Center on Media and Child Health

Virtual Safety?

Kid-centered online communities may seem safer than many other potential hang outs, whether electronic or not--after all, the sites are often heavily monitored to ensure that less than well-intentioned adults can't access them.

According to an article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, however, even such monitoring doesn't protect the kids from another threat: each other. The kids' virtual selves interact, maintain virtual bank accounts, and buy virtual furniture as they live their virtual lives. But they are also virtually scamming each other in as many ways as they can create.

A 2007 UCLA study explored cheating among tween game players and found that such behavior extended beyond the usual workarounds: It also includes rigging elections, selling products that don't exist, and using scams to empty other users' virtual bank accounts. And although sites increasingly monitor chats between users and can ban them temporarily or permanently for bad behavior, the article suggests that safety in these worlds is more difficult to maintain than it seems.

Can a Doctor Visit Help Prevent Violence?

A stray bullet from a teenager's gun, which hit a 7-year-old Boston-area boy yesterday afternoon, is a painful reminder of the violence that has become a daily concern in communities around the country. The problem is particularly salient when it involves young people, which it often does: Homicide is the second-leading cause of death among young people in the U.S.

Why is violence so widespread? It may be related to whether we view it as a normal part of life. Research suggests that young people are likely to believe that violence is a normal way to resolve conflicts, achieve goals, and acquire status.  They are especially likely to believe violence is normal if they are exposed to violent media, disciplined using corporal punishment, or able to access guns.

Based on this evidence, a group of researchers tested whether media use, corporal punishment, and gun access would decrease when families received violence-prevention counseling during well-child exams. This study by Barkin et al, published in today's Pediatrics, found that families who received the counseling were more likely to reduce their children's media use (and, thus, exposure to violent media) and to lock up their guns (if they had them) than were those who did not receive the counseling. They were not, however, more likely to use timeouts instead of spankings to discipline their children.

Dr. Rich Answers Parents' Questions

CMCH Director, Dr. Michael Rich, is now answering questions about media and kids on Parents.com, the website of Parents magazine. 

There have been a number of interesting questions such as:

• I never thought I would even consider a gaming system for the family, but after seeing (and playing) the Nintendo Wii I am really thinking of purchasing one.   My oldest is 3 and I have a baby I am nursing so we are spending more time sitting around.  What is your opinion of this idea?
• You have mentioned that violence in media desensitizes children to that aspect of life.  Has there been any research on how to reverse whatever effects the media might have?
• I have an almost 3 month old and though I never specifically put my baby in front of the television, I do watch television with him in the room.  What kind of residual effect might this have?  Wakeful nights without television would be even longer than they already are. What age/developmental stage do infants begin to understand what they are seeing?

To see Dr. Rich's answers or ask your own questions, visit the message board.

On Demand: Appropriate Control, or Encouraging Impatience?

How does having TV on-demand affect children? In The Boston Globe this week, CMCH Director Dr. Michael Rich attempted to answer this question.

He says that although we don't really know how the ability to see what they want when they want affects kids, we do know that, if overused, on-demand media can be as much of a trap as any other kind -- especially when parents feel the need to keep their kids constantly entertained. And as Dr. Rich points out, "If there's nothing good on TV...that's a good reason to turn the set off."

Potential problems aside, however, the article suggests that on-demand media can be a boon to parents and children alike by allowing parents to:

• Substantially reduce their kids' exposure to TV advertising
• Store a selection of child-appropriate shows to use as desired
• Hold off on watching a particular show until the time is right (e.g., it's not too late at night, homework is finished, etc.)

>> See how one parent discovered the benefits of having a DVR
>> See our guide to using DVRs to help your family

Piaget, Kids, and Technology

Psychologist Jean Piaget may have passed away before the advent of cell phones and the Internet, but his theories can provide guidance on when 21st century kids should get a hold of technological gadgets. 

A New York Times article describes how parents can use Piaget's developmental stages to guide them on technology appropriate for their kids:

• Age 0-2: Babies and toddlers should be focused on real experiences instead of mediated ones.
• Age 3-5: With kids starting to act out what they see in the real world, they can explore grown-up technologies adapted specifically for their age, such as child versions of digital cameras and computer games.
• Age 6-11: Kids still have trouble with abstract ideas so they should have a real balance between real experiences and mediated ones.  They need to be steered toward appropriate media by parents because there are a lot of websites and video games that they have the skill level for, but not the maturity to distinguish that the content does not represent reality.
  
• Age 12 and up: Kids are able to juggle information from more than one media simultaneously, and communication with peers is key.  Cell phones, laptops and Mp3 players are age-appropriate at this stage. 
  

TV Use Down; Computer Use Up

The 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey is now available.  Here are the results of the media-related questions:

• 35% of students watched television 3 or more hours per day on an average school day (see table).  This is down from 43% in 1999.
• 25% of students used a computer for something that was not school work for 3 or more hours per day on an average school day (see table).  This is up slightly from 22% in 2003.

Though overall use between the two is down, I wonder if teens are really watching less television, or whether the availability of TV episodes over the Internet combined with widely available broadband access means they are watching those shows over the Internet instead of on a traditional TV set.

Sleep Quality Declines: Is Media a Culprit?

If you're reading this post in the morning, you may be yawning as you try to down some coffee and wake yourself up from the precious few hours of sleep you got last night.  So, you won't be surprised to learn that sleep quality and quantity is declining for adults; but did you know it is also declining for children?  A recent study showed that kids in 2005 slept at least 2 hours less each night than kids in 1981. 

There are many plausible and interesting ideas for how media use may be related to this decline, including:

• Since electronics are cheaper to purchase, many kids have media in their bedrooms, providing opportunities for displacing sleep with media
• DVDs and DVRs make media available on-demand when people have free time, usually late at night
• Media has become more exciting, more violent, and more sexualized, making it harder to fall asleep after watching

Though research on how media may affect sleep is scant, a new research brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights what is known about media and sleep in different developmental stages, different forms of media, and different modes of viewing. 

>> See research on media and sleep from the CMCH Database of Research

The Problems and Promises of Video Games

In April, Dr. David Bickham, Staff Scientist at CMCH, spoke at Penn State's Institute for Information Policy conference titled Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontier of Videogames.  The goal of the meeting was to bring together experts whose work centers on the economic, social and cultural aspects of videogames. 

A video of Dr. Bickham's 30 minute presentation is available online (seems to work best in Internet Explorer).  He outlines the benefits and concerns about video games according to recent research, and explains how research on this topic is conducted. 

Do Crime Rates Influence Sedentary Behavior?

In the last 30 years, technological changes have made staying inside more appealing to kids than ever before.  With TV, video games, computers and other media inside, kids aren't always interested in playing outside, or encouraged to do so.  One reason parents may actually want to keep their kids inside is because neighborhoods are less safe for kids to play in.

A new study by Brown et al investigates whether an area's crime rate influences the sedentary behavior of the children who live there. After studying a population of 4th graders in Texas, they found that:

• Boys were more likely to play video games in communities where robbery rates are high and sexual offenders are common
• Girls were more likely to watch TV in communities where sexual offenders are common, but they were less likely to use computers

The authors point out that given the link they found between crime rates and some kinds of media, and that using these media is sedentary in nature, then crime rates may be indirectly influencing obesity.

New Guidelines to Reduce Soft Drink Marketing to Children

On Tuesday, the International Council of Beverages Associations, the worldwide trade association representing the non-alcoholic beverage industry, adopted new guidelines on marketing to children.

Beverage companies can voluntarily agree to the guidelines, which eliminate advertising to audiences that are primarily composed of children under 12. The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo both pledged to meet the new guidelines by the end of 2008. Disney adopted similar standards in 2006.