Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion
Top Ten Findings
Children and Media: Parental Discretion Advised
January 2009
1. Television and Teen Pregnancy Teens who were exposed to high levels of sexual content on television were twice as likely to become pregnant during a three-year period than peers who had lower levels of exposure to sexual content.
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2. Television and Children’s Attention Deficit The amount of time preschoolers spent watching television was correlated with the likelihood of developing serious problems paying attention. An increase of 2.91 hours per day in television watching at age one was associated with a 28-percent increase in the likelihood that a child will have problems paying attention at age seven.
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3. Television and Children’s Cognitive Development Television viewing among children younger than three years old was associated with less cognitive development and lower scores on reading recognition and comprehension as well as lower mathematics scores for those in lower-income households when the children were six and seven years old.
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4. Alcohol Ads and Teen Substance Abuse An increase in seventh-graders' viewing alcohol commercials on television was associated with an increase the likelihood that, as eighth graders, they would drink beer, wine and liquor and drink at least three alcoholic drinks in one session.
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5. Television Viewing and Obesity Compared with peers who watched less than two hours of television a day, girls who viewed an average of two or more hours of television each day, were more likely to become overweight, to have a higher body mass index and higher percentage of body fat.
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6. Parental Monitoring and Television Viewing The more often parents watched television with their teens and the more they limited television viewing, the less likely adolescents were to have sex.
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7. Parental Discussion about Media and Teenage Drinking Among a sample of central Californian high school students, those whose parents positively reinforced television messages (e.g., when parents say that they like a product on character/person on TV; imitate something they saw on a TV program or in an ad; or agree with something shown on TV) were more likely to associate benefits with drinking alcohol, perceive that “TV is a realistic source of information,” and want to be like media portrayals compared to peers of parents who did not positively reinforce TV messages. In contrast, high school students of parents who countered TV messages (e.g., parents who speak up when they see something on TV they don’t like, say something on TV is not true; talk about what advertisements try to do; etc.) were less likely to associate positive benefits with drinking. In turn, students who associated positive benefits with drinking or those who perceived TV as a realistic source of information were more likely to drink alcohol compared to peers who did not exhibit either characteristic. In other words, parental discussion of media messages played a mediating (i.e., indirect) role in teenage drinking.
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8. Home Environment and Television Viewing Fourth graders who spent more meals in front of the television or those who had a television set in their bedrooms increased, on average, their television viewing over the next four years.
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9. Parental Regulation of Children’s Television Viewing Overall, children of parents who encouraged television viewing watched the most, while children of parents who regulated television viewing watched the least amount of television. Specifically, compared to children whose parents did not encourage television watching, those whose parents did watched, on average, more informative types of children’s programs as well as more general-audience types of programs such as news, sports, comedy, action adventure and variety game. In contrast, compared to children whose parents did not regulate their television viewing, those of parents who did watched, on average, less entertainment types of children’s programs (but not informative types of children’s programs) as well as less general-audience types of programs such as comedy, action adventure and variety game.
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10. Adolescents’ Media Use and Parental Presence Parental religiosity was linked to adolescent social responsibility directly as well as indirectly through authoritative parenting.
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Resources
Events:Religious Practice and Civic Life: What the Research Says October 4, 2007 |