Children's TV 'is linked to cancer, autism, dementia'

[Doondoo]

It has long been blamed for creating a nation of couch potatoes. But a new report today claims that Britain's love affair with television is causing far more damage - both physically and psychologically - than previously thought.

The findings have been compiled by Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist who has previously written about the effects of television on the viewer. His report, analysing 35 different scientific studies carried out into television and its effect on the viewer, has identified 15 negative effects he claims can be blamed on watching television. Among the most disturbing findings are the links he claims to have found between long hours of television viewing and cancer, autism and Alzheimer's.

The effects on children watching TV have been well publicised in Britain. Fears of a timebomb of obesity have sparked a wave of ministerial initiatives to promote sport and tackle the couch-potato lifestyle. However, today's report suggests the consequences of television are far more serious. They range from myopia and attention deficit disorder to diabetes, autism, Alzheimer's and a generation whose brains are being numbed by on-screen imagery.

His report, published in the respected Biologist magazine, claims the problem with television lies in the length of time we spend in front of the set. For most people, watching television now takes up more time than any other single activity except work and sleep. According to the British Audience Research Bureau, by the age of 75 the average Briton will have spent more than 12 years of their life watching television.

Dr Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and author of Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives, said arguments over how educational programmes are were a distraction. He said: "The medical studies I have looked at are about the medium of television, irrespective of the programmes children are watching. It is the number of hours and the age at which they start which produces the biological effects. It is because of the medium, not the message, that these effects are occurring."


http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=265852007

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Children's TV, eh?

Did they sit children in front of Jim Lehrer's News Hour as a placebo?

[EvolveOrConvolve]

17. LOL - good question.

[Katherine Brengle]

55. I'm always skeptical of "news" like this...

I think we all understand that passivity in general (such as that experience during tv watching) tends to weaken the mind...

Then you have to wonder if they contrasted older style slower moving repetitive kid's shows like Sesame Street and the like to things like Kim Possible - there are absolutely tiers in the quality of kid's tv, much like adult tv - I can watch hours of MTV or I can watch hours of History Channel documentaries - I will undoubtedly be better off after the documentaries... doesn't take a neurologist.

It would be interesting if the actual visual effects of watching television have a deleterious effect on the brain.

[The Straight Story]

2. Get tv's out of bars too!

Smoking and TV's should be gone from all bars. Next on the list, beer and other forms of alcohol banned from bars.

Did the moral majority take over when I wasn't looking? :rofl:

[SoCalDem]

4. and the wimmin too..get them nasty wimmin outta bars

and chain 'em to the stove where they belong.. oh.. and take their shoes too :)

[The Straight Story]

6. Hell yeah

We need pure bars, no smoking, alcohol, tv, or women.

Give the nanny's time....

[hlthe2b]

7. but the doggies can stay...

LOL

Oh, wait, you are taking the beer? Not so fast, bud..

[JackRiddler]

34. Wow, that is so relevant!

Bars, children's rooms, what's the diff right?

And can you show where the moral majority objects to TVs in bars? (Maybe they object to bars period, but when did you hear they had a problem with TVs - in malls, superchurches, or anywhere else?)

[shain from kane]

3. Cancer of the eyeballs? Eat more carrots. What's up, Doc?

[Southsideirish]

27. Where is the reference to "eyeball cancer?" I didn't see it. My relative has

a melanoma in her eye and she watches TV all the time - she is a shut-in and its her only source of amusement.

[WindRavenX]

5. Eh, looks like people are again mistaking correlation w/ causation

I read the article and though it linked increasing TV usage with a variety of diseases and disorders, it didn't mention the biological process that would be a causative agent.

So, I'm skeptical of this.

[Doondoo]

12. edit

[EvolveOrConvolve]

18. I think that birth causes cancer

After all, 100% of all cancer patients have experienced birth. :sarcasm:

I'm skeptical also. It seems like quite a leap, and on its face is a Propter Hoc fallacy.

[WindRavenX]

20. here's the part that struck me...

. His report, analysing 35 different scientific studies carried out into television and its effect on the viewer, has identified 15 negative effects he claims can be blamed on watching television.

Firstly, he didn't do his own research. Secondly, it didn't say if his reserach was peer reviewed.

Not very strong arguement at all.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. I'm always skeptical of 3rd party "analysis"

We don't even know which, if any, of the 35 studies were themselves peer reviewed, let alone the research.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. I suspect...

he's getting data from various cohort studies done over the years. It's rather common given the difficulty of human testing.

Second, I tried some googling on the journal "The Biologist" which I've never heard of. I didn't find anything. Sounds fishy.

[JackRiddler]

35. meta studies are an acceptable form...

In which one analyzes an accumulated body of work.

Peer review is a) self-evident in an academic journal and b) hardly a guarantee of anything - often done cursorily or recklessly. Peer review almost got Galileo burned at the stake. I'll take thoughtful analysis over some anonymous certificate of review.

Here is the best comment from the article in the Scotsman:

27. Derek Williams, Edinburgh / 10:11am 19 Feb 2007

One thing about brain damage is you don't know you've got it, because you need a working brain to realise it. That's why drug addicts in the throes think their world is always fabulous.

While scepticism is a natural and healthy response to what appear to be outrageous claims, it's hard to be taken as a credible critic of a book that one has not actually read.

It's also natural to ridicule any research that tells us things we don't want to hear. There's plenty of wheezing smokers out there who'll swear on a stack of bibles that "smoking never done me no harm."

I have worked as an educator for over 30 years and have observed many of the adverse cognitive and behavioural symptoms in children that Dr Sigman alleges are attributable to the negative effects of watching too much television. One of the most prevalent of these is the 'designer disease' ADHD, unheard of when I was a child.

I strongly recommend that before slanging off at the guy, you do as I did and buy a copy of Dr Sigman's book "Remotely Controlled" and actually read it. It comes across as a soundly written, albeit somewhat sensationalist work with many detailed footnotes and references that check out. If after reading it and checking out his claims you still think it's baloney and you have superior evidence to support your contrary claims, I for one will be intensely interested to hear about your research.

[WindRavenX]

40. but the journal he mentions isn't being found--which is suspicious

Just because he appears in an academic journal isn't good enough--there are plenty of journals which have very low admission guidelines, aren't truly peer reviewed (new age, crystals, stuff like that). It's not self-evident that it's peer reviewed.

I'm not saying that what the author claims should be dismissed--I'm just not impressed with his methods and his conclusions. Nor have I said that television or mass media does not result in behavioural changes. I object to his methods and his broad conclusions that seem to have no background in biological systems of causation.I've seen numerious papers on pubmed and elsewhere that claim the exact opposite that the author does, and I've seen a lot of papers that support some of his claims, particularly in attention span and obesity. But to go so far and claim that there's a link to autism is a very strong claim that needs very specific evidence to back that claim up, and there isn't any in this paper.

edited for plural + clarification

[Lance_Boyle]

49. Meta-analysis of existing data is an important type of research

and is not "lesser than," so I'd disagree with your first point. The question of peer review could probably be answered by discovering the scientific journal in which his meta-analysis was published - if they require peer review, then I'd assume his research was so reviewed. Not that peer review does much but critique style when it comes to meta-analysis projects...

[SmokingJacket]

59. Everyone was born, but not everyone watches teevee

It is scientifically possible to correlate teevee watching with diseases and behaviors.

It is, indeed, harder to prove causation, though.

