TV, ADHD and Doing Useful Things

WebGangsta writes "USAToday (and others) are reporting that too much TV, at an early age, can cause ADHD in children. They say that there should be no TV watching for children under 2. Every added hour of watching TV increased a child's odds of having attention problems by about 10%. Kids watching about three hours a day were 30% more likely to have attention trouble than those viewing no TV. The researchers accounted for many factors beside television that might predict problems concentrating, but the TV-attention link remained. I imagine that in 10 years we'll be seeing studies about how too much Internet/computer/video game use will also result in ADHD. See PEDIATRICS magazine for more information."

Comments

Re:Causal relationship?

[br0ck]

The Yahoo article cut off the entire bit about the limits of the study from the second page of the Reuters posting:

STUDY LIMITED

The authors said the study had some limitations.

The television viewing data came from the parents and may not be completely accurate. Also, there is no way to know whether the children already had attention problems early on that attracted them to TV viewing, though symptoms don't appear that early, it said.

It was also possible the parents who allowed excessive TV viewing were themselves distracted and neglectful, creating a household that fostered attention problems in the children. Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder has a high heritability level, the study said.

And the study did not look at what kinds of programs the children watched.

"Despite these limitations our results have some important implications if replicated in future studies," it said. "First we (have) added inattention to the previously studied deleterious consequences of excessive television viewing ... (and) our findings suggested that preventive action can be taken."