Do television and electronic games predict children’s psychosocial adjustment?
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"Methods Typical daily hours viewing television and playing electronic games at age 5 years were reported by mothers of 11 014 children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Conduct problems, emotional symptoms, peer relationship problems, hyperactivity/inattention and prosocial behaviour were reported by mothers using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Change in adjustment from age 5 years to 7 years was regressed on screen exposures; adjusting for family characteristics and functioning, and child characteristics."
So all the data here were gathered by self-reports from the children's mothers. One of the first things to do to see if these results replicate in another sample is to gather data the next time by third-party observers. How much does a mother's estimate of how much screen time a child has differ from an observation by an objective observer? How much does an objective observer's observation of a child's behavior differ from the mother's self-report? I'd want to know details like that before drawing any particular conclusion about the facts of the world from this interesting study kindly submitted here.
As far as drawing conclusions, I'm not sure it's necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Self-reporting does tend to be inaccurate in terms of absolute numbers. But as long as it tends to be accurate in relative terms - that is, that if people who say their child watches more TV tend to have children who actually do watch more TV - then we can draw relative conclusions. And the key takeaway points from this paper are still useful information even when you take the absolute numbers involved with a grain of salt. Simply knowing that TV viewing time is positively correlated with behavioral problems may not be a crystal-clear picture of the situation, but it's still useful knowledge for a parent.
That's hardly required. An app installed on tablets or face recognition on a kinect-type device or webcam can monitor screen usage and be automated. Initially it's enough to show whether any sub-category of screen-bearing device is being reported correctly. TV is probably the easiest to monitor and could well be done using a relatively inexpensive "bug" stuck on the wall.
We cut-off Thomas. Within 2 days, he was much easier to get along with. The books and toys were fine, just not that one show. His daycare said, "Yeah, he's been tons better. I didn't want to believe you, but he's had no timeouts and he's been much nicer."
Our running theory is that he was paying just enough attention to see when the trains were bad, but not enough attention to see how the bad behavior turned-out for the trains.
That said, I do think TV and Games influence behavior...
WoW is harmless, while the time wasted on it cannot be taken back or spent on acquiring valuable social experience or self-development.
Citation please.
I play FPS shooters sometimes, it affects my behaviour and I'm a [reasonably!] well-adjusted adult. Perhaps I'm an outlier with undiagnosed mental issues but I'm not inclined to be convinced by such assertions.