Here was a question and terrific article sent to me by one mom. The article she found is incredibly interesting and well worth a read. I hope you will click on the link. I partial posted the end of it. The gist: kids are way over loaded on media outlets but we don’t have to be victims.
Thanks for walking the road with me!
-Kay
On your blog, have you ever touched on the topic of too much tv or video games? In order to minimize or eliminate tv/itouch/video games this summer, I have made a rule where our kids can’t do any if those things until they have read at least 1 hour.Needless to say, they have not wanted to read an hour most days, but the net effect has been playing board games or card games or outdoor play instead of tv etc. Yesterday, as they were complaining about this rule, I decided to research the subject and tell them the findings so they would understand why too much tv/video games would have a negative effect on their brains. One article even compared tv’s effect on the brain to the drug opium. Other articles said it leads to poor performance in school etc. The research was eye opening. Anyway, here is a link to one of the articles (click here for link: Kids & Media)
Media multitasking may also be harmful, Gentile said. “The research is getting clearer that multitasking really damages productivity. It damages the quality of work and it damages how much you can get done.”
But parents can change things. “Parents are in a really powerful position. They do not have to give up the fight,” Gentile said. “When they do put limits on how much time and what types of content kids can watch, that’s a powerful protective factor for kids. Those kids get better grades, those kids get in fewer physical fights.”
“We are raising a generation of kids who may have a problem maintaining sustained and focused attention, because they are so used to being distracted,” Gentile said.
Another expert agreed that parents need to set rules about media use.
Jennifer Manganello, an assistant professor in the department of health policy, management, & behavior in the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany, said “this latest report provides important, new information regarding media use by youth in the United States.”
“The fact that many of the youth who participated in the study say they have no rules regarding media use suggests we can do more to get information to parents about recommended practices to help decrease time spent with media, such as removing a TV from the bedroom,” she said.