Since teevee hasn't been linked with anything particularly USEFUL, though, I'm going to continue to keep it out of my damn house.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

63. I was being facetious about the birth

Here's some interesting information:

http://www.slate.com/id/2136372/

"From the 1966 Coleman Report, the landmark study of educational opportunity commissioned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Gentzkow and Shapiro got 1965 test-score data for almost 300,000 kids. They looked for evidence that greater exposure to television lowered test scores. They found none. After controlling for socioeconomic status, there were no significant test-score differences between kids who lived in cities that got TV earlier as opposed to later, or between kids of pre- and post-TV-age cohorts. Nor did the kids differ significantly in the amount of homework they did, dropout rates, or the wages they eventually made."

It's well known that kids who watch too much TV are obese, and that leads to other diseases. However, it doesn't "rot your brain" like so many mothers like to tell their children.

If you don't know of ways the TV can be useful (especially for kids), then you haven't been watching it enough. According to the following article:

http://homepage.mac.com/iajukes/blogwavestudio/LH20050626175144/LHA20050705123349/index.html

TV viewing by kids under 3 may lower cognitive abilities, but for kids between the ages of 3 and 5, it may actually have benefits.

Like anything else, TV should be consumed in moderation. If you let your kid rot in front of a TV for 8 hours a day, they're likely going to have serious problems. I think that's a given. But to completely ban something is ridiculous. It can be an effective learning tool on top of the entertainment value.

[sarge43]

8. And mother's milk causes everything. n/t

[sandnsea]

9. "watching computers"

which doesn't stimulate the brain like reading does. Hmmmm. He didn't say video games, he said computers. You don't watch a computer screen, you READ content from a computer screen. I'd venture to guess the next generation will be the most literate and verbally expressive yet, because those are skills unique to computers and the current internet.

[WindRavenX]

13. imo, this is a really shitty article

And your points are spot on--my generation (gen Y) has been observed to be far more literate and, most interesting, more commanding with language than previous generations.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

54. Just curious...

Do you have any links to these studies about Gen Y'ers being far more literate and more commanding with language?

I'm merely curious as I have absolutely not found that to be the case at all (in my experience, of course.) I speak as someone who is relatively young (29), and the deficiencies in spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax that I see among my peers are nothing short of appalling.

[Katherine Brengle]

56. It would be interesting to see a study...

Most of the young people I know are every bit as dumb as their parents :evilgrin: - myself excluded of course.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

58. Frequently dumber!

I studied writing in college, and I took a grammar course that was cross-listed as a requirement for senior English Education majors. My fellow students in that course are currently teaching English in grammar schools and high schools. And about 80-90% of them had no idea what the parts of speech were, couldn't define them (they acted like they had never heard of an "adverb" before), couldn't identify the subject or the predicate of a sentence and on and on and on.

They thought I was some sort of genius because I knew all of this stuff -- which I learned in like 2nd or 3rd grade!

(I should also note that this wasn't a community college or anything. This was a major state university that is quite reputable.)

[JackRiddler]

41. I find that reading is a very different experience...

books/paper as opposed to Web. Web reading is more mediated, superficial - generally speaking. It requires electronic infrastructure, equipment, noise and light; text is framed with extranea like windows, controls, popups, ads, links; ease of publication encourages thoughtless writing & skimming (also very casual style, like in this very message!). Hyperlinking is enormously useful but also encourages a fragmented approach, where you leave the page before reading it and go elsewhere. The cut and paste approach to Web writing flattens individual voice. How often do you read and finish a novel online? Does it feel the same as reading a book? It has various advantages - instant referencing to source is a big one! - but it's definitely different.

[partylessinOhio]

10. This is pure BS! "They" will do anything to take the focus off drug companies

putting mercury in vaccines causing autism and other problems!

NINE more soldiers have died today in Iraq!

[WindRavenX]

11. This is has been thoroughly debunked

Autism is more recognized today than it was in previous generations.

The mercury/autism link doesn't exist.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. That's true.

Autism is caused by the mercury in fish.

:thumbsup:

[WindRavenX]

15. or by guardisal vaccines

;)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Don't forget Baby Einstein videos.

Those cause arsenic.

