TV is the Devil

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I want to see how socioeconomic status plays into this.

do poor kids watch more or less TV than rich kids?

I'm poor.  My kids are still involved in everything I can get them into as long as their grades don't fall.  Will they choose the xBox over a good game of street football in good weather?  HELL NO!!

Yet they still play the game.  Explain to a kid that when he goes online for Halo that he can only play for 30 minutes and let me know how well that goes over yanno?  Hell a good game of Madden takes about 30 minutes.  I just think this is bullshit on the time (2 hours).  Would their sitting online watching stupid youtube or updating their bebo pages be time better spent?

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I have a good friend that I was really best friends with in 8th grade all the way to undergrad--she and I roomed our first 2 years of university together. 

She had no tv where she grew up in Big Bear, couldn't get it, and when her family could get the cable, they no longer wanted it.  They rented movies, etc. instead.  Deeply religious family, by the way, as well, so all movies were PG and below.

Now, while she read a lot of literature, listened to the radio, etc., she missed out on a LOT of essential ties to her own culture, and when she interacted with her peers, it was with extreme awkwardness.  I'm not advocating total wipe out of all activity, exclusive of TV, not at all.  But walling your children out of their own peers' experiences makes them seem like freaks at a time when it's hard enough to fit in (jr. high and high school).  I dunno, I dislike not giving kids an advantage.

And like it or not, tv media actually give people common ground.  Without that common ground, there's a sort of culture shock that happens, and the one that hasn't experienced it is odd man out.

I agree with the whole statement, however, the bolded part applies to adults as well I think.  I have co-workers that the only thing I can talk to them about (unless I want to sit and listen to them bitch and moan) is the news or a tv show. 

[Cain]

Stupid media will promote stupid thought and stupid actions.  Regardless of what medium it is transmitted by.

Personally I like the TV programs I watch, or else I wouldn't watch them. 

[Adios]

Stupid media will promote stupid thought and stupid actions.  Regardless of what medium it is transmitted by.

Personally I like the TV programs I watch, or else I wouldn't watch them. 

Sheesh guys, don't shoot the messenger here. I found it rather humorous is all.

[Cain]

Merely pointing out a fact which seemed to have been overlooked in the thread.  Which is more damaging: letting a kid watch Adam Curtis documentaries on the TV, or letting them sit down with Ann Coulter's greatest literary hits of historical revisionism?  It is always going to depend on the subject matter.

[Jenne]

Stupid media will promote stupid thought and stupid actions.  Regardless of what medium it is transmitted by.

Personally I like the TV programs I watch, or else I wouldn't watch them. 

Sheesh guys, don't shoot the messenger here. I found it rather humorous is all.

Yeah, I don't think we're talking about you, Hawk--you did a solid by bringing us the latest pop-psych built on a shoestring theory shinanigans from the Ivory Tower.

See, the pendulum swing of the great literaries can usually be depended upon to show up the masses as idiotic mouth-breathers.  I grew up with a lot of TV, I mean, A LOT...and I don't think I'm a mouth-breather.  Idiotic is still up for review, however.

I just think that it's another case of, along with everything else, "Everything in moderation."  Of course a kid who doesn't interact with his peers and shuts himself in all day is going to have social problems.  Of course a kid who doesn't go and play is going to be unhealthy.  But this would be the case if they were in front of a screen, playing tiddlywinks, etc.

It's one of these studies, much like autism and vaccinations, that I find tries to show up the populace as inadequate parents.  And the truth is, most are adequate ENOUGH.  I figure as long as you GIVE a shit as to where your kids are and what they are doing, they are probably going to be just fine.  TV  is not the issue here (and gaming/computing are being fingered here as EVOL as well), it's parents who don't give a shit where their kids are and what they're into.

[Cain]

Yeah, not giving a shit and using the TV as babysitter do have high correlation.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Stupid media will promote stupid thought and stupid actions.  Regardless of what medium it is transmitted by.

Personally I like the TV programs I watch, or else I wouldn't watch them. 

Sheesh guys, don't shoot the messenger here. I found it rather humorous is all.

I didn't even think this in any way in regard to you Hawk.  I'm sorry, don't take it personally.  I was mad at the article/study idiots.  Shit like this really hits a nerve for me, especially since my kids really don't spend a lot of TV time but if I add it up, yeah it is probably more than 2 hours a lot of days.

[Adios]

Damn, I should have put  in my last post. 

For good or bad TV is a large part of our culture. It's just like every other thing in life, a little balance goes a hell of a long way.

[Cramulus]

I'm having trouble finding the text of the original paper. Anybody on a university connection with access to an academic database?

Should be in the November edition of the American journal Pediatrics

author is Dr Angie Page of the University of Bristol's Centre for Exercise



Khara, just because your kids are okay doesn't mean that the study is BS. Their results are based on surveys of 1013 kids - studies like these report on trends and averages and are not necessarily predictive of any individual child.

[Jenne]

Not Khara, but:  ...I guess my problem is the diagnostics combined with the fact that they may have selected a group of kids with "other" factors that weighed into what the results showed.  They used a questionnaire that showed "psychological problems"--ooook...I know I sure as shit wouldn't trust just a 25-question survey to tell me if my kid was cuckoo.

It's just all too easy to take a study like this, done for someone's grad thesis, and turn it into alarmist stuff that gets spread everywhere.  The trend is a no-brainer, but this will be used as filler against parents who DO give a shit.  I know I'm parsing this thing to death, but I see a LOT of this type of thing in PTA.  It bugs me.

[Cramulus]

that's why I want to take a closer look at this survey. Odds are it's not a survey they invented, but one that's commonly used to assess "mental problems". I wish there was more specific language there, but we've gotta go to the source text to see what they used & what they're really talking about.

[Jenne]

My husband uses a survey with observation and reports of behavior as observed by parents and teacher when assessing these things.  So the survey alone just seems suspect, plus the fact that telling someone their child has psychological problems just because they watch TV for 2 hours a day just seems a BIT of a stretch...

But you're right--the study itself may have a deeper analysis than the actual article on it shows.

[Adios]

The entire survey is suspect. Were demographics, economic status, and pre existing conditions even considered? Also the kids self reported their usage.

[Cramulus]

shit damn fuck the hoarding of scientific research

you have to be a member to get the real paper

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2010-1154v1?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&author1=Page&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT

but you can get the abstract for free:

Children's Screen Viewing is Related to Psychological Difficulties Irrespective of Physical Activity
Angie S. Page, PhD, Ashley R. Cooper, PhD, Pippa Griew, MSc, Russell Jago, PhD

Centre for Exercise, Nutrition, and Health Sciences, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

Objective We hypothesized that greater screen use would be associated with greater psychological difficulties and that children with high levels of screen entertainment use and low levels of physical activity would have the most-negative psychological profiles.

Methods Participants were 1013 children (age, mean ± SD: 10.95 ± 0.41 years), who self-reported average daily television hours and computer use and completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Sedentary time (minutes per day with <100 cpm) and moderate/vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (minutes with 2000 cpm) were measured by using accelerometers. Multivariate regression models examined the association between television viewing, computer use, sedentary time, and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scores, with adjustment for MVPA, age, gender, level of deprivation, and pubertal status.

Results Greater television and computer use were related to higher psychological difficulty scores after adjustment for MVPA, sedentary time, and confounders. However, sedentary time was inversely related to psychological difficulties after adjustment. Children who spent >2 hours per day watching television or using a computer were at increased risk of high levels of psychological difficulties (television, odds ratio [OR]: 1.61 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.20–2.15]; computer, OR: 1.59 [95% CI: 1.32–1.91]), and this risk increased if the children also failed to meet physical activity guidelines (television, OR: 1.70 [95% CI: 1.09–2.61]; computer, OR: 1.81 [95% CI: 1.02–3.20]).

Conclusion Both television viewing and computer use are important independent targets for intervention for optimal well-being for children, irrespective of levels of MVPA or overall sedentary time.



Key Words: television • computer • physical activity • sedentary time • children • psychological well-being


Abbreviations: CI = confidence interval • IMD = Index of Multiple Deprivation • MVPA = moderate/vigorous physical activity • OR = odds ratio • SDQ = Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire