Too Much TV?

The TV is on a lot at my house; it's one of the things I worry about a lot. For instance, I'll throw on something I've seen before that is kid friendly (more often than not some Sci-Fi show like Star Trek) when I'm doing chores. The boys don't usually pay attention, unless the theme songs are playing; they love those. But sometimes they do, and then I worry if I'm setting them up for failure. There's precious little published on the effects of screen time on children; both physically and psychologically. Early this year, a review was published discussing the effect of screen time on obesity rates in children. As nice as it would have been for this to shed some light on any potential dangers, it seems to only have provided minimal understanding. In light of this I thought it would be worthwhile discuss this paper and to overview the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations concerning screen time.

As I alluded to before, the study doesn't shed much light on the dangers of screen time. In the review 13 separate reviews were analyzed. As stated in the paper:

6 addressed body composition; 3 diet/energy intake; 7 mental health; 4 cardiovascular risk; 4 for fitness; 3 for sleep; 1 pain; 1 asthma.

Though it showed there was a connection between these factors and screen time, it is only a correlational study and therefore lacks the rigor to determine a causal mechanism. For example, the two strongest correlations listed are adiposity (i.e. obesity) and unhealthy diet. It would make sense to say that unhealthy diet and adiposity naturally follow high screen time; and as we like to have something to blame we might try and jump to this conclusion based on the data. This is unwise, however, as the inverse could just as plausible: that increased screen time is the result of cultivating an unhealthy diet. So there is precious little that we can conclude from this work. But this review is not useless. It is exactly these forms of preliminary studies that help guide our future work.

If the research is still lacking, what should we focus on when tuning our children's screen time? For that, it is best to turn to the AAP's tips for children and media. I'd like to discuss a couple of the most important ones they have listed.

Treat media as you would any other environment in your child's life.

This one really hits home with me. Really, over worrying about something as ubiquitous as electronic media can cause a tremendous amount of undue stress; stress that will make you less effective of a parent in the long run. Set reasonable limits and your kids should do just fine.

Screen time shouldn't always be alone time

This is a big one in my home. The boys rarely watch TV alone. I love to audibly marvel at stuff, especially science and nature documentaries, to help get them excited about whatever it is they're watching. The rest of the tips you can review on your own, but they do share this common theme. The most important thing is to make sure there is balance in your child's life. After that everything should turn out okay.