[WindRavenX]

19. what about classical music?

Or will that turn kids into teh homosexuals?

[azurnoir]

25. Thought that was tofu

[TZ]

47. I thought you might find this interesting WindRavenX

my friend lizerdbits posted this the other day.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x14853

[mykpart]

23. Maybe it's only crappy British TV that causes health problems!

:)

[Left Hook]

24. My kid has cancer because of Mister Rogers

:sarcasm:

[EvolveOrConvolve]

26. Mr. Rogers is a real asshole that way

Between the Mr. Rogers Cancer and the Sesame Street Aids, our kids are doomed. :sarcasm:

[renate]

51. welcome to DU!

:hi:

[kiahzero]

28. "Comic books have seduced our innocent!!!!!!!11!!!one!"

Same shit, different day.

:puke:

[JackRiddler]

36. So obviously not the case.

I know all about Dr. Wertham. You're simply denying the power of the electronic media.

Do you have children? Have you seen a difference in the behavior of a group of children after watching loud and obnoxious programming (again: the style is the factor, not necessarily the content)? As opposed to reading, including comic books?

[kiahzero]

38. Junk science is junk science.

I know it's hard to think under the cloud of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!"-induced hysteria, but that doesn't change that this is junk science.

[JackRiddler]

39. I guess if you keep repeating that as a mantra

it might become true, but that's magical not scientific thinking. Address the fallacies you see substantively - reflexive ridicule only betrays a lack of consideration.

[kiahzero]

52. There's no vector for causation.

This is just another instance of trotting out poor "studies" to attack the pop-culture fad of the moment.

20 years from now, we'll be hearing about how holograms corrupt the minds and morals of our youth. Like I said, same shit, different day.

[JackRiddler]

62. TV is "the pop-culture fad of the moment"?!

The medium that dominates mass communication and politics, the device that occupies more time per capita than any other activity, the main educator of children for more than 50 years, the most important invention of the 20th century... this is a fad of the moment?!

Let's leave aside cancer, diabetes, or the more spectacular claims that the article is probably emphasizing more than the actual study (which is a meta-study evaluating varied research findings from many authors). I submit that if TV contributes to a passive mindset and physical inactivity, it will have a powerful if indirect impact on one's well-being.

Please remember: the highly maligned author of this study isn't badgering adults about how they spend their time. He is specifically calling for a restriction on TV time for children. The violent reactions we see on this thread, which are all-too typical, serve to obscure this modest and sensible proposal.

I expect some of that is denial from people who spent their childhoods watching TV (the majority of Americans and in fact large parts of the world), or who are parents of children currently doing the same.

Tell me that TV as a medium (not just because of content) does not have dramatic impacts on how its watchers perceive the world - and ultimately how that world is cognitively organized.

Tell me that TV does not impact upon personality, especially development of one's perceptual framework in childhood.

Tell me that it does not invite passivity and a view of the world as a set of loosely connected icons and personalities, as opposed to the linear logic and mechanical coherence of print.

Tell me that in practice it hasn't been employed (abuse of a "neutral technology," if you will) as a veritable assault on society, sense and sensibility: a maximum propaganda machine.

If you find the above statements flat-out wrong, I wonder what dialogue is possible here, because we seem to live on different planets.

What is television?

The economics of the industry: Television is a system for delivering a product (you, the audience) to a customer (the advertiser or sponsor). This is a strict description of the business model, and if it sounds at all unfair to you, I submit you are in denial. All other supposed functions (entertainment, education) are simply means to the end.

The technology: Developed as a one-way transmission system that requires electronic projection (and an attendant infrastructure). It must be "on" to work, and whenever on it is "on" in your mind, even when you aren't paying attention. It fills space with immediate content (compare to other media that require you to translate symbols into your own imagery, and thus lack the same hold).

