Center on Media and Child Health

Your Mission: Re-Mission

When this blog first started, I posted about some new video games that aimed to improve health.  One of those games, Re-Mission, has recently been shown to be an effective mode of health education about cancer. 

Beale et al tested the game with 375 teen and young adult cancer patients.  Participants received either a commercial game and the game Re-Mission or just a commercial game.  They were asked to play the games for an hour a week for 3 months.  Both groups were tested on cancer knowledge at the beginning and end of the study. 

Researchers found that the group who played Re-MIssion had significant knowledge gains over the group who did not play the game.  They conclude that video games can be an effective way to teach patients about health.

For Teens, Media Trumps Health

In a new study in the Journal of School Nursing, researchers developed a questionnaire for middle school students to learn more about what measures they are willing to take to prevent obesity.  They found that teens are willing to exercise more and change their eating habits, but they are unwilling to give up video games or television in order to improve their health. 

Making Facebook Friends with a Frog?

Sophos, an IT security company, performed an interesting experiment to learn more about identity theft.  They created a fake profile for a frog named Freddy Staur, then sent out 200 friend requests.  Eighty-seven Facebook users accepted Freddy's friend request, 82 of whom also gave out identifying information such as their email addresses, phone numbers, photos of themselves, current addresses, education or workplace, mother's maiden names or their full date of birth.

Given that 96% of teens use social networking programs like Facebook, Friendster, and MySpace, online privacy is becoming more of a concern among parents. 

In response to their study, Sophos has created a best practices guide for how to use Facebook safely. 

 

Brainy Babies Don't Pan Out

For years now, parents have been buying videos from companies like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, aiming to increase their children's intelligence.  Pediatricians have been wary of these videos, even recommending that children use no screen media until they are two years old.  Today, a study by Zimmerman and Christakis shows evidence that the videos may not provide the intellectual leaps parents are hoping for. 

Over 1,000 parents of children under two were surveyed about how much their children watched the videos and how much their children's language skills had progressed.  The researchers found that the children who regularly watched baby videos scored about 10% lower on language skills than those who did not watch the videos. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," says Christakis.

The best way for children to learn at this critical stage of development is to interact with parents, siblings and other people and to explore their environment by manipulating objects.  When these kinds of opportunities are replaced by a screen, children are not in an optimal learning situation. 

Update 8/17/07: Disney (the owner of the Baby Einstein company) has demanded a retraction of the University of Washington press release about this study, saying that it distorts the research findings. 

The University has responded by stating that the school "unequivocally stands behind" the study, which was rigirously peer-reviewed for the reputable journal in which it was published. 

McDonald's: They're Lovin It

Robinson, Borzekowski, Matheson, and Kraemer performed a study to see whether children's tastes were influenced by heavily marketed brands.  Over 60 preschool children tasted 5 pairs of identical food items.  In each pair, one item was packaged with the McDonald's logo, and one item was in unbranded packaging.  The children were asked whether the foods tasted the same or if one tasted better. 

The results of the study showed that overall, "children preferred the tastes of foods and drinks if they thought they were from McDonald’s."  Analysis of the results showed that children who  had TV sets in their houses and children who ate McDonald's food more often were more likely to say the McDonald's food tasted better than it's identical counterpart. 

The authors conclude that a food's branding influences young children's ideas of taste and that perhaps this idea could be used to encourage children eat more nutritious food.   

Online Bullying and Sexual Harassment Studies

There are two new studies on the Internet in this month's Journal of Adolescent Health:

Prevalence and Frequency of Internet Harassment Instigation: Implications for Adolescent Health. by Ybarra, M. L., & Mitchell, K. J.
Using data from a survey of 1500 teens, researchers found that 6% reported being frequent perpetrators of online harassment, 6% reported being occasional perpetrators, and 17% reported being limited perpetrators in the past year.  They conclude that their findings "reinforce previous research that youth who harass others online are likely facing concurrent behavioral and psychosocial challenges."

Online Requests for Sexual Pictures from Youth: Risk Factors and Incident Characteristics.
by Mitchell, K. J., Finkelhor, D., & Wolak, J.
Using data from a survey of 1500 teens, researchers found that among teens who use the Internet, 4% had been asked to send a sexual picture of themselves during the past year.  Female Black youth and boys and girls being abused are particularly vulnerable.