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A new study has highlighted the connection between aggressive behavior and children who watch television more than 3 hours a day.
The risk is associate with the total time of viewing, and for those children who viewed the television 3 hours or more, there was an increased risk of aggressive or antisocial behavior, such as stealing or fighting.
However, playing with the computer or playing videogames had no effect on behavior. And even in those children who did have changes in behavior, the percentage of children who actually acted out was very small.
A previous study had demonstrated that criminal behavior was associated with too much time in front of the tv during childhood, and another study simply highlighted the fact that muscular fitness decreased proportionally to the time spent watcing television. All these previous study had been conducted in the United States.
The sample for the latest study was 11,000, and the study, which was named Millennium Cohort Study, was conducted in the UK during the years 2000-2002.
A questionnaire was given the mothers of the children that identified the behavioral patterns in their children and the amount of time spent in front of the tv.
Of the group surveyed, 66% watched the television for 1-3 hours when they were five. 15% of the children were before the television more than 3 hours a day, and less than 2% had no viewing time at all.
Most kids surveyed did not play videogames because they were too young.
And in those children in the 15% group that viewed for more than 3 hours there was a small increase in aggressive and antisocial behavior.
The scientists conducting the study also said that they believed that the behavior modification stemmed more from the effect of being sedentary than the material that was viewed. They also found that the children had more sleeping difficulties, and impaired language development.
Source: MNT 3.26.13
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