PULLING THE PLUG

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070508/hl_nm/tv_school_performance_dc

More TV time means worse school performance

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more TV adolescents watch, the more likely they are to develop attention and learning problems, and to do poorly in school in the long-run, a new study confirms.

The findings "suggest that by encouraging youths to spend less than 3 hours per day watching television, parents, teachers and health care professionals may be able to help reduce the likelihood that at-risk adolescents will develop persistent attention and learning difficulties," Dr. Jeffrey G. Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and colleagues write.

Children in industrialized nations generally watch 2 or more hours of TV each day. There is evidence linking TV watching and poor academic and intellectual performance, the researchers point out, but it's not clear whether the TV time leads to school failure, if kids who don't do well in school tend to watch more TV than their better-performing peers, or if there are factors such as poverty or neglect that may contribute to both increased television watching and learning problems.

To investigate, the researchers followed a community-based sample of 678 mother-child pairs from upstate New York beginning when the children were about 14 years old until they reached age 22.

The amount of TV kids watched when they were 14 was positively linked with having attention problems later, not doing homework, being bored at school, not finishing high school, and "hating school," the researchers found.

The relationship between TV watching and school failure was stronger among kids with higher-than-average verbal intelligence scores, and those whose parents had more than 12 years of education.

When children who watched less than 2 hours of TV at age 14 reduced their TV watching by 1 hour or more, they halved their risk of school failure, the researchers found. But when 14-year-olds who watched fewer than 2 hours added 1 more daily hour of TV, they doubled their risk of academic failure at age 16.

Further analysis of the findings found that time spent watching television likely contributed to learning and attention problems, rather than vice versa.

Future research should address "whether promoting opportunities for developmentally appropriate weekend, summer, and after-school extracurricular activities...may help to reduce risk for the development of attention and learning difficulties during the adolescent years," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, May 2007.