Parents worry about drugs and resolve to keep their kids clean.
Parents worry about violence and resolve to keep their kids safe.
But when parents worry about television . . . they just keep
worrying.
The problem with television is that there are at least two sides
to every argument about it. It has been linked to educational and
social development in young children -- as well as obesity and
aggression in adolescents. Television teaches kids important
educational lessons -- and to use profanity. There is at least one
television in almost every American home, and no other piece of
furniture causes as much parental anxiety. Unfortunately, parents
may have more cause to worry than they think.
Gallup Youth Survey (GYS) data* indicate that a majority of
teens watch as much television as they want. Sixty-seven percent
say their parents put no restrictions on the number of hours they
may watch. That may be in part because, as a 2002 Public Agenda
survey reports, almost half (48%) of all parents say the amount of
television their children watch is "not an issue" in their
households. On the other hand, Nielsen Media Research reports that
American kids age 2 through 11 watch an average of 3 hours and 16
minutes per day, significantly more than the 2-hour maximum
recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
What Are Kids Watching?
Every generation, whether it knows it or not, harbors a common
image it saw on television -- the moon landing, Nixon's
post-resignation V-signs, hijacked planes plunging into the World
Trade Center. The presumptive value of television is that it brings
us together. In the Public Agenda study, 93% of parents said, "TV
is fine for kids as long as [they are] watching the right shows in
moderation." But do parents know what kids are watching, or do they
just think they do?
The GYS study asked 13- to 17-year-olds if their parents or
guardians "put any restrictions on the type of programs you can
watch." Fifty-three percent said yes. But enforcing those
restrictions may be a challenge for many. When Public Agenda asked
parents of 13- to 17-year-olds about an adult presence, 47% said
they supervise what their kids watch on television, but only 30%
say they are always around when their kids watch. And of the
parents who do supervise their teens' television watching, 71% say
they have been "shocked and offended" by something they saw.
Perhaps it's no wonder. According to the National Association for
the Education of Young Children, 90% of what children watch is
designed for adults.
Very Remote Control
The disparity between kids' relationships to television and
their parents' perceptions of those relationships is troubling.
There is a great deal of programming available for younger viewers,
especially small children (although the AAP recommends that
children under age 2 should not watch TV at all). On the other
hand, there is a great deal of programming that would seem to be
inappropriate for children. And kids seem to be absorbing more of
it than their parents think. According to the American
Psychological Association, by the time children graduate from high
school, they have watched 22,000 hours of television, and spent
about half as much time in a classroom.
*Findings are based on telephone interviews with a
representative national crosssection of 501 American teen-agers,
aged 13 to 17. Interviews were conducted January through April
2000. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95%
confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and
other random effects is ±5%.
