Long hours in front of the television, whether channel surfing or gaming, make it difficult for children to concentrate in school.
Long hours in front of the television, whether channel surfing or gaming, make it difficult for children to concentrate in school.
Too much screen time has also been linked to increased aggression and expanding waistlines. To follow over time how video games may impact students' concentration skills, researchers followed a group of more than 1,323 school-going, American children, who assisted by their parents, logged their TV and gaming hours over a year. They then asked teachers to answer questions about how the children behaved in school - whether they had difficulty staying on task, for instance, or often interrupted others.
Even after accounting for attention problems when children entered the study, those who watched a lot of TV or played a lot of video games had slightly more problems concentrating on schoolwork. Specifically, those children who spent more than two hours per day in front of the screen increased their chances of exceeding the average level of attention problems by 67 percent. Extreme cases of attention difficulty sometimes lead to a diagnosis of attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which between three and seven percent of school-age children suffer from. However, the researchers failed to find any children with ADHD in the study group.
The researchers also tested undergraduate students, this time using psychological questionnaires designed to reveal ADHD, such as the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. In these students, exceeding two hours of daily screen time doubled their risk of landing above average in attention problems, although they weren't diagnosed with ADHD.
The above findings show that exposure to television and video games, was associated with greater attention problems. The researchers recommend that children shouldn't be allowed to watch more than two hours of TV per day.
Too much screen time has also been linked to increased aggression and expanding waistlines. To follow over time how video games may impact students' concentration skills, researchers followed a group of more than 1,323 school-going, American children, who assisted by their parents, logged their TV and gaming hours over a year. They then asked teachers to answer questions about how the children behaved in school - whether they had difficulty staying on task, for instance, or often interrupted others.
Even after accounting for attention problems when children entered the study, those who watched a lot of TV or played a lot of video games had slightly more problems concentrating on schoolwork. Specifically, those children who spent more than two hours per day in front of the screen increased their chances of exceeding the average level of attention problems by 67 percent. Extreme cases of attention difficulty sometimes lead to a diagnosis of attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which between three and seven percent of school-age children suffer from. However, the researchers failed to find any children with ADHD in the study group.
The researchers also tested undergraduate students, this time using psychological questionnaires designed to reveal ADHD, such as the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. In these students, exceeding two hours of daily screen time doubled their risk of landing above average in attention problems, although they weren't diagnosed with ADHD.
The above findings show that exposure to television and video games, was associated with greater attention problems. The researchers recommend that children shouldn't be allowed to watch more than two hours of TV per day.
COMMENT
DoctorNDTV is the one stop site for all your health needs providing the most credible health information, health news and tips with expert advice on healthy living, diet plans, informative videos etc. You can get the most relevant and accurate info you need about health problems like diabetes, cancer, pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, weight loss and many other lifestyle diseases. We have a panel of over 350 experts who help us develop content by giving their valuable inputs and bringing to us the latest in the world of healthcare.
