A new study of children ages 8 to 11 shows the link between heavy television use and poor reading performance, as well as heavy computer use and poor arithmetic - the ability to work with numbers. Lisa Mundy of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues present these findings in the open access journal PLOS ONE on September 2, 2020.
Preliminary studies for children and adolescents have found links between the use of electronic media - such as television, computers, and audio videos - with obesity, poor sleep, and other health risks. The use of electronic media has also been linked to better access to information, technology technology, and social networking. However, relatively little is known about the links and performance of studies.
To help define these links, Mundy and colleagues studied 1,239 8- to 9-year-olds in Melbourne, Australia. They used data from a nationally successful test to measure children's academic performance in the primary and again after two years. They also asked parents of children to report on their children's use of electronic media.
The researchers found that watching television two hours or more a day at 8 or 9 years of age was associated with lower reading performance compared to their peers two years later; the difference was equivalent to the loss of four months of study. Using a computer for more than an hour a day was linked to the same amount of lost calculation. The analysis did not show any relationship between video game use and academic performance.
By accounting for basic performance studies and risk factors such as mental health and body mass index (BMI) and previous media control, researchers were able to identify the use of television and computers, as well as short-term use, such as associated with poor academic performance.
These findings may help parents, teachers, and physicians to adjust plans and recommendations for the use of electronic media in early childhood. Future research can build on these results by examining the developing associations in future high school.
The authors add: "The debate over the impact of modern media on child learning has never been more significant given the impact of today's catastrophic use of child labor. This is the first major, long-term study of the use of electronic media and learning. in elementary school children, and the results showed that heavy-duty television and computer users had significantly lower levels of literacy and numeracy two years later compared to faster users. "
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