Watching excessive amounts of television in early adolescence may lead to depression in early adulthood for males, according to a study that appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Dr. Brian Primack surveyed 4,100 healthy young people when they were about 14 years to gauge their TV watching habits, and found that the average exposure was about 2.3 hours per day. Boys who watched the most television when they were 14 years old were more likely to be among the seven percent who developed depression at age 21 years. The effect did not hold true for girls.

Dr. Primack said television watching interrupts sleep, and sends messages to males to become more aggressive. TV may also interfere with the development of male identity, he said.

As is also the case with depression in adults, teen depression has been associated with a wide range of other problems, including substance abuse and suicide.

Labels: depression, boys, tv_watching

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Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Dimitri Christakis joined many others in the medical world in the effort to convince parents that "smart TV" programs could help their children become super-smart. Today, after two decades of research, Dr. Christakis has reversed his opinion:

Millions of dollars in marketing... have helped persuade too many parents... that they're doing a good thing for their children, says Christakis. Studies have shown the opposite is true, that baby programs can actually delay language development... and harm attention spans. (The Toronto Star)

The debate continues among parents, some of whom prefer games and puzzles, while others refer to their television set as "my friend."

Labels: brain_activity, tv_watching, babies

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A New Zealand longitudinal study of 1000 children found that watching more television than average was linked to inability to pay attention.

Dr. Robert Hancox and his colleagues at the University of Otago had parents and older children keep track of how much television a child watched at ages three, five, eleven, thirteen and fifteen. The average amount was two hours per day for younger children, and three hours for teenagers. Children who watched more than those amounts tended to have problems focusing and paying attention.

Dr. Hancox and others theorize that television watching may influence brain development. Another explanation might be that the fast pace of television shows makes reality boring for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children watch no more than two hours per day, and that children under age two years watch no television at all.

This study appears in the September 2007 issue of Pediatrics magazine.

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Labels: attention, tv_watching, development

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Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatric researcher at Children's Hospital in Seattle, recently conducted a study on the effects of television on young children. He found that children between the ages of 1 and 3 who watch an hour of TV per day are 10% more likely to develop attention problems by the time they're 7-years-old.

"Children's programmers use a technique called the 'orienting reflex', known as OR, to capture and keep a child's attention. OR works this way: If we see or hear something the brain doesn't recognize as the correct sequence or a typical life event - such as a dancing alphabet or quick zooms and pans, we focus on it until the brain recognizes that it doesn't pose a threat. The problem with watching too many programs that rely on OR is that real life becomes slow and boring by comparison."

Continued exposure to this type of input conditions causes the mind to expect it all the time. When a child's mind has been conditioned in this way, but doesn't receive the high-intensity input, the child becomes bored and inattentive. Read more at MSNBC.MNS.com.

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Labels: research, studies, tv_watching

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A doctor in Britain has identified fifteen different health risks associated with excessive television watching. Among them is ADHD. In light of this, Dr. Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, has developed guidelines for how much television children should be allowed to watch.

"'Many believe that we shouldn't make parents feel guilty about the amount of time children spend in front of a screen and the early age at which they start', Dr. Sigman said. 'But we must now make a clear judgment that child health is more important than parental guilt.'"

Dr. Sigman recommends no television at all for children under three and no more than two hours a day for anyone 16 and over. Read more online.

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Labels: parenting, tv_watching, non-verbal_learning_disorders

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