Center on Media and Child Health

Join us for the screening debut of "The Fuel That Keeps Us Going: A documentary on success."

We cordially invite you to join us on Wednesday April 11th 2012 for a screening of the documentary The Fuel that Keeps Us Going, created by seven youth peer leaders from Martha Eliot Health Center (MEHC).

Through a 10-week program facilitated by the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, MEHC peer leaders developed a piece that explores their definitions of success and those of their mentors. This inspirational piece aims to empower young people like them to imagine new possibilities in their lives. 

The screening will take place on April 11th from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Roxbury Community College's Media Arts Center, located at 1234 Columbus Avenue in Roxbury Crossing.  

Click on the image to see the invitation. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to Julie Polvinen (Julie.polvinen@childrens.harvard.edu)

CMCH Database: Browse by Subject

Today we are going to explore the CMCH Database of Research’s Browse by CMCH Subject search tool. All of the citations in the DoR are cataloged using a specialized taxonomy (or keywords) developed by CMCH and you can use "Browse by CMCH Subject" search function to explore it.

Understanding the taxonomy

• There are  four major subject terms: Health, Media Form, Media Purpose, and Contextual Factors. Under each of these subject terms there are narrower terms.
• For example under Health there are five terms: Behavioral Outcomes, Cognitive Outcomes, Emotional Outcomes, Physical Outcomes, and Social Outcomes. 
• Again, these broad categories can be narrowed down. 

Example
Let’s break down Behavioral Outcomes:

• There are many terms under Behavioral Outcomes like "Bullying," "Drinking," "Eating Behavior," "Risk Taking," etc. 
• You will notice after every subject term there is a number that represents how many citations we currently have on that particular topic.
•  For example right now we have 57 citations on "Bullying." You can then click on the subject term to see the actual citations. 
• Please note you must use the "Back to Search Results" Button in order to go back. You cannot use your browser's back button. 

Here are some of the citations on Bullying:

• Norwegian children's experiences of cyberbullying when using different technological platforms

• Cyberbullying in adolescents: Modalities and aggressors' profile

• Ganging up or sticking together? Group processes and children's responses to text-message bullying

• Using multimedia to reduce bullying and victimization in third-grade urban schools

Now try the Browse feature for yourself! If you have any questions about the CMCH Database of Research, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at cmch@childrens.harvard.edu.

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-Feb.21

Check out these recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

Isaksen, K. J. & Roper, S. (2012). The commodification of self-esteem: Branding and British teenagers. Psychology and Marketing, 29(3), 117-135. 

• This study found that adolescents appear to have a striking awareness of the role of branding, advertising, and peer pressure in forming their consumption attitudes, yet they are unable to resist them.

Lou, C., Cheng,Y., Gao, E., et al. (2012). Media's contribution to sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors for adolescents and young adults in three Asian cities. Journal of Adolescent Health, 50(3, Supplement): S26-S36. 

• The researchers found that access to and use of mass media and the messages they present are influential factors on sex-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of unmarried Asian adolescents and young adults, and should be considered in future research  and intervention programs attempting to improve reproductive health outcomes

Matos, A.P., Ferreira, J.A., & Haase, R.F. (2012). Television and aggression: A test of a mediated model with a sample of Portuguese students. The Journal of Social Psychology, 152(1): 75-91. 

• The results showed that the relationship between TV violence and physical aggression is mediated by enjoyment of TV violence, perceived reality in TV violence, and identification with violent TV heroes. 

Siomos, K., Floros, G., Fisoun, V., et al. (2012). Evolution of Internet addiction in Greek adolescent students over a two-year period: The impact of parental bonding. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Available Online February 4. 

• This study found that  parental safety measures on Internet browsing have only a small preventive role and cannot protect adolescents from Internet addiction. The three online activities most associated with Internet addiction were watching online pornography, online gambling and online gaming. 

Zimmerman, F.J., Ortiz, S.E., Christakis, D.A., & Elkun, D. (2012). The value of social-cognitive theory to reducing preschool TV viewing: A pilot randomized trial. Preventive Medicine. Available Online February 14. 

• This study found that compared to those in the control group, families randomized to the intervention group experienced a significant reduction by 37 minutes/day in total viewing time, including a marginally significant reduction by 29 minutes/day in viewing of commercial content.  

 Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-Feb 14

Check out these recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

Christofides, E., Muise, A., & Desmarais, S. (2012). Risky disclosures on Facebook: The effect of having a bad experience on online behavior. Journal of Adolescent Research. Available Online January 17. 

