Human Services News

Kaiser Family Foundation

Electronic media is a central focus of many very young children's lives, used by parents to help manage busy schedules, keep the peace, and facilitate family routines such as eating, relaxing, and falling asleep, according to a new national study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Media use increases with age, from 61% of babies one year or younger who watch screen media in a typical day (for an average of 1:20) to 90% of 4 to 6 year-olds (for an average of 2:03).

In many homes, parents have created an environment where the TV is a nearly constant presence, from the living room to the dining room and the bedroom.

The most common reasons parents give for putting a TV in their child's bedroom is to free up other TVs in the house so the parent or other family members can watch their own shows (55%), to keep the child occupied so the parent can do things around the house (39%), to help the child fall asleep (30%), and as a reward for good behavior (26%).

As one mother who participated in a focus group in Irvine, CA said, "Media makes life easier.

Children whose parents have established these heavy TV environments spend more time watching than other children: for example, those who live in households where the TV is on all or most of the time spend an average of 25 minutes more per day watching TV (1:16 vs. 0:51), and those with a TV in their bedroom spend an average of 30 minutes more per day watching (1:19 vs. 0:49).

In focus groups, parents noted many specific benefits of TV viewing for their children, such as spurring imaginative play, teaching letters and words, and learning a foreign language.

One mother form Irvine, CA stated, "Anything they're doing on the computer I think is learning" and another from Columbus, OH noted, "Out of the blue one day my son counted to five in Spanish.

There are times when my interacting with my children is best served by me having an opportunity to allow them to do something alone so I can regroup.

"While my daughter has her princess movie in, my son can be upstairs playing his Blues Clues CD-ROM...It gives them their own space and their own quality time to be apart."

I don't know how harmful it is to her.

She hasn't had any nightmares from it."