Below in the few articles is an article about "Too much tv makes you stupid." Please, for the children be aware...
Eric
www.FIRMncp.com
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http://www.newscientist.com/archive.ns
Too much tv makes you stupid
They don't call it the idiot box for nothing. Three studies suggest that watching too much TV makes you stupid, at least as measured by school grades and test scores.
In the longest-running study, Bob Hancox's team at the University of Otago in New Zealand monitored the television-viewing habits of 1000 children at two-year intervals from the ages of 5 to 15, and compared them with their academic achievements at age 26. Children who watched the least TV between ages 5 and 11 were the most likely to graduate from university, while those who watched the most TV at ages 13 to 15 were most likely to drop out of school (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, vol 159, p 614). "It is pretty convincing evidence that TV is not educational, at least not in a way that helps children academically," says Hancox.
Two US studies in the same journal draw similar conclusions (p 607 and p 619). One found that third-grade pupils (8-year-olds) in California with TVs in their bedrooms watched more TV and scored lower on standardised achievement tests than others. The other found that children had lower mathematics and reading scores at age 6 if they started watching TV before age 3.
Test scores were higher among children who watched more at ages 3 to 5 - the target audience for educational programmes such as Sesame Street. An editorial in the journal points out that the studies did not distinguish between educational and other programmes.
But persuading children to watch quality TV is easier said than done, says Barry Milne, who worked on the New Zealand study. "The type of TV kids actually watch is not good for them."
Valerie Jamieson
Valerie joined New Scientist in 2002 as a physics features editor following three years at Physics World magazine. She became a journalist after a career smashing atoms together in Hamburg. Before that, she studied physics at Glasgow University and has a PhD in high-energy physics. When Valerie isn't searching for feature ideas, she enjoys pumping iron at the gym.
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Equality is not a difficult concept
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