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Home > Portable Practical Pediatrics > Here’s Why It’s Important to Manage Your Children’s Media Exposure (Archived Pedcast)
Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Here’s Why It’s Important to Manage Your Children’s Media Exposure (Archived Pedcast)
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:11:06
Publish Date: 2019-12-23 09:37:58
Description:  OK, I am going to get a little personal with this installment of Portable Practical Pediatrics, I am going to tell you a real life story that happened to yours truly, when I was in high school, 10th grade to be specific that involved media exposure.  This story speaks directly to the question I posed in the title of this pedcast: "Should parents care about what media their children watch during childhood?"  An important question for today's parents to ponder so hang with me for this important edition of Portable Practical Pediatrics   Musical Introduction My awful Media Exposure Experience in High School First for the story-Let me tell you about an experience I had when I was in 10th grade with a video that I found very traumatizing. I grew up during the 50's/60's, the cold war era, when the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation was palpable and real. For reasons that I didn't understand, my school required that all students watch a documentary film about what nuclear war would really be like. What was exhibited on the screen were graphic depictions of humans having their skin burned off, experiencing unimaginable pain, and utter despair. I left the film in shock thinking that my life was hopeless and that what I had been shown was my future. Why study? Why get up in the morning? Doomsday was inevitable and coming soon. I was destined to be incinerated! I recall having some panic attacks shortly after seeing this movie and generally feeling overwhelmed. In other words, I was very anxious and probably depressed... all from viewing a video. It took me months to recover but fortunately, I did. Science Drive   So let's explore briefly what we know about the amount of media children are consuming today and what effects it can potentially have on them, shall we, with a trip down science lane. For the purposes of this pedcast, I am going to take much of the information about media use from an article that was published by the American Psychological Association in 2015. Statistics that I am about to site come directly from this article that is linked in the show notes. I think it is obvious to anyone paying attention that children in 2019 are spending far more time with screens than previous generations. To give you a sense of how much more, take a look at these statistics compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.     This translates to 53 hours a week consuming various types of media, rivaling the amount of time a child spends in school. In the same survey, they found that 66 percent of teens this age had their own cell phones, 36% of surveyed children had a TV in their bedrooms, only 1 in 3 children reported any limits to media exposure by their parents, 2/3rds of children said that TV was usually on during meals. As you can see, media exposure was rampant in most homes surveyed and is undoubtedly worse now than in 2009. I think you should find these statistics shocking since numerous surveys have shown a number of negative effects of media and heavy screen time on children. Here is a partial list: Exposure to media violence has been shown to increase violence acts committed by the children consuming it. The presence of a TV in a child's bedroom most likely will reduced your child's academic performance. Heavy or disturbing media exposure can make some children very anxious or even depressed just like it did to me. Even if this doesn't happen, texting and social media definitely increases the importance and influence of the child's peers and diminishes yours. Social media has opened up a new type of bullying, "cyber bullying". This is becoming all to common in today's America. Easy access has opened up an epidemic of children consuming pornography, interactions with nefarious strangers in chat rooms, radical political arguments, and other messages of which you might not approve. Heavy screen time has been shown to impair sleep in children. Screen time are addicting for some children and...
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