Strong Headline, Middling Study: TV violence and Kids

Strong Headline, Middling Study: TV violence and Kids

Today’s NY Times reports on a pediatric study that claims that redirecting  3-5 year old children to prosocial (as opposed to “antisocial” or aggressive TV shows) result in less aggression in the children. The study as reported in the Times is flawed. First, the entire study is based on parent report: how much TV the children watched, that the parents redirected the children’s shows and that the children became less “violent.”  (Readers, such as myself, assume that the Times is reporting the methodology accurately.)  Second, the Times reports that the average American 3-5 year old watches 4.5 hours of TV daily…daily!

Such research is worth doing, but if done, should be done well. Mathieu Richard, a French- Buddhist monk, describes that groups at the University of Michigan are developing more prosocial video games for children. We will wait to learn if these games result in more prosocial and less aggressive acts.

But, for those of us who grew up playing cowboys and Indians, and became neither, one can question whether playing, true play, has to result in aggression or violence.

Look at the pediatric study and consider a place to begin.

Nathan Szajnberg

Managing Editor, InternationalPsychoanalsyis.net