A new study out of Britain is leaving parents with more questions than answers about what effect watching television and playing video games have on their children.
The study tracked the TV and video game habits of more than 11,000 five-year-olds and found that by age seven, those kids who watched more than three hours of TV a day had a small increase in conduct problems -â meaning they were more likely to regularly act ânaughty.â
Some U.K. media outlets concluded the study was another example that TV harms children, while others said the reported effects were so small, they were almost negligible.
Britianâs National Health Service -â the countryâs Health Canada equivalent â also weighed in on the study published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. It decided that no conclusive answers could be drawn from it.
âUnfortunately, this research canât conclusively tell us if thereâs a link between watching TV and psychological and behavioural problems. From these limited results, it seems that any such link is likely to be small.â
The researchers were looking for what effects TV viewing and video game playing had on childrenâs behaviour, attention span, emotions and peer relationships.
Initially, they found that exposure to either TV or games for three hours or more a day was associated with an increase in all those areas. But after they adjusted for variables known to also affect behaviour problems, such as maternal characteristics and family functioning, they found that watching TV for three hours or more per day led to only a 0.13 point increase in conduct problems at seven years of age, compared to the kids who watched TV for less than an hour a day.
They found no link to hyperactivity/inattention, emotional symptoms, peer relationship problems, or pro-social behaviour.
Parenting expert Alyson Schafer agrees itâs hard to draw any conclusions from this study, given how small the reported effects were.
âThe media jumped on this and said, âSee? Television is bad. You are going to turn your child into little monsters with behavioural problems.â But if we actually go back to the researchers who conducted the study, their summation of what they found is, âHmm, doesnât seem like much. More research needs to be doneâ,â Schafer told CTVâs Canada AM Wednesday.
Schafer notes there were a number of flaws in the study, particularly that the researchers didnât consider the content of the shows the kids were watching
âThe only thing they found were problems with conduct. So essentially, the kids were disobedient. Well, theyâre seven. Kids get a little more disobedient between five and seven. They were looking for things to fall apart and the truth is they just didnât find it,â she said
Schafer notes that the Canadian Paediatric Society advises children under the age of two watch no TV at all, while those over two-years-old should watch no more than two hours a day. But she says itâs likely that children are exposed to a lot more TV than their parents might realize.
âThe truth is, if you look at whatâs happening, kids are watching up to seven hours a day. There are now TVs in cars, restaurants, there can be monitors on grocery carts, we have handheld devices,â she said.
Given that children are going to be watching TV, Schafer says most experts advise that parents watch TV with their kids to ensure that the content is commercial-free and sends a positive message to your children.
âBecause we know that if they watch pro-social behaviour on TV, theyâll actually model it,â Schafer says.
But Schafer says what really worries her is that three hours of TV a day represents about 25 per cent of a childâs day.
âWhat are they displacing when theyâre watching all that television? Thatâs my concern,â she said.
âWe need to help our kids find something to do outside of television viewing where they learn to self-entertain,â she added.
âIt would be great to turn off the TV and not have our kids grab our pant leg and say, âPlay with me!â and for us to be able to say, âNo, you can play on your own; just because the televisionâs off doesnât mean that Iâm on. I donât have to be the entertainment for the family.â
âKids need to learn to play on their own.â