Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 10 June 2009 | Nature 459, 765-768 (2009) | doi:10.1038/459765a
News Feature
Media research: The black box
Assessing the effects of television on young children is far from easy. But, as researchers tell Jim Schnabel, that is no reason not to try.
In 1998, Dimitri Christakis took time off from work to care for his two-month-old son. At home he found himself watching television to pass the time — "more TV than I had ever watched in my life", he remembers.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
I cant help wondering whether, as with the recent claims that watching TV causes depression, whether vitamin D depeltion is confounding these studies. People who are inside watching TV are not outside and may have lower levels as a result when compared to non-watchers. Vitamin D is, I gather, involved in embryonic neurogenesis, among other things, and there have been a number of studies which hint that low levels may possibly, perhaps, be a rsik increasing factor for a number of neurological disorders. Urban residents have lower levels than rural residents with the result that as countries urbanise, or continue to urbanise, the average serum levels in the population will decline. This may be a contributing factor in the increasing prevalence of diabetes, autism and even perhaps allergies.
A fascinating study was undertaken in the 70s by Dr. Tannis MacBeth (see Williams, T.M. (ed., 1986). 'The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities.' Orlando, FL: Academic Press (Harcourt/Elsevier) or Book Chapter: ?The impact of television: A Canadian natural experiment?. In Communications in Canadian Society, (5th ed.), ed. C. McKie & B.D. Singer. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing pp. 196-213, 2000.). She looked at what happened to three remote Canadian communities after the introduction of television. It was a timely study since most of Canada was already connected. The results are powerful and perhaps the first of their kind. Her study found results similar to much of what was found in these much later studies...television is detrimental to community building and problem solving ability.