Research on children, youth and television

Catching you up on several important recent studies:

Monster High has been called out for bullying

Portrayals of bullying on children’s television is shockingly high

A study published in the Journal of Communication looking at social aggression in the 50 most popular television programs among 2- to 11-year-old children, found that 92% of the programs contained some social aggression. On average, there were 14 different incidents of social aggression per hour in these shows.

Researchers said: “Compared to the portrayals of physical aggression, social aggression was more likely to be enacted by an attractive perpetrator, to be featured in a humorous context, and neither rewarded or punished. In these ways, social aggression on television poses more of a risk for imitation and learning than do portrayals of physical aggression.”

Young children exposed to too much background television

A study published in the November 2012 issue of the journal Pediatrics found the average US child aged 8 months to 8 years was exposed to almost 4 hours of background television on a typical day. Younger children and African American children were exposed to even more background television. The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned against “background television,” because it can harm children’s cognitive functioning and social play.

African American youth exposed to huge amounts of alcohol advertising compared to others

African-American youth ages 12-20 see more advertisements for alcohol in magazines and on TV compared with all youth ages 12-20, according to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. According to CAMY, alcohol is the most widely used drug among African-American youth, and is associated with violence, motor vehicle crashes and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Numerous studies, they note, have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising and marketing, the more likely they are to drink, or if they are already drinking, to drink more.