for many factors beside television
that might predict problems concentrating, but the TV-attention link
remained.
In the first few years, human brains undergo "huge and very swift
development," says Elizabeth Sowell, a UCLA neuropsychologist. Animal
studies show that stimulating environments can change young brains.
The rapid-fire stimulation of TV might do the same.
The change isn't necessarily bad, Los Angeles media psychologist
Stuart Fischoff says. As media exposure grows, "these kids could be
expressing 'the new brain.' They could be an advance guard that
suggests we may need new ways of teaching children exposed to a lot
of media stimulation."
But some experts are concerned. "This should be a wake-up call that
we need to take a closer look at how early media use affects
children," says Vicky Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation. "We
know hardly anything about it."
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