If you want that child to do well at school take the TV out of their bedroom

Jul 6 2005

In what will appear to be blatantly obvious to many grandparents and many of the babyboom generation, when children have TV sets in their bedroom they don't do so well at school tests.

Wouldn't you know it? the kids with bedroom TV sets have lower Standardized Test scores.

In a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University, it appears that third-graders with televisions in their bedrooms performed significantly worse on standardized tests than their peers without, but conversely, those with access to a home computer achieved higher test scores.

These differences remained static regardless of the amount of time the students reported spending on homework.

Dr Thomas Robinson, the senior author of the study, is the director of the center for healthy weight at Lucile Packard children's hospital at Stanford, and associate professor of pediatrics at the school of Medicine.

In 2000 Robinson collaborated with lead author Dina Borzekowski, assistant professor in the Department of Population and Family Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins.

In their study they surveyed approximately 350 third-graders at six public elementary schools in northern California, and found that more than 70 percent of the students reported having a television in their bedroom.

These particular students scored between seven and nine points lower on standardized mathematics, reading and language arts tests than did their peers.

Students with access to home computers meanwhile scored between seven and nine points higher than those without.

The highest average scores achieved were by students with computer access and without a bedroom TV.

The students with a personal television and without computer access at home on average scored the lowest.

Robinson is the author of previous studies which have shown that decreasing children's television viewing reduces obesity, aggressive behavior and nagging for advertised toys and he says the study adds to growing evidence that putting a television in a child's bedroom is not a good idea.

Although the researchers can not conclusively say why television has such an effect on test scores, they do say that surprisingly, the students who reported spending the most time watching television also claimed to spend more time on homework and reading, than kids with more limited exposure, perhaps because they tend to have more difficulty with schoolwork in general.

The researchers suggest that the link may have more to do with other factors, such as children with bedroom televisions have been shown to sleep less than their peers, or that the minority of parents who allow a home computer but prohibit a bedroom television may be more involved in their child's education.

Robinson says television in a child's bedroom appears to have become the norm but often, though the child is kept amused and out of trouble, parents are effectively giving up control of how much and what their children are watching.

The research is published in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.