If advertisers and programmers had a means for holding the audience that they were aware makes the audience more stupid, inert or violent, they would, self-evidently, feel a duty to their business model, and use it. If they had the perfect brainwash, they would use it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. The idea of excessive TV watching causing ADD in some kids

actually makes sense.

If a child is parked in front of the TV from early infancy as opposed to interacting with other humans, the quick changes of scenes and the frenetic nature of much TV action could influence the developing brain to have a short attention span.

I'm not saying that all ADD children have this kind of background, but it's not unthinkable that some of them do.

[WindRavenX]

30. that part absolutely makes sense and there has been research into that specifially

But this guy is claiming something else entirely, and it looks like he doesn't have any hard empirical data to back it up.

Short attention spans these days is a huge problem--many of my professors lament how my generation is so focused on getting as much info packed into as little time as possible that we often mentally wear ourselves out. I've personally experienced that, and it really sucks to have a mind that is on 24/7. It's hard to flip the "off" switch.

Maybe that's why I like wine and pot so much.

[TZ]

53. both at the same time? LOL

even that doesn't help much for me. Just makes me sleepy.:)

[NMMNG]

31. I'm not surprised. Have you ever watched "Boobah"?

That show had to have been created by some guy on an acid trip to fry kids brains. :crazy:


Edit: Response is tongue-in-cheek.

[KatyaR]

32. Give somebody enough money, and they'll be able to prove

that peanut butter does the same thing.

I hate these damn studies--many of them are totally worthless.

[JackRiddler]

33. First to recommend...

One need not view this study as impeccable - I don't know, I've only read the news report, not the study itself.

I think the following is simply obvious, and am not surprised at its reported confirmation:

He said: "The medical studies I have looked at are about the medium of television, irrespective of the programmes children are watching. It is the number of hours and the age at which they start which produces the biological effects. It is because of the medium, not the message, that these effects are occurring."

I was attacked and called fundamentalist a few weeks ago for joking that "Baby Einstein is evil," not because of anything wrong (or right) in its content but because it's designed to get children interested in TV at ever-earlier ages (same can be said of Teletubbies). Children up to 3, really up to 5 or 6 should simply not be exposed to this essentially passive medium, it a) entrains them to watch more later and b) gides the development of their imagination and perception. Brains develop to the rhythm of what one does. Being up to their elbows in fingerpaints or dirt or banging on tupperware is where they need to be - not consuming color patterns on a screen (TV or computer).

I also agree that style is much more important than content. Fast cuts, hectic camera motions encourage fidgeting, nervousness and lack of attention. Children also need to learn a certain tolerance for boredom.

[symbolman]

44. I would advise ALL Parents of newborns and toddlers

to DO yourself a Favor and Buy or TIVO from PBS, a Program Called "SIGNING TIMES"..

A woman with two deaf children has created a series that teaches children to SIGN in American Sign Language, and it doesn't matter if your child is learning to Speak or not, basically they use the same part of the brain for Language developement as they sign, so speech is not impacted, or delayed but rather amplified.

The kids are learning TWO languages at the same time. It is REVOLUTIONARY. I know the woman, Rachel, who's also a Musician, and the MUSIC is WONDERFUL.

I am a musician and get so SICK of bullshit ditties, and retarded dinosaurs, which I personally found INSULTING to my intelligence as a child.

This Music and the interaction between this program and the kids is astounding. My son is GLUED to this program, at age 2, and really doesn't watch anything else.

Children can learn to SIGN as early as 9 months and make their needs and personalities KNOWN - terrible twos are virtually Eliminated, as they are based not just on Self Autonomy, but also on MISCOMMUNICATION - when the kid can sign they are not as frustrated.

Of course YOU have to learn to sign TOO, but there's where you develop good skills with your child as well, healthy interaction.

My two year old knows over 200 signs, the entire alphabet in sign and orally, is beginning to READ. There is even a SIGNING TIMES for BABIES.

Watch for it, and TIVO it on Saturday Mornings, you won't be sorry.

