Watching TV for more than two hours a day may increase the likelihood of behavioral problems for kids, a new study showed.
By the time a child is five, those who've regularly watched more than two hours of TV daily are much more likely to exhibit behavioral problems, according to the study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
In fact, aggressive behavior was more than doubled in youngsters who regularly watched more than two hours of television daily, said the study published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
The study found that 20 percent of kids from the 2,702 families studied watched more than two hours of TV a day. More than 40 percent of the youngsters had their own TVs in their bedrooms.
When children are watching TV, they're not engaging in other important activities, such as imaginative play. They're also not interacting with others to learn social skills and appropriate ways to resolve conflicts, according to the study.
"Sustained TV watching has a negative effect on behavior and social skills," commented Carla Weidman, a psychologist in the child development unit at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
"I recommend removing the TV from the bedroom," Weidman said. Along with creating sleep problems, she said, parents simply have no control over what children are watching in their bedrooms, and they're not monitoring the programming.
"There are positives, such as educational TV, but you have to use it judiciously and monitor what the child is watching," she said. "Remember, you are the parent, and you make the decisions. Don't allow TV-watching decisions to be driven by the child."
The average child today spends 45 hours a week with some form of media, compared with just 30 hours in school, according to an earlier report by researchers from Yale, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and California Pacific Medical Center.
The report compiled data from 173 studies on children and media and found that media exposure can contribute to childhood obesity, tobacco use, drug use, alcohol use, poor school achievement, sexual behavior and attention problems.
Source: Xinhua
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