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TV, ADHD and Doing Useful Things

Posted by Hemos on from the well-duh dept.

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."

2 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. TV vs. Computers by michaelredux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "You go to your TV when you want to turn your brain off.
    You go to your computer when you want to turn your brain on.
    Those are not the same."

    -- Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple

  2. Re:Causal relationship? by fireduck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    they address this exact issue in the text of the paper:
    Third, we cannot draw causal inferences from these associations. It could be that attentional problems lead to television viewing rather than vice versa. However, to mitigate this limitation, we ... focused on television viewing at 1 and 3 years of age, well before the age at which most experts believe that ADHD symptoms are manifest.32,39 It is also possible that there are characteristics associated with parents who allow their children to watch excessive amounts of television that accounts for the relationship between television viewing and attentional problems.

    Same paragraph goes on to talk about how some shows might be good for children, such as Sesame Street, and promote reading, etc.

    So, while the researchers can't claim that TV viewing causes ADHD, there is a very strong correlation between the two, and one that obviously deserves further study. Plopping a 1 year old down in front of a TV and having that entertain him for several hours every day just can't be all that good for him. There's just gotta be more constructively entertaining avenues available.