I'll supply a link when I get more rest, it's late, late here now.

Other than Signing Times, I turn the damn TV OFF and take the kid for walks, swimming in the ocean, playing in dirt, etc. We are MADE to be OUTSIDE. :)

[JackRiddler]

46. Fascinating...

This is the first time I've ever heard a case for programs for small children that makes sense. Every other claim people make in favor of educational TV - that it helps with colors, patterns, language, music, "self-image" (behavioral modeling) - involves facilities that children develop as well or better while doing something else; anything else. And that might also be true in the case of sign language - except that adults generally don't know sign language to teach it. (Widespread adoption of ASL might be revolutionary. Imagine it.)

Thanks for informing. A link:
http://www.signingtime.com

[Katherine Brengle]

57. Very interesting --

never heard of it. I have very strict standards for what my daughter is allowed to watch (and for how long) on television. However, from what she does watch (shows chosen only for their educational value), she is almost 3 and she can say a number of words in Spanish, her English vocabulary is better than any 3 year old I've ever met, she knows her numbers (into the teens) and alphabet, shapes and colors, etc... TV doesn't teach her all of these things, but carefully chosen limited programming can reinforce things learned away from the tube.

My husband on the other hand... ugh, he is absolutely guilty of using the damn thing as a babysitter - it gets ugly sometimes.

[JackRiddler]

37. "Idea that science is always precise is another notion from The Tube"

Here's another good one from comments to article:

#4, statsman, if you think science is precise you are ill-informed. That is why there a such things as plus signs and minus signs and even litle plus OR minus signs and squiggly little equal signs meant to infer the idea of not quite; scientific discourse is always peppered with prases and words such as approximates, within a margin of error ... In fact, NOTHING in science is exact; that is a notion that is put forward by the boob tube, skepticism toward any science as junk no doubt was authored by neo-cons behind the Fox news network whose jealousy toward learnedness and difficult mind work continually works to erode any respect for authority in intellectual matters ... emitted to you by those same light rays. Television promotes itself in every underhanded subliminal and overt means possible; dead brains mean more viewers and more advertising dollars. Nothing is more important to the industry.

[FlaGranny]

42. What a crock!

I can tell you as the grandmother of an autism syndrome grandson that his symptoms were present from birth.

[Skidmore]

43. Couldn't possibly have anything to do with our food, the chemicals

in cleaning solutions, or genetics either.

[seabeyond]

45. and we hardly turn on our tv... now computers is a whole other story, BUT

books are big time too

[dogday]

48. My Sister is Autistic and she never watched a day

of TV in her life, she doesn't like to just sit and watch tv... From the day she was born she would not cry, not a bit.... My parents could not potty train her and so they had to wait until she was 5 years old to get a diagnosis from the University of Florida. TV had nothing to do with her condidtion...

[Ilsa]

50. My son is unable to watch much either.

But he had some very unusual fears of a few images on TV when he was less than a year old. He always freaked out at the end of the Oprah Show (back when I watched and I don't anymore) and the American Airlines jetliner cam on and then the cartoon Oprah pulling the HARPO productions letter wagon. He really cried over that. But then, he was entranced by scrolling credits. Hypnotic.

Now at age ten, he insists on watching the Nightly Business Report which comes on after Jim Lehrer and The News Hour. But he can barely count to 25, much less understand business transactions. Weird, huh.

[gravity]

60. I watched 12 hours of TV a day when I was sick with cancer

so I bet any researcher would find a link between cancer and TV.

[Katherine Brengle]

61. Yeah I...

watched many hours of tv while I was recovering from surgery... maybe there is a link between tv watching and recovery time?

Glad you are okay :hug:

[KamaAina]

64. Aha! Mom used to sleep in on Saturday mornings

and so I'd end up watching teevee by my lonesome until 1 or so sometimes.

And here I am with autism. Q.E.D.

:sarcasm: