Center on Media and Child Health

2010 Positive Media Use Research Wrap-Up

What research has been done on positive children's media use? The good news is that media researchers around the world are exploring the positive ways in which the media are impacting children's learning, identity, physical and emotional well-being.

We have highlighed a few positive media studies in our blog that have been published in 2010. Click here to see a comprehensive list of studies.

Borzekowski, D. L.G & Henry, H.K. (2010). The impact of Jalan Sesama on the educational and healthy development of Indonesian preschool children: An experimental study. International Journal of Behavioral Development,  Avaliable Online December 5.

• The study results revealed that chidlren with the greatest exposure to Jalan Sesama perfomed better at early cognitive skills, literacy, mathematics, health and safety knowledge, social development, environmental awareness, and cultural awareness.

Durant, N.H. (2010). Not just fun and games: Harnessing technology to address childhood obesity
Childhood Obesity, 6(5), 283-284.

• From PDAs, computer kiosks to cell phones, this study highlights how emerging technologies provide a novel approach to fight childhood obesity.

Eliaa, I.; van den Heuvel-Panhuizenb, M.; &  Georgioua, A. (2010). The role of pictures in picture books on children's cognitive engagement with mathematics. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(3),125-147.

• This study found that  the pictures in books as a whole has the potential for cognitively engaging young children and supporting children's learning of mathematics.

Kupersmidt, J.B.; Scull, T.M. & Austin,  E.W. (2010). Media literacy education for elementary school substance use prevention: Study of media detective. Pediatrics, Published online August 23.

• The authors found that after using the Media Detective program, boys reported significantly less interest in alcohol-branded merchandise than boys that did not participated in the program. Also, students who were in the Media Detective group and had used alcohol or tobacco in the past reported significantly less intention to use and more self-efficacy to refuse substances.

Lin, W.-Y., et al. (2010). Becoming citizens: Youths’ civic uses of new media in five digital cities in East Asia. Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(6),839-857.

• The study results suggest that the Internet may facilitate citizenship among Asian youths although entertainment-related activities such as downloading music or playing games remain the most popular activities online.

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

 

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-December 14

New published studies on children, media, and health which explore a range of topics:

Borzekowski, D. L.G & Henry, H.K. (2010). The impact of Jalan Sesama on the educational and healthy development of Indonesian preschool children: An experimental study. International Journal of Behavioral Development,  Avaliable Online December 5.

• The study results revealed that chidlren with the greatest exposure to Jalan Sesama perfomed better at early cognitive skills, literacy, mathematics, health and safety knowledge, social development, environmental awareness, and cultural awareness.

Ferguson, C.J. (2010). The influence of television and video game use on attention and school problems: A multivariate analysis with other risk factors controlled. Journal of Psychiatric Research, Available online 7 December.

• The study results revelaed that for the group of Hispanic children in this study, television and video game use do not appear to be significant predictors of childhood attention problems.

Pempek, T.A., Demers, L.B.; Hanson, K.G.; Kirkorian, H.L; & Anderson, D.R (2010).The impact of infant-directed videos on parent–child interaction. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Available online 3 December.

• This study found that coviewing Sesame Beginnings at home was positively associated with quantity of parent–child interaction during the initial free-play session.

Sisson, S.B.;  Broyles, S.T.;  Newton Jr, R.T.;  Baker, B.L.; Chernausek, S.D. (2010).TVs in the bedrooms of children: Does it impact health and behavior?  Preventive Medicine, Available online 2 December 2010

• This study found that the overall prevalence of TVs in bedrooms was 49.3% in American children. BTV was associated with higher prevalence of exhibiting problematic social behaviors and overweight status. BTV was significantly associated with lower prevalence of regular family meals' engagement in school, participation in extracurricular activities, regularly sleeping enough, and participation in community service.

Tom, B., B. Janice, et al. (2011). Video game play, child diet, and physical activity behavior change: A randomized Clinical Trial. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 40(1), 33-38.

•  This study found that children's video games promoting diet and exercise had an impact on children's diets by increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.

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

Research Toolbox: NIH Database of Images

A new resource for finding images in biomedical and life sciences literature was just made available. This database of images will have more than 2.5 million images and figures from medical and life sciences journals. The database was developed and will be maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health.

The content of the database reflects images and figures contained in NCBI's PubMed Central full-text digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

The database will be useful for:

• The clinician looking for the visual representation of a disease or condition.
• The professional or educator looking for an image for a presentation such as fMRI.
• The patient wanting to better understand his disease.

Search features:

• The database users can search images based on keywords and a variety of other parameters, such as author and publication date.
• Images and data can be easily saved to users' and shared with others through the use of My NCBI, a feature that allows users of NCBI resources to customize their search and display preferences, save and share searches, build bibliographies, and perform a variety of other functions
• Click here to find more about My NCBI.