• This study found that participants who experience negative consequences are more aware of the risks of online disclosure and how to protect themselves, which results in greater information control.

Garn, A.C., Baker,B.L., Beasley, E.K., et al. (2012). What are the benefits of a commercial exergaming platform for college students? Examining physical activity, enjoyment, and future intentions. Journal of Physical Activity & Health, 9(2),311-318. 

• The study authors found that the Basic Run Wii Fit game provided opportunities for accumulating moderate to vigorous physical activity that provided motivational benefits to these participants, especially those classified as obese. 

Jordan, A., Piotrowski,J.T., Bleakley, A., & Mallya, G. (2012). Developing media interventions to reduce household sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 640(1), 118-135.

• An online message testing experiment found that exposure to campaign messages increased intention to reduce sugar-sweetened beverages and supported the underlying beliefs in the correct direction.

Möller, I., Krahé, Busching, R., & Krause, C. (2012). Efficacy of an intervention to reduce the use of media violence and aggression: An experimental evaluation with adolescents in Germany. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(2), 105-120. 

• The results show that a 5-week school-based intervention can produce changes in the use of media violence, aggressive norms, and  behaviors sustained over several months.

Schneider, S. K., O'Donnell, L., Stueve, A., & Coulter, R.W.S. (2012). Cyberbullying, school bullying, and psychological distress: A regional census of high school students. American Journal of Public Health, 102(1), 171-177.

• These findings confirm the need for prevention efforts that address both forms of bullying and their relation to school performance and mental health.

Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

CMCH Database: Full-Text Availability

The CMCH Database of Research (DoR) is a database of citations on children, media and health and it's freely available online.  You can read the abstracts and in the process of adding new citations to the database, we try to find free full-text version of the article and make it available within the citation record.

Now let's try out a real search and see what we can find! 

 I’ve decided that I want to do a search about advertisements and television:

1. I enter the word advertisements into a search box and enter television into another search box.
2. I change the Boolean operator to AND, so that I am doing a search for advertisement AND television.
3. I leave the drop-down menu on All Fields. 
4. I limit my search to to Experimental Studies.

To find free full-text:

• In your search results, click to view the individual citation record
• Look at the bottom of the screen
• If  "Full Text Available" is highlighted, the full-text is available for your to read!

Here is a sample of the search results that include Full Text Available:

• Advertising influences on young children’s food choices and parental influence
• Television watching increases motivated responding for food and energy intake in children
• Violence and sex in television programs do not sell products in advertisements
• Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children
• The effect of "thin ideal" television commercials on body dissatisfaction and schema activation during early adolescence

Now go ahead and try out your own search! If you have any questions about the CMCH Database of Research,  please do not hesitate to e-mail us at cmch@childrens.harvard.edu.

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-Jan 24

Check out these recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

Devís-Devís, J., Peiró-Velert, C., Beltrán-Carrillo, V.J., et al. (2012). Brief report: Association between socio-demographic factors, screen media usage and physical activity by type of day in Spanish adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 35(1), 213-218. 

• The study authors found that the negative relationship between adolescents' use of screen media (TV and mobile phone) and physical  activity and its possible displacement, depending on the type of day, added useful comparable knowledge for policies promoting an  active lifestyle. 

Erentaite, R., Bergman, L.R., & Zukauskiene, R. (2012). Cross-contextual stability of bullying victimization: A person-oriented  analysis of cyber and traditional bullying experiences among adolescents. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Available Jan 18. 

• The findings revealed that 35% of traditional bullying victims were also bullied in cyberspace. In particular, adolescents who  experienced predominantly verbal and relational bullying at school, showed a higher risk of victimization in cyberspace a year  later, while this was not observed for predominantly physical forms of traditional bullying. 

Fisoun, V., Floros, G., Siomos, K., et al. (2012). Internet addiction as an important predictor in early detection of adolescent  drug use experience-implications for research and practice. Journal of Addiction Medicine. Available Jan 5. 

• This study found that an increase in the severity of pathological Internet use has been linked to increased chances of having used  an illicit substance. 

Lin, F., Zhou, Y., Du, Y., et al. (2012). Abnormal white matter integrity in adolescents with Internet addiction disorder: A tract-based spatial statistics study. PLoS ONE, 7(1), e30253. FULL TEXT. 

• These findings suggest that Internet addiction disorder (IAD) demonstrated widespread reductions of fractional anisotropy (FA) in major white matter pathways and such abnormal white matter structure may be linked to some behavioral impairments. 

Lwin, M.O., Li, B., & Ang, R.P. (2012). Stop bugging me: An examination of adolescents’ protection behavior against online harassment. Journal of Adolescence, 35(1), 31-41. 

• The results suggest that public service programs targeted at educating youths should aim to increase coping appraisals and emphasize the severity of online harassment. Targeted educational programs could include those aimed at specific age or gender groups.

Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: CMCH Database- Advanced Search

The CMCH Database of Research (DoR) can be searched using three different tools: Advanced Search, Guided Search, and Browse by CMCH Subject. Today were are going to explore the Advanced Search function and try out an example search for violence and video games. 

• Step One: Go to the CMCH DoR Advanced Search page. Here you can enter your search criteria by typing the word(s) you’d like to search into the text boxes. You can narrow or broaden your search by connecting words using the Boolean operators OR, AND, NOT. Using the drop-down menu you can limit the fields that are searched to Subject term, Abstract, Title, Journal, Author, or Source of Funding or you can keep your search broad by choosing All fields. 

• Step Two: Searches can be limited by Age Group, Study Design, Publication Type, and Year. Simply click on the specific age group, study design, etc that you would like to limit your search to. You can choose as many or as few limits as you’d like. Also, you can limit your search to Peer-reviewed or CMCH Authors. 

• Step Three: After all your search criteria is entered click Search Now to see your results. If you have too many or too few results you can go back and revise your search to make it broader or narrower. For example if you did not get many search results try going back and taking out some the limits you put in place.  

Now let's try out a real search! 

Example: 

I’ve decided that I want to do a search about violence and video games:

1. I enter the word violence into a search box and enter video games into another search box.
2.  I change the Boolean operator to AND, so that I am doing a search for violence AND video games. 
3. I leave the drop-down menu on All fields. 

I’d like to see if there have been any peer-reviewed experimental studies done with adolescents in the last five years:

1. I select the age group limit Adolescence (13-17) and the study design limit Experimental Study.
2. I do not limit the search by Publication Type. 
3. I select the years 2007-2012 by clicking on 2007 and then holding down the computer’s control key to click on the other years. Lastly, I limit the search by Peer-reviewed studies.

 Below is a screenshot of my search criteria (click for bigger image): 

Here are the six search results I got from this search: 

• Hummer, T. A., Wang, Y., Kronenberger, W.G., et al. (2010). Short-term violent video game play by adolescents alters prefrontal activity during cognitive inhibition. Media Psychology, 13(2), 136- 154.

• Nije Bijvank, M., Konijn, E.A., Bush, B.J., & Roelofsma, P.H.M.P. (2009). Age and violent-content labels make video games forbidden fruits for youth. Pediatrics, 123(3), 870-876.

• Barlett, C., Branch, O., Rodeheffer, C. & Harris, R. (2009). How long do the short-term violent video game effects last? Aggressive Behavior, 35, 225–236. 

• Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C.A., Yukawa, S., et al. (2009).  The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies.  Personality and  Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(6), 752-763. 

• Polman, H., de Castro, B. O. & van Aken, M. A. (2008). Experimental study of the differential effects of playing versus watching violent video games on children's aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 34, 256–264. 

• Konijn, E. A.,  Nije Bijvank, M. & Bushman, B.  (2007). I wish I were a warrior: The role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys. Developmental Psychology, 43(4), 1038-1044.

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Now go ahead and try out your own search! If you have any questions about the DoR  please do not hesitate to e-mail us at cmch@childrens.harvard.edu. 

New Study: Systematic Review of Effective Strategies for Reducing Screen Time Among Young Children

A new systematic review by CMCH Staff Scientist Dr. Marie Evans Schmidt and other researchers looked at strategies to reduce screen time among children 12 years and younger. The authors found 47 studies that met their inclusion criteria with 29 that effectively reduced TV viewing or screen-media use.

The researchers found that the most effective studies were ones that used electronic TV monitoring devices, contingent feedback systems, and clinic-based counseling. The review also found that there are research gaps in studies that target young children and minorities, limited long-term follow-up data, and few studies that removed TVs from children’s bedrooms.

Below are some of the studies that were included in the review that can be found in the CMCH Database of Research: 

• Dennison BA, Russo TJ, Burdick PA, Jenkins PL. (2004). An intervention to reduce television viewing by preschool children. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 58, 170–176. 

• Epstein LH, Roemmich JN, Robinson JL et al. (2008). A randomized trial of the effects of reducing television viewing and computer use on body mass index in young children. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 162(3), 239–245. 

• Harrison M, Burns C, McGuinness M, Heslin J, Murphy N. (2006). Influence of a health education intervention on physical activity and screen time in primary school children: Switch Off--Get Active. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 9(5), 388–394. 

• Ni Mhurchu C, Roberts V, Maddison R et al. (2009). Effect of electronic time monitors on children’s television watching: pilot trial of a home-based intervention. Prev Medicine, 49(5), 413–417. 

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-Jan 3.

Check out these recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

Best, J.R. (2011). Exergaming immediately enhances children's executive function. Developmental Psychology. Available Online December 12. 

• The results extend past research by showing more precisely how physical activity influences executive function and how this effect differs from the improvements that occur with development. 

Callister, M., Coyne, S.M., Robinson, T., et al. (2012). “Three sheets to the wind”: Substance use in teen-centered film from 1980 to 2007. Addiction Research & Theory, 20(1), 30-41. 

• This study provides evidence that in the realm of teen-centered movies, the trend in substance use has been surprisingly downward across the decades.

Gopinath, B., Hardy, L.L., Baur, L.A., et al. (2011). Influence of parental history of hypertension on screen time and physical activity in young offspring. Journal of Hypertension. Available Online December 15. 

• This study found that parental hypertension influences the time that prepubertal offspring spend in both active and sedentary (television viewing, computer and videogame usage)pursuits. These findings highlight potential factors that could be addressed in the development of cardiovascular disease-preventive measures starting early in life among the offspring of hypertensive parents.

Jones, L. M., Mitchell, K.J., & Finkelhor, D. (2011). Trends in youth Internet victimization: Findings from three youth Internet safety surveys 2000–2010. The Journal of Adolescent Health : Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. Available Online December 15. 

• The study authors found that trends provide evidence for some optimism that protective adaptations to the online environment have been successful; however, online harassment appears to be increasing for youth, particularly girls, and may require additional mobilization.

Mazurek, M.O., Shattuck, P.T., Wagner, M., & Cooper, B.P. Prevalence and correlates of screen-based media use among youths with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Available Online December 8. 

• This study found that compared with other disability groups (speech/language impairments, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities), rates of non-social media use (television, video games) were higher among the autism spectrum disorders group, and rates of social media use were lower.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Check out these recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

The Material Child: Growing up in Consumer Culture by David Buckingham

• This book provides a comprehensive critical overview of debates about children’s changing engagement with the commercial market. It moves from broad overviews of the theory and history of children’s consumption to insightful case studies of key areas such as obesity, sexualization, children’s broadcasting and education. 

Ethnographies of the Videogame: Gender, Narrative and Praxis by Helen Thornham

• This book uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider significant sociological issues around new media, interaction, identity, performance, memory and mediation. Addressing questions of how we interpret, mediate and use media texts, particularly in the face of claims about the power of new media to continuously shift the parameters of lived experience, gaming is employed as a 'tool' through which we can understand the gendered and socio-culturally constructed phenomenon of our everyday engagement with media. 

Digital Pioneers: Cultural Drivers of Future Media Culture by Sonja Kangas (ed.) Download for free!  

• This book provides an overview of the online life and values of 15–25 year olds in countries that were pioneers of digital services at the end of 1990s and describe the change that has happened within the past 10 years.

Teaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning by Lisa Nielsen & Willyn Webb 

• This book shows how teachers can turn cell phones into an educational opportunity instead of an annoying distraction. With a host of innovative ideas, activities, lessons, and strategies, Nielsen and Webb offer a unique way to use students' preferred method of communication in the classroom.

International Perspectives on Youth Media by JoEllen Fisherkeller (ed.) 

• This book documents and analyzes transnational research on youth media production and distribution projects both in and out of school. With comprehensive theoretical analyses, notes, and bibliographies, each chapter includes a case study, illuminating the variety and diversity of youth media projects around the world. This book also includes a chpater called "Studying Research Capabilities of Youth Media: Analyzing Children's Audiovisual Expressions about Health" by CMCH/VIA researchers Richard Chalfen and Michael Rich. 

Please let us know if you would like to see any books highlighted